Welcoming a new cat

Con­grat­u­la­tions! You have just begun a rela­tion­ship that’s bound to be filled with fun and affec­tion. By start­ing off on the right foot, you can cut short that rocky adjust­ment peri­od most new rela­tion­ships go through.

• Go slow­ly at first. A new cat may need sev­en to four­teen days to relax into her new envi­ron­ment. Save meet-and-greets with friends, neigh­bors and rel­a­tives until the cat is eat­ing and elim­i­nat­ing on a nor­mal schedule.
• Offer her a safe place to hide while she gets her bear­ings. She’ll appre­ci­ate the chance to observe her new family’s rou­tine from a small, dark space or one high above the action.
• Bring your new feline to a car­ing vet­eri­nar­i­an for a well­ness exam with­in one week after adoption.
• Pro­vide the same diet she had at the shel­ter at least for the first week or two. If you wish to switch to a dif­fer­ent fla­vor or brand, slow­ly make the switch over one to two weeks, start­ing with a quar­ter ration of the new food mixed into the old favorite. From there, up the ratio of new to old about 10% each day.
• Set up a lit­ter box in a qui­et, low-traf­fic area. Unsure of what lit­ter to use? The major­i­ty of cats pre­fer fine grain clump­ing lit­ter. Try that first unless the new adoptee is so young that she is in the lit­ter-eat­ing stage. Non-clump­ing lit­ter is rec­om­mend­ed for kit­tens under ten weeks of age.
• Cats must scratch, so make sure to pro­vide yours with a stur­dy, rough-tex­tured scratch­ing post to save wear and tear on fur­ni­ture. Cat man­i­cures every ten to four­teen days also help reduce damage.
• Cat-proof your home before giv­ing your new feline run of the house. Put away harsh clean­ing prod­ucts, human med­ica­tions and house­hold poi­sons. Re-home any poi­so­nous house­plants. And if the new­com­er is a kit­ten, lock away any break­ables and remem­ber to keep the toi­let lid down.
• Once set­tled in, a young cat or kit­ten will be eager to play. Stock up on inter­ac­tive toys such as feath­er wands and kit­ty fish­ing poles to engage atten­tion and direct ener­gies toward a pos­i­tive pursuit.
• Ready a com­fort­able cat perch on a sun­ny win­dow sill – if it over­looks the bird­feed­er, all the bet­ter! Observ­ing live birds and squir­rels beats out kit­ty videos any day.