10 Things To Never Do To Your Cat

This guide of things to never do to your cat is not to tell you off in any way possible, but it is more about to remind you of the things we need to take care of for the well-being and with the best interest of your cat(s).

Never Forget A Worm & Fleas Cure

Fleas

Fleas is perhaps something that doesn’t appear in every country, but they are in most of our followers countries a nuisance and therefore it is important to treat our pets, including cats for fleas. There are a number of cures for these that need to be repeatedly applied.

Fleas lay their eggs within the fur of your cat. To remove these, you can comb your cat with special brushes and/or bathe them with special flea removing shampoos. There are also cures that are applied to your cat and it is important to keep your house clean by vacuum cleaning and washing regularly.

But rather than trying to get rid of fleas, it is better to prevent them from occurring by treating your cat against them settling in on your pets coat.

Worms

Worms in all forms sizes and shapes come to your cat through the prey they kill and the feces they lay. Worms and other parasites come even through the mother milk of the mother of your kitten, so they are “fed” with this nuisance from early on. The parasite eggs hatch within the tummy of a kitten and can easily cause a lot of harm to such a small cat.

So vets do then also treat kittens early on for worms with injections, as kittens cannot take tablets yet.

Worms and other parasites can attack the body of your cat in the most gruesome ways, some go to the heart and others go through the intestinal tract.

Good signs of possible worms in your cat, are:

• High appetite level (eating all the time)
• Weight loss
• Worms sticking out of your cats anus
• Wiggly worms in the litter box

To prevent worms you should treat your cat for worms at least once every 3 months or more often depending on how easily your cat gets worms. If your cat has access to fresh rodents and birds, the chance for getting worms increases. Birds often have fleas as well, increasing the chance for fleas in your house too.

Another potential danger is the chance of ticks (mostly for those living near nature). The ticks can be infected by certain bacteria that can cause all sorts of diseases to your cat. Unfortunately, these ticks can also be dangerous to us humans, so it is important to remove these ticks as soon as possible or to prevent your cats from getting them in the first place.

Never Leave Windows Open

Unless your cat is an outgoing cat, you should never leave your windows open. Your cat can escape through the smallest of spaces. A cat is able to disposition their organs in such a way that they can go through the smallest hole. As long as their head fits through, the rest of the body will follow.

Even if your cat is allowed to go out, it is still extremely dangerous to leave a window open at the second floor of your house. The height from the window to ground level outside of your house might be too much of a distance for your cats body, joints and paws to handle.

Even though cats usually end up on their feet when falling and have an amazing system in place for turning their bodies around into landing position, too great heights can cause a lot of damage to your cat. It is really better to prevent your cat from falling through an open window, than to remedy the resulting harm.

If you happen to be at work when this happens, it will be many hours later before you find your hurt cat or a run-away-cat for that matter.

Always make sure that windows are secured and won’t move on your kitties’ push and mosquito protection screens are safely secured. It is best to not leave such a window open in a place where your cat resides or to minimize the opening of the window to an inch or so.

Never Forget Yearly Vet Visits

The same way we have to keep up with going to the dentist, we should also keep up with going to the vet with our cat. There are two reasons for this:

1. Dental health

Just like us going every half year or one year to the dentist, your cats should do so too. It is not always easy to brush your cats teeth when they are not used to that from kitten hood on wards, so the least you can do is take them to the vet for a good moment of cleaning.

The veterinary will clean check their teeth for holes and other issues and will clean their teeth in the same way as we get our teeth cleaned.

2. Keeping a health log

Cats are not all that great in showing when a problem occurs. They are rather good at hiding signs of illness. You have to pay close attention to your cat daily to know their behaviour very well. When you do know their quirks and special habits, you will quickly know when something is “off”.

Going to the vet means that your cat will be checked for all the common diseases once a year. When you are not able to see every little change in habit, or when your cat’s habits have gradually changed, you won’t see it. The vet however has a health log of your cat and can a bit easier see a change in health.

Your vet will check every part of their body and feel all the organs. They check the eyes and ears, teeth and breath. They check for the fur and they might even do regular blood tests. See it as the service check on your air conditioner or car.

Never Transport Your Cat Without A Carrier

Although I do know that some people transport their cat on their lap or have them with in their bike basket or other forms of travel, I keep telling that you need a cat carrier for the essential moments of travel.

To be very honest, you should always use a cat carrier. It is just the safest way of travel for both your cat and yourself.

Cats are usually not the biggest fan of movement without their own control – and who would argue against that. I am not the biggest fan of being transported in a buss, train or airplane either, because I am not the one in control. The same goes for your kitty.

Moving objects and especially the ones that make noise are scary. A scared cat on the loose in your car would be a bad idea. A scared cat will be sweating and possibly have an accident in your car, due to their stress situation.

When you exit your vehicle, you have to then transport your cat to whatever destination is planned for them. Outside your vehicle there might be traffic and noises that can scare your cat. Inside the vet’s office there might be other animals and there are definitely other animal smells of being scared, hurt or claiming territory.

A sick cat might have problems keeping things in and need a place to get rid of that. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to keep my pants clean.

