Create a Safe Zone for your New Kitty

When you first bring kitty home, there will need to be a transition period for both the kitten and the members of your household. A kitten is tiny, and it’s curious about everything and so no matter where you are, at any time the kitten could be right behind you, in front of you, or trying to climb up your leg! In order to get through the transition period without becoming a bundle of nerves, the best thing you can do for the kitten and yourself is to create a safe zone. This is a place where you can put kitty so you know he’s safe and not going to get trod on, and where kitty also knows he’ll be safe from getting stood on!

Find a large cardboard box, approximately 3 feet square, plus at least 3 feet high. Organize the inside of the box so that there are specific areas for specific things, such as a sleeping corner, some paper to go potty on (if there’s room for a temporary litter tray in there all the better!), and a supply of fresh water that’s not easily knocked over. Also give the kitten a couple of small toys to play with so he doesn’t get bored. This becomes like a toddlers playpen. It’s somewhere you know he’s safe.

As with a toddler however, he’s going to try and get out once the novelty of the box is gone and it’s been completely explored. He’ll take a jump for the top of the box, so make sure that you use a box that’s quite heavy and won’t fall over if he manages to hang over the top of it – you also don’t want to make it so high that if he does manage to get to the top, and fall out, he’s not going to hurt himself – you could place a cushion at the base of the side most likely to be the “escape route” just in case. You also should place the box in a shady area, away from sunlight, and out of the way of drapes because if he can, he’ll make a jump for the drapes and escape that way!

Despite the escape possibility, the safe zone will give you peace of mind, especially in the early days when you’re still adjusting to having him around, and it will give him somewhere of his own to retreat to when he’s had enough of the “big” world inside your home. Although he may want to escape the box, there’ll be other times when it all gets a bit much and he actual sits beside his safe zone – or attempts to jump in!

7 Things You Should Know Before Going to Buy a Kitten

1. They are not unlike fast growing babies. They start off lying in your arms looking at peace with the world but before you know it they’re at the “toddler” stage and running up drapes and under rugs!

2. They are fussy eaters. Even the smallest kitten will spit out everything it doesn’t believe to be the very best available – oh and “the best” is very subjective, it depends less on the price/brand and more on the cat’s likes and dislikes!

3. Which brings us onto number 3, your kitten will grow into an opinionated cat with strong likes and dislikes. It won’t care if that’s your chair, your child’s bed, an antique sofa or fragile houseplant. If your cat likes it, it’s his!

4. If you have friends and family who don’t like – or even better, are allergic to – your kitten from a very young age will see these as their new best friend and insist on sitting on their lap!

5. Don’t believe what your cat tries to make you think – it is possible to train a cat to do certain things. Just take potty training as an example, you can train a cat to use a litter box, so it follows a cat is capable of learning. Unfortunately an ability to learn does not automatically mean a willingness to learn, especially in a cat!

6. A kitten will grow, and grow fast. Remember this as you think it’s cute to have that tiny ball of fluff curled up next to you on your pillow at night! Pretty soon that little kitten is going to take up all the pillow, and not be happy when it suddenly finds itself on the cold floor in a property fight over whose pillow it is!

7. A kitten will quickly worm itself into your heart and stay there – so make sure you only take enough money to buy one or you could end up bringing two or three home because you couldn’t choose between two of them, and then the third one looked so lonely!