It’s really not necessary to worry about bathing your cat. Besides the fact that most cats avoid water like the plague, they take care of themselves. That’s why you see them laying around so much, wetting a paw and stretching it all around their bodies so they don’t miss a spot. It also tends to be the cause of hair balls… luckily, eating that grass will usually bring those out of the system.

If you don’t ever see your cat taking care of his own coat, you may have cause to worry and need to look at the health of your cat. Make sure you’re taking your cat in for the yearly check ups and your cat is staying within a healthy weight. Obese cats, and cats that are too skinny, develop health problems that normally show signs in the look of their fur.

Your cat should be grooming himself often and daily. If you don’t notice it for a day or two, don’t worry. You may just be missing it. If your cat gets stuck in something real bad, then it might be a good idea to take him to a grooming place to have a bath where they know which shampoos to use and so that they can be the bad guys and not you for giving that bath!

A good rule of thumb is the shorter the hair on the cat, the less grooming help they will need! And the better condition of their coat (fur), the better job they are doing themselves. Pay attention to the density of their fur and comb through if your cat really enjoys it every so often so help them along the way.

For more grooming tips on species specific cats, check out this website.

]]> http://www.simplecattraining.com/cat-grooming-secrets/feed/ 0 http://www.simplecattraining.com/getting-your-cat-to-like-your-spouse/ http://www.simplecattraining.com/getting-your-cat-to-like-your-spouse/#comments Sun, 23 Jan 2011 14:53:08 +0000 admin http://www.simplecattraining.com/?p=515

Cats tend to take to one person and ignore everyone else. My cat usually has a 7-10 day period where she rejects people and then eventually gets over it if we’re moving in somewhere, staying somewhere for an extended amount of time or if someone is moving in with us for a while or visit.

For a long time, Ninja didn’t really care for Dave. She wasn’t sure if he was around to stay or not and figured since I loved her it didn’t matter what she did or if she bothered giving him the time of day. But it kind of bothered my husband Dave. Once he saw the great things cats have to offer as companion pets, he became a bit jealous of her sleeping on me at night and never him.

So he started taking part care of her too. Originally I was doing everything… feeding, watering, treating, training, cuddling, playing, litterbox cleaning (which he still has never done… apparently that does nothing for bonds, haha, kidding) and more.

He began treating her, training her and had so much fun with it that when I went out town for a while, I came back to the new BFF’s of the house!

So if your spouse is having a hard time getting in on all the fun of your relationship with your cat, let them in on it by taking part. Of course, training them something it the ultimate bond building experience. It’s incorporating treats with praise, along with mental stimulation which every living creature needs.

Everyone around the circus is so amazed with my cat, Ninja. We let her out at almost every city we travel to and she always comes back to our RV. The picture above shows how we normally find her; sitting on the front step of our RV waiting for us to come home from wherever we happen to be.

Of course, we have certain rules for her, such as she isn’t allowed outside on show days or if we’re by high traffic areas, or if there are any obvious dangers from stray animals, etc. but most of the time we’re able to estimate the risk and eliminate most of them and allow her the freedom.

One of my top secrets with getting her to come back when I call her, is randomly rewarding her with treats. She never knows what kind of treat or how much she’s going to get which makes it as addicting as gambling at the casino!

My other secret is the strong bond I have with her, where I offer her my trust, companionship and try to avoid ever forcing her to do anything. I try to manipulate every situation into making it HER decision so she never feels like I force her to come, cuddle, stay, or anything else. This has done wonders for her respect for me and the boundaries I set, as well as coming when I call her, trusting I have a better reason than she does to stay out longer.

Like all living creatures, cats really need their sunlight so if you have an indoor cat that you don’t allow outside, you need to think of ways to get that natural light to your pet. Think about if you never saw any sunlight, or felt it, and they say 15 minutes a day is great for your health to be out in the sun (without sunscreen, even) any longer than that my fair skin would burst into flames anyway!

For our pets we have plenty of options of doing this. Click on the links for articles related to them.

• Get some kind of enclosure your cat be outside in, such as a tent, to enjoy natural grasses and dirt. You can even try some that are high enough that they don’t need a ceiling so the natural light can come in as well.
• Take your cat outside for a walk on a leash.
• Buy a cat proof cat intended enclosure or make your own.
• Go outside with your cat for a little sunshine yourself (like shown in photos in this article).

All living things, from people to plants to animals in general need sunlight to live. The reason? We can’t synthesis vitamin D without it. It just can’t be done. Think about if you weren’t allowed to go outside and enjoy the natural things nature has to offer… like walking without your shoes, playing in the dirt, pulling on the grass, and soaking up the sun. Our animals need this too, so whichever solution best fits your lifestyle make sure you integrate it now for the health and well being of your beloved animal companions.

Because I choose to let Ninja outside on occasion, I have to put a collar on her so that people don’t assume she’s a stray and take her to the nearest pound.

I had really bad experiences with cat collars growing up, and my mom always told me not to use them because the cat could get caught on something and choke to death. I once put a gold necklace wrapped twice around my cat Tommy’s neck. He was found on our roof trying to get it off, and it was in his mouth holding his head back severely. My dad climbed up and rescued him and I felt awful. I was just trying to decorate him at the time… and let people know he was taken… instead I created a really serious problem that could have ended much worse.