Travel needs to be comfortable, also for them. Especially for them I would even say. They are smaller than us, so the impact of a little bump in the road is to them an earthquake. Being in their own place, secured safely in one spot with belts and a soft cuddly blanket below them to protect them even further for impact, will ensure that they will have the best possible experience.

To calm their nerves you could use a pheromone spray or a blanket, towel or padding with their own scent on it.

Never Shout At Your “Bad” Cat

I know that even the sweetest cat can be naughty at times. They certainly shouldn’t be scratching your furniture or jumping the fish you just got out of the fridge to prepare. Neither should they lick the pan or plates on the table or beg for food when you are having dinner.

But shouting at your cat in general is a bad idea for three main reasons.

1. You will scare your cat

Scare is perhaps a too small word, you might actually terrify them. Shouting can definitely bring the cat to flight and flight instincts. When you do that to a feral cat, this effect is even stronger. Shouting and screaming at your cat, can actually cause all the bad behaviour that you didn’t want your cat to do.

2. Opposite effect

Shouting at your cat can easily have the opposite effect. Not only because they can feel stressed and scared and therefore start doing the bad things around your house.

If you shout at your cat it might have the same effect as it has to a child: “Oh hey! Hi! I got your attention” Now please do what I want you to do.

In that regard, you could have your cat scratching your furniture, you react by shouting at them. Your cat feels like answered to and comes to you to ask you to do what they want, which can be a cuddle or being let out or fed.

3. Damage to their ears

Cats hear noise much louder than we humans. Shouting will be excruciating painful noise to them. You are better of talking with a lower voice to protect them. It might even have a better effect.

Having said the above three reasons, you are better off being kind and soft with them and showing them what you want them to do or not do in your house. There are also excellent ways to train your cat for behaviour, such as clicker training. You could install scratching poles for their own nail sharpening pleasure and you can make places in your house off-limits for your cats.

Never Push Or Throw Your (Cat Off)

Similarly to the shouting part, you should neither throw nor push your cat off the counter when they naughtily jump it. Nor should you toss your cat around or shake them heavily when being angry at them.

The angry reactions can harm your cat more than that they will stop their bad habits. Cats do have landing gear to get back onto their paws, but this system is usually only initiated when they know they are about to jump down something. A sudden move such as a cat being thrown can not prepare them for it and instead of initiating their landing procedure, might take the full impact with gravity on their head or back.

As you can understand from that, a blow to the head can be fatal or at least cause trauma. We treat our cats the same way as any other family member. This means plain simple that if it is not a way to treat a human, then you should definitely not treat a cat that way.

Apart from impact damage, you will also scare your cat or stress them severely. The stress in your cat can do more harm than good, for then comes the resulting bad behaviour of scratching furniture and walls, urinating outside the litter box and plain aggression towards others including you.

Never Ignore Hairballs

Hairballs are a thing of cats, because they swallow a lot of hair when they groom their own fur in their daily washing procedures. There are however foods that help them pass hairballs easier and there is grass that they need to eat to make it possible to vomit them out if they don’t want to go down.

You can try to reduce hairballs by brushing your cat regularly with a variety of brushes. They will still get hairballs, but perhaps far less accumulated big ones.

Be aware though that there is a chance that they cannot pass a hairball properly. If you see your cat trying to vomit but not managing it or having troubles with producing any stool, be sure to take your cat to the vet.

We had this recently happening to our cat Kira and she had a pretty bad and large one. The vet didn’t manage to remove it but gave her something oily to help her pass it. It helped and now she is happy and healthy again.

Never Give Human & Dog Medicine

NEVER EVER! I will capitalize that text, just to get across. You should really never ever give your cat the medicines that are on the market for us humans or that for your dog. In fact, one should neither use medicine meant for someone else on another person. It is against the law and it is extremely dangerous. Medicine is prescribed for one person and nobody else, because of all the other variables such as what you are suffering, what type of blood you have, what symptoms you are having or not having etc.

Medicine that is meant for humans will most likely or most definitely harm your cat. Some simple medicines that are almost harmless to us humans, can be fatal to your cat. The same goes for dogs by the way. And dog medicine against for example fleas is deadly to your cat. Cats are extremely sensitive to chemical compounds too.

If your cat is ill or having ill-symptoms, check with your vet and let them advise you the best possible way to treat your cat. If a vet says you should use human medicine on your cat, you should find a new vet.

Never Give Your Cat Food Meant For Humans

Simply never feed your cat from your plate. Cats have their own requirements for a balanced diet. You can buy quality pet foods from pet stores and sometimes at your veterinary. Cats need a meat based diet of mostly pure meat content. Cats have no need for grains, vegetables and fruits or starches such as potatoes and corn. A lot of the popular cat food brands contain exactly these ingredients most.

A lot of the foods we eat are terrible for their health or outright fatal. Make sure your cat never eats: garlic, onion, chocolate, coffee, alcohol

Never Stop Loving Them

You should definitely never stop loving your cats. They are really dependent on your love and care for them. Giving them love will always be rewarded with a lot of love back to you.

Cats are great for many reasons. Cats are used in therapy with young kids or older people in caring homes. They are often soft and fluffy and very playful.

Give your cat all the care they need to thrive and be happy and healthy.

Do you think I have missed an item here? Please share them below.