Adopting cat - advice

[ohfacksake]

Hi all, on Thursday, I will be adopting a 3 month old cat. I haven't had a cat since I was a little girl so I'm not really sure what to expect. He is litter trained and fairly well behaved aside from being a little excitable seeing as he's still a baby. I have two DC, 10yo and 6yo. The cat currently lives with children and is good with them.

Any advice greatly received! Thank you!

I think the main piece of advice I'd give, especially with regard to the children, is to to give him plenty of space and peace and quiet when he first arrives. I know it's natural to be excited about a new pet but he will be quite frightened and anxious being moved into a new home and he's only young so don't worry if he mainly wants to hide for a good few days when you first get him, it doesn't mean he won't be friendly and sociable eventually. The advice is usually to keep them in one room at first, somewhere quiet and away from the rest of the family and with a nice hidey place available like under a bed or wardrobe - make sure he has food/water and a litter tray and just leave him be - I'd let one member of the family (or one child and one adult to supervise) in at a time, talk to him in a low voice and give gentle strokes or play with toys if he's up for it but let him come to you, don't try picking him up or letting the kids chase him around for hugs etc. After a few days you can let him out to explore the rest of the house but don't let him out into the garden for at least 2 weeks (apparently this is how long cats need to understand this is where they live now, if you let them out earlier they may run away and try and get back to previous home).

Has he been neutered, vaccinated and vet checked (fleas/worms etc) already? If not I'd arrange for that ASAP. Have you got insurance for him? Also all the usual paraphernalia, a bed for him to ignore , litter trays and litter (I'd set up 2 for him at first as you may find he has a preference for one location over another, eventually you could reduce this to one), toys, food etc? Will he be an outdoor cat eventually, if so do you have a catflap? Wrt to food, I'd keep him on whatever diet he's used to at first, but eventually if he's not already on it I'd personally transition to a high quality, minimal grain dry food and one meal a day of wet food (either tins or pouches) this is what mine are on, but you might need to experiment a bit both about what he likes (some cats are very fussy) and also what agrees with him, esp if he's an indoor cat some types of feed can cause them to have very stinky poos 😳

Good luck and enjoy!