Now I use things actually meant to be around a cat’s neck (I was a kid, I didn’t know any better and learned the hard way) and the ones I’ve found that work best are the kitty safe collars that are actually recommended to use by vets. Now, if your cat is inside all the time it’s not really necessary to collar him/her unless they were to dart out and not come back on command.

Accidents happen. More often then we like them to.

Here is a link to some kitty safe collars I found by doing a quick search.

Why these collars are safe to use:

1. If caught, they’re designed to snap apart and fall right off your cat’s neck.
2. You can customize them to state your pet’s info on the outside so it’s nice and legible for people to read. For example, if your cat is diabetic or has special needs.
3. They come in bright, and very reflective colors so they can be seen in the dark by cars and people at night.

Photo from www.loveyourpets.com

I use a lot of those collars on my cat that pull away real easy in case they get caught on anything. And because of this, I’ve (or I should say… Ninja…) has gone through A LOT of collars. I always try to keep her rabies tags on her collars, but now I just keep that tag on her indoor collar. Or on her traveling collar, so that I don’t lose it.

I recently received a really cute collar for her from a friend and I realized I’m all out of I.D. tags for her so I searched for a nearby Petco or PetSmart where I could have some made, and couldn’t find any. They’re all about 40 miles away from me here in Savannah, Georgia. So I decided to give online a try. Not only was my shipping only $2.00 but my tags were all around $3 each! I got five! That way I can buy her some new collars too and not be bummed when she comes home without it.

Photo by www.loveyourpets.com

I went through the website that supplied the photos for this entry. It’s my first time looking at the site and I really fell in love with it so I wanted to pass it on.

I put on mine:

Line 1: My name is Ninja
Line 2: Contact (My Name)
Line 3: My address
Line 4: My city, state and zip code
Line 5: My phone number

I’ve found living with my cat Ninja that every cat needs their own “place”, a place of their own they know they can go to and just have their own space away from everyone and everything else.

In my old RV which was a Road Runner, Ninja had the bunk beds in the back of it all to herself. In our new one, called the Edge, she really lost that. It was hard for a matter of weeks with her feeling like she had no where to go, and when cleaning time came, like she was in the way and eventually it made her mad to get kicked out of every place she found.

My husband and I quickly realized the differences between the RV’s and began looking for a place for Ninja to have all to herself. Aside from the bed, which she’s welcome always to lay on unless it’s being used for something or made, we found a small space where we keep our bath towels. It’s above the fridge and she can only get up and down to it when the bathroom door is out of the way.

It’s quite the leap, as you can see below…

She loves her new spot, and it really helped in her attitude and overall mood to have a place all to herself. In most homes we probably barely notice our cats have their own spots, but when we do from being in a smaller space, we learn how essential it really is.

The video above shows my cat Ninja using her cat door I installed in my traveling RV trailer. I’ve talked about it on here before, but didn’t tell you how long or how I got my cat to use her litterbox inside but only previously talked about getting her to use the cat door itself.

It took me exactly 3 tries to get Ninja to use the litter box in there. At first I thought maybe everything I knew about cat’s night vision was wrong and that maybe she couldn’t see it and that was the problem… haha… wrong.

It was just the learning process.

Because the top of the seat comes up, Ninja would go in and out of the cat door but no further into the box. Once inside, I would open up the seat top and let her see her litter box in there, then wait as she would start to get to her business and close it up while she was still in the process. This was my way of making it easier, without making it too easy on her. I still wanted her to learn to come in and out on her own.

I had to do a resemblance of this 3 times (the first 3 times Ninja ever went to the bathroom) until she was going in and out on her own and actually doing her business in there.

For a cat that already understands what the litter box is used for, switching places on it should come fairly easily.

Sometimes my cat Ninja runs out of water in her dish, it gets to the point where I don’t realize it by just walking by and sometimes it appears like there’s water in there when it’s actually empty. Maybe it’s because it’s metal/silver so it always looks reflective… nonetheless, Ninja knows how to let me know she’s out of water.

First, she follows me to the bathroom or leads me into it. She then either stands/sits on the toilet (like in the picture above) or jumps into the bathtub/shower. The first few times she did these things I didn’t know what to make of it. I thought maybe she just really wanted to be with me, or maybe didn’t mind getting wet. But the second the water came on she was out of there!

However, over the years I’ve learned it’s her way of saying, “What’s the common denominator of all these places I’m in? WATER! They all have water and I don’t!”

What’s something your cat does to let you know it needs something?

My friend Rosie came over to my RV and had this pink headband in her hair. After a while of being over, she took her headband off to give her head a rest from the pressure it created. She tossed it on the bed, not thinking much about it, but that’s where my cat Ninja was laying down happily and calmly.

She turned to the headband and sniffed it, then went CRAZY!

I turned out the headband was broken a bit anyway, so Rosie ended up donating it to Ninja because she loved it so very much. Maybe it was the stretchy-ness, maybe the color, the texture… but it was Ninja’s favorite and eventually it was in so many pieces that I ended up tossing it out.

Sometimes the slightest things can make the BEST toys for our beloved pets.