Thinking of getting a cat, things I need to know?

[elsie1970]

My husband and I have been thinking of getting a cat for some time, and now we have decided that sometime within the next year we will probably get a cat. Can anyone who has cats or has had cats in the past please answer the questions below? Much appreciated!

Is it a pain having a cat but no cat flap? In my house both doors are double glazed and having one in a wall isn't really an option.

Would a kitten ruin your furniture? We recently got a new sofa and chairs (leather) and clearly, don't want them ruined. Could a scratching post solve the issue, or would claws ruin it anyway?

Best providers of cat insurance that aren't massively expensive? What sort of plan do you recommend for a new kitten?

Thank you for any help that you can give, and any other tips would be much appreciated

I forgot to mention that we have five children, two teens, one nine y/o and two y/o twins

A kitten might scratch your furniture, yes. Even with a scratching post.Would you consider re-homing a rescue cat, youngish, who had got those issues (probably) behind them? You would need quite a robust cat for the two year olds, and would need discussing with the rescue place. I always found MoreThan a pretty good insurance, check what is covered with each level to see how it suits your needs. I think there is some way of inserting a cat flap into double glazing

You can put a flap in dg.

The thing with damage is that although they wreck things it's not on purpose & because you love them you forgive them.

I'm not saying I was pleased when he shredded a £4K duresta velvet sofa but I got over it.

We let ours in and out and it's definitely doable. Eldest cat drives us up the wall as she demands to be let in and out constantly, and sometimes they won't come in at night so get left out though.

Unfortunately it's impossible to guarantee no scratched furniture.
With persistence and a good scratching posts (cat trees worked better with ours as the normal posts were "boring") you can usually limit it slightly though.
Just to warn that all of ours have been terrible curtain climbers during their first year!

We had a cat flap in the 9ld house and it leant that we had 4 mice each a night bought in through it!
Much less entrails and mouse chasing now we don't have a flap!