Tips for the first days of a cat at home

La arrival of a new cat at home It is a very exciting event for all the tutors. If you have just adopted a kitten, you will surely be eager to play with him, caress him and watch him jump happily. However, the first days of a cat at home require a lot of patience, attention and voluntariness, since you will need to respect the adaptation time of your pussycat to this previously unknown environment and all the new stimuli that it provides.

In this article we show you some tips for the first days of a cat at home, that will help you answer your doubts about the adaptive process of your new partner and help him feel comfortable and safe to explore his new home and start interacting with his family.

1. Have patience and know how to respect the adaptation process of the cat

Before telling you all our tips for the first days of the cat at home, we want to re-emphasize the importance of respecting the adaptation process of your new partner. No species is capable of instantly adapting to a new reality, because adaptation is just a process and each individual requires his own time to carry out.

The arrival to a new home is a totally new experience for any cat. Then, remember to have patience and a lot of dedication during the first days of the cat at home. At the beginning, it is totally natural that the pussycat be shy, confused and even somewhat fearful in front of this unknown environment and all its new stimuli. Therefore, it is possible that you are hiding a large part of the day and avoid contact with other people or animals.

How long does it take for a cat to adapt to a new house?

Ello It will depend on the personality of each cat and the environment offered by their tutors. Therefore, you will need to know how to wait and respect that your kitten takes his own time to feel safe and start wanting to explore their environment and interact with you. Remember that forcing a cat to do something against its own will is totally counterproductive for its adaptation and education.

During this adaptive process, you can help him of many ways. First, offering a positive environment, quiet and comfortable, where the kitten feels welcome and safe to express himself freely. Balanced nutrition and essential care with your health will also be essential to allow you to grow and optimally develop your physical, cognitive, emotional and social skills.

Next, we will show you some tips that will help you prepare for the first days of the cat at home and promote your adaptation process.

2. Prepare the home for the first days of the cat at home

Before taking your new partner to your new home, it will be essential prepare the environment for your arrival. Each feline should have their own space, where they feel comfortable and safe to rest and start getting used to their new home. In it, your cat must find the basic utensils, such as the sandbox, the drinking fountain, the feeding trough, the bed or cradle for rest, as well as its scraper, its toys and other accessories that will provide a better quality of life. This will make the kitten feel welcome, favoring its adaptive process.

If you already have another cat in your house, remember that Each cat must have its own resources to avoid fights and possible accidents. The cats should not feel compelled to interact or share their territories, therefore, each one needs to have their own environment. Likewise, when it comes to the sandbox it is necessary to add another extra. In addition, you must pay special attention to correctly present your cat to the new adopted kitten and promote their coexistence. Little by little, having socialized and presented your pussycat, you will see that they will show curiosity to get to know each other and interact.

Remember that the areas of food, toilet, rest and fun they should be fine separated from each other, to allow better hygiene and respect the needs of your feline companion. And to know more tips about home conditioning, we invite you to read our article on how to prepare the arrival of a cat at home.

3. Preventive medicine for the health of the cat and its environment

When adopting a puppy or adult cat, you must take him to the vet to verify your health status, in addition to initiating or updating your periodic vaccination and deworming schedule. There are many advantages to adopting a stray cat, but we must consider that an animal that was born or lived on the streets is exposed to various pathogens and, therefore, there are some diseases that can transmit a stray cat to humans and others animals of the home.

To preserve our good health, that of the adopted kitten and all family members, we must offer adequate preventive medicine for our cats throughout their lives. Thus, we are able to prevent or diagnose early most common diseases in cats which can seriously harm your well-being.

4. Guarantee the best nutrition in every phase of your life

Cat feeding should be complete and balanced to meet your nutritional requirements at every stage of your life. From birth to your 2 or 3 months of life, the ideal food for a baby cat is breast milk. Therefore, it is essential respect the age of weaning by adopting a feline, since the kittens separated prematurely from their mothers can present not only health problems due to their weaker immune system, but also have learning and socialization difficulties.

But if for some reason you had to adopt a newborn or lactating kitten, you should offer infant formula until your body is ready to assimilate and digest other foods. In we teach you how to make formula and homemade recipes for baby cats.

