Newbie cat owner, can I ask some questions please?

[Thurlow]

Firstly, apologies if I end up on here loads for the next month

We just picked up our first cat yesterday evening, and while I thought I knew what we were doing, turns there's still a few questions!

Can anyone recommend what we're roughly looking for in cat insurance? I can see you can get some for as little as £4 a month but I assume that's not very good and it's better to pay slightly more?

Secondly, how do you know if you're feeding them enough? I mean, I'm sure it'll be obvious if you're feeding them too much, but how do you know if it's enough? Is two sachets a day (morning and evening) with dried left during the day roughly normal for a not very large cat?

Thirdly - night time! We shut the cat into the rear of the house last night, which is a dining room, kitchen and bathroom so quite a large space, with a choice of a few cushions and blankets for her to snuggle on, but she seems to have spent the whole night trying to get the door open! (No one got much sleep last night ) Obviously she miaowed a lot last night but I assume part of that is confusion/nerves as she'd only been the house a few hours before we all went to bed.

Is it ok to persevere with trying to keep her in that space at night or should we let her roam free a few nights? We'd rather not be woken up loads by her coming into our room and asking for food, and I'm a bit concerned that if DD wakes up and comes to find us, the cat could nip in her room and then get shut in with her by accident. We do have an old childgate at the top of the stairs but I get the impression this cat could clear it in a second! Do most cats get shut in a part of the house, or do most have the whole house at night?

See, Polter, that's what my parents cats always did as well. I'm not surprised our cat cried last night as it must all be very confusing for her - but as long as other people do this too we'll keep going and hopefully she'll soon start to feel secure, and then learn that meowing isn't going to get her attention.

Kept her awake all evening with playing, then gave her a whole sachet of food and - success! Some crazy playing in the early hours but we can cope with that, but no crying or trying to get the door open!

Thanks, it went pretty well again, hurrah!

Now we just need to work out how to stop her biting when she's playing - again, we've no problem with her 'attacking' our hands, just preferably not with teeth!

Not yet, no, we have a dangler thing and also she seems hugely fond of just a string of wool. I may get one once she's settled in and is playing a bit more - she's still quite nervous for play time at the moment.

Is there a good way to discourage biting? Moving away, hissing, strong voice etc? The problem is that she curls up for a stroke and seems all comfortable and snuggly and then suddenly rolls over and grabs our hand. She starts off with no teeth or claws but seems to suddenly get excited and bites a bit, though not as hard as if she was biting properly.

Both of ours will bite a bit. We just stop playing at that point. What you can't do is to pull your hand away - they just hang on harder.

All my cats up until our current two have been confined to kitchen/ utility room at night - they would always go out, if only because they only got their supper when we went to bed.

Somehow these two got allowed free range around the house by DH who is a soft touch and I have to admit I quite like cuddling up with a cat, even if I am less enamoured of the muddy footprints (how do they do that? There are 3 flights of stairs and 2 carpeted landings between the cat flap and our bed. How can their paws possibly still be muddy ? )

However, IIWY I would hold firm, OP. She will settle down and accept that is where she sleeps at night. If she is playing, she is already a whole lot more settled than our two rescues, who hid from us entirely for the first 6 weeks and went on to become the sloppiest cats imaginable.

She's doing a few things we're not big fans of, mainly the biting and also jumping on the kitchen counters. But I'm a bit unsure how to best teach/discipline her, and whether it's better to do it now or let her settle in a little bit?

I suspect she was mistreated in her former home and so I'm wary of scaring her more when she's settling in. Last night I was rolling a ball around for her and got tired and leaning down, so I rolled it with my foot and she shot like a rocket out of the room, as if maybe she's been kicked before?

And thanks stealth, yes I think we're going to stick with it. It'll only be a bit boring for her for 6 weeks or so, as after then she'll hopefully be able to be spayed and then we can put in a cat flap or leave the bathroom window open so she can go out at night.

Re the kitchen counters, I just picked our guys up and put them on the floor every time I found them up there. They stopped that but I've never managed to stop them going up on the kitchen table especially when the vacuum cleaner's on and it's cold outside

I'm not sure you can do much about the biting thing. Lots of cats do that and it seems to be instinct. With mine one lets you rub his tummy and touch him anywhere, he loves it. However the female had different boundaries, it's head strokes only and you will get a definite warning if you overstep the mark. We have had them both from 8 weeks old and they are litter-mates so just personality rather different training/upbringing. We never play with hands though, always use toys unless I think they begin to see hands as a toy.

Thanks - I can't work out yet whether its playfulness or warning me off. I've not touched her belly on purpose, she sometimes rolls into it, but it might be that she doesn't like back strokes when laying down. I'll watch her closely.

PPG will swipe and/or warning bite if you do something she doesn't like or try her patience a little too much. You learn to dodge and I just stop still and say "No, naughty' in a firm voice.

I keep Davcat out of the bedrooms at night. There is no chasing around to catch her as I trained her to come to a bell. The bell is used ONLY to call her and, if it's rung, she MUST get a treat which is Thrive prawns or tuna - expensive but very little is used and a tube lasts ages. This is called Pairing and really works. As the kitchen is part of the area she stays in overnight, I can't keep her off the table or surfaces if I'm not there but I just accept that it must be cleaned regularly

Our cat actually trained himself to come when he's called (I did reinforce it with treats when I realised he was doing it) and he only does it for me. He mostly sleeps on the bed and doesn't make a lot of noise or try to wake us in the night. Our other cat was a bit worse for night time disruption but still not terrible for it. The important thing is not to feed them or interact with them if they try to wake you in the night.

I feel a bit bad now because last night DP came home slightly worse for wear after midnight and left the dining room door open and the cat came up to my room. I had no idea she had, I woke up at 2 when DP came to bed and found that the cat had just curled up on the bottom of our bed in her favourite spot and gone to sleep!

Still, we are TTC so there could be a new baby at some point, and also I suspect cat might be a hunter and thus bring us presents, so I think we'll keep going with the door shut. Last night she seemed to know when I turned the telly and lights off that she would be getting a big feed and so happily came out to the kitchen.

Just quickly on the biting - sounds like she is over stimulated. . My gorgeous girl cat did the exact same thing. The best thing to do is when she comes to sit beside you, let her just sit there - she'll butt you or similar if she wants a stroke or fuss but sounds like she just wants to be near you. As she settles you can maybe start to initiate but I'd leave her to it for now!

And the sleeping thing - my boy has the run of the house and sleeps with me every night. . He was previously out at night but I'm not a fan of that so he has his curfew and stays home. After the first couple of nights, he just settles down and sleeps until the DC get up although he will moan if I get a very rare lie in. He is much older and lazier than your girl though

Good luck - she sounds like she's landed on her feet, so to speak!