I have to take two cats to the vet this weekend – Cajun for her runny eye and Violet because I suspect her anal sacs need expressing. I’m not worried though – going to the vet is not a stressful event in our house. I don’t have to deal with cats that run and hide when we need to leave, cry in the car or huddle terrified in the carrier in the waiting room. There’s no fight to leave the house, car rides are calm and our small section of the waiting room gets courageously explored.

I suppose the fact that my cats come from a shelter environment, with the regular stream of strange people and animals, provides a small advantage. But I’ve also spent time getting them adapted to leaving the house and being in the car, under less urgent circumstances than a vet visit.

I take my girls on regular, short car rides – usually when I’m going to pick someone up, make a very short stop or go for a drive in the country. This gets them accustomed to the car with  rides that don’t end at the vet or any other place scary or unpleasant. It helps that Violet is a natural car cat – she has always love going for car rides. Clover and Cajun were less enthusiastic about car rides at first, but once I got the right style of carrier they adapted quickly. Rather than using a closed carrier, which results in a lot of crying and distress (and in one case, a bloodied nose from trying to push through the mesh sides) I bought an open dog tote. It lets them look out without obstruction and the padded, opaque sides create a nice, safe little cave.

In the warmer months, we do harness and leash training in the backyard or by the lake to get them adapted to the leash, being in unfamiliar places and around strange people and animals.

When it’s time to go to the vet I just get kitty harnessed up, clip on the leash and put her into the open carrier. She sits quietly during the ride, doesn’t freak out in the waiting room, and is well behaved for the vet. By doing regular, low stress preparation, our vet visits are uneventful, instead of the nightmare it is for so many cat owners. Stress-free vet visits are well worth the bit of extra training effort (and we reap the benefits when we travel or introduce other new situations, too.)

What are your experiences taking your cats to the vet? Have you done anything to make things more pleasant and less stressful?

Vet photo by Brit.

Cajun is a very fussy cat when it comes to litter.

When she first came to my house I gave her a litter box with pelleted pine litter – the same stuff Violet and Clover were using. The carpet got peed on and her bedding got peed on and the litter box was untouched.

Figuring the texture was not right for her, I got a bag of World’s Best Cat Litter. The finer texture was better but still not right, and there was still peeing outside the box, so I got a bag of cheap clay litter, which was what she’d been using at the Humane Society, with plans to transition her off it. Litter box compliance got better again, but still wasn’t 100%, so she stayed in her own room till she was spayed, in hopes that spaying would help resolve the peeing problem. 

Spaying helped a lot of behavioural issues, and I thought the peeing was okay, but apparently not, and we had several incidents in quick succession, culminating with Cajun peeing on my husband while he was asleep in bed at 2am. Not a good night.

I was getting pretty desperate at this point. I couldn’t have a cat that was peeing on us at night, cleaning up cat pee was getting expensive and exhausting, but I also couldn’t keep her isolated in a room for the rest of her life or send her back to the Humane Society. 

Dr. Elsey’s to the rescue!

Despite my concerns about clumping clay litter (which I’ll get into in another post) and the cost ($12 for a small bag) I decided to give Dr. Elsey’s Cat Attract litter a try. It guarantees 100% litter box use or your money back, so I was sceptical but I figured I had nothing to lose by giving it a try. It contains a proprietary blend of herbs to attract cats, and a particle size that is supposed to be appealing.

Well, I’m on bag number two, and since switching there has not been a single incident of peeing or pooping outside the box. In fact, the cats absolutely love it, to the point where if the bag is left open they will climb inside and dump litter all over the floor. The box with Dr. Elsey’s Cat Attract in it always gets used first and used the most. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how effective this. If you’re having issues with your cat not using the litter box consistently, give it a try – if it works everyone wins and if it doesn’t, you can always get your money back. It’s a premium litter and a little more expensive, but the additional cost balances out – cleaners for cat pee are also expensive and you’ll also be saving yourself a lot of stress and headaches. It’s helped Cajun go from a problem cat to a kitty that I trust around the house. Each bag also comes with a booklet with helpful information such as fixing behavioural litter box problems and cleaning up cat pee. 

Litter box photo by aloha orangeneko.

Treats are a great way to reward or bribe your cat, but add extra calories and often are made with not so great stuff (wheat flour is the first ingredient in a lot of treats.)

Get more out of your treats and be able to offer treats more often by cutting them into smaller pieces.

Moist treats like Pounce are easy to break into pieces, and one Pounce treat is large enough to be cut into three pieces. Filled treats like Temptations also break up fairly easily and one piece makes two good treating opportunities. Hard, crunchy treats might be a little harder to break up into reasonable sized chunks.

A pea-sized treat is more than enough for a reward or bribe, and by giving smaller treats you’ll be able to give them to your cat more often.

What an easy way to get more love out of a bag of cat treats.

Photo by sillypucci.