From its two months of life, or month and a half, when the kitten has finished weaning, you can choose to offer a natural diet or base your diet on an industrialized feed. If you opt for the second option, you must choose a feed of excellent quality prepared for each stage of your life. This feed should contain the proper proportions of the five fundamental nutrients: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals. To help you, we’ll show you how to choose the best feed for your cat.

On the other hand, if you prefer to offer a natural and homemade diet to your cat, we invite you to better understand what the BARF diet is and what are the health benefits of your pussycat. And we also show you some ideas of BARF recipes for cats.

However, always remember to have the help of a veterinarian to choose the most appropriate diet according to the specific needs of your pussycat or make any change in your diet. The trained professional can also guide you on the incorporation of natural supplements to strengthen the immune system of your kittens and prevent numerous diseases.

5. Enrich your environment for a healthy body and mind

When adopting a cat, you will also need to consider that your partner is a very intelligent and curious animal, which needs to be physically and mentally stimulated to maintain a balanced behavior and prevent the symptoms of Stress. Therefore, it is essential to provide an enriched environment, where you find ways to exercise your body and mind, entertain yourself and fully develop your skills.

The concept of environmental enrichment It includes different factors that allow us to offer a better quality of life to our pigs. To enrich the environment of your pussycat, you can resort to objects, such as toys, scrapers, shelves for climbing, hiding places, labyrinths or entertainment centers, etc. But you can also incorporate sensory stimuli to your routine, either through smells (the catnip or catnip, for example), images or interactive toys that invite your feline to continue developing their senses and intelligence.

You can use all your creativity and put to work to make toys and home accessories for your cats. We offer you several very fun and economical ideas, which also allow you to reuse some objects that would end up discarded, such as paper rolls or cardboard boxes, for example. Look at everything you can do yourself to please and stimulate your pussycat’s curiosity:

However, you should not overload the environment of your pussycat not to confuse or damage your free circulation at home, this being another advice for the first days of the most important cat at home.

6. Strengthen the bond with your cat

In order for your kitten to feel safe to start interacting with you, you will need to invest in create a positive link, based on trust and affection, from the first days of the cat at home.

The first step is Know the personality of your cat to know how to approach and relate to him, as well as avoid making the common mistakes when raising a cat, which can hinder his learning and socialization process. In this sense, an essential aspect to know your pussycat is to understand his way of expressing himself, which is based mostly on body language. By learning to interpret their postures, actions, facial expressions and also the sounds of cats and their meanings, you can understand what your cat wants to tell you and improve your communication with it.

When your cat is already comfortable in your new home and predisposed to interact, you can start playing with it and dedicate an exclusive time to enjoy your company. There are several games to entertain your cat at home and stimulate your intelligence. In addition, we show you some tips to play with a cat safely and share quality moments to strengthen the bond between you.

However, remember that cats have their own nature, which makes them much more independent than dogs and other animals. Therefore, you must respect when your cat prefers to be alone and quiet or just enjoy watching him sleep peacefully in his home.

7. Education and socialization for a balanced behavior

One of the fundamental aspects to provide excellent breeding to your kittens is never neglect their education and socialization. The independent character of cats does not mean that they can not or do not need to be educated. A cat is intelligent and sensitive enough to learn, therefore, we must begin to educate a cat from a young age to teach him positive behaviors and enjoy an optimal coexistence in his new home, as well as avoid inappropriate behavior. With the help of positive reinforcement, you can start educating your kitten and practice training with him, from the first days of the cat at home.

Furthermore, the socialization it is an essential process in the life of every cat, since it teaches them to relate positively with people, animals and other stimuli of their environment, reinforcing your self-confidence. A pussycat that is not properly socialized can develop numerous behavioral problems and difficulties of coexistence with other individuals, showing scary, fearful or insecure.

While the ideal is to start socializing your cat from puppy, it is also possible to carry out this process with the adult kittens. If you have adopted an adult cat, do not miss our advice for the socialization of adult cats.

If you want to read more articles similar to Tips for the first days of a cat at home, we recommend that you enter in our section of What you need to know.