Caring for My Cat

My husband Larry and I have a wonderful cat that we have cared for ever since she was born right in our bedroom about ten years ago. Her name is Puffer, both because it is short for Pfefferneuse (a peppery cookie dusted with powdered sugar that looks like her grey fur) and because she has beautiful, extraoridinarily long, soft, puffy fur. Though she is a domestic house cat, she has long fur like a Persian cat.

Puffer was just a tiny kitten. She was the smallest of the litter and has a little crook at the end of her tail. One evening, when she was only about five weeks old, she was curled up on our bed and one of our big cats jumped on the bed right next to her. She immediately jumped up, arched her back and let out such a ferocious hiss, that the great big cat fell over backwards off the bed! After that, we decided that she really was "our" cat because even as a tiny little fur ball she had the courage to stand up for herself.

Larry and I have been caring for cats naturally for over twenty years. Though we have only one now, at times we've cared for three or four cats at once, and litters of kittens. We don't always do what the veteriarians or even the natural advisors recommend. We instead observe our cats and give them the care that results in their health and happiness. My recommendation is that you learn all you can about caring for your cat naturally and then make decisions based on what is best for your cat.

Puffer has never been sick since the day she was born. We have only taken her to the vet once in her life, and that was for surgery during a difficult birth, not for ill health. As I was writing this, I was looking at books on raising cats naturally that I have on my bookshelf, and they all contain remedies for what to do when your cat is sick. We've never had to use one of them.

indoors and Outdoors

Puffer has lived with us both here in Florida and in California. In California we lived out in the woods and she was outdoors all the time in the mild climate. There were lots of mice for her to catch and she was a great hunter cat. Now she is more sedate as she is getting older, and she doesn't like the Florida heat. So she stays indoors more.

We let her come and go as she pleases. We have an entry for her to the garage that she has to jump up into, which keeps the 'possums and racoons out, and then a regular cat door with a flap from the garage into the house.

We have a lot of exotic birds in our backyard. In California, Puffer would occasionally catch and eat birds in the garden. Here, we decided to tell her not to kill the birds, and she hasn't touched one in the three years we have been living here.

Communication and Companionship

We all communicate together very well. Larry and I communicate to Puffer with English words and meows and she communicates back with a variety of meows, purrs, and actions. Puffer clearly adores being with us. She purrs a lot when she is around us. She sleeps all curled up at the foot of our bed, and follows us around to be with one of us as we go about our daily activities. If we sit together she will come sit with us wherever we are. If we are working on a project she will come inspect it.

We can tell when she likes something or not by the way she acts. She loves to be scratched under the chin and brushed with a natural bristle brush. In fact, all we have to do is hold out a finger or the brush and she will come brush herself against it. If either of has a hand sitting around doing nothing, she will come pet herself with our hand. We call her "the self-petting cat."

Food and Water

Puffer is a very fussy eater, but we trust her instincts. She knows what is good for her. If we give her food that isn't fresh, she will make motions like she is digging a hole to bury it and refuses to eat it.

We feed her dry Purina Cat Chow because that's what she likes. While it isn't organic, it is natural, with no artificial additives.

We supplement this dry food with raw organic eggs, raw organic meat, and occasionally a bit of organic cream.

There are two foods she goes crazy over: chicken and cheese. We actually cannot eat these foods unless we give her some. If we don't, she will jump in our plates. Really. Usually she is very well mannered, but when chicken or cheese is nearby, all manners go out the window. But it's fine. We don't mind sharing our food with her.

We don't give her any vitamin or mineral supplements except a bit of brewer's yeast on her dry food. She really likes this and eats it right up.

And we also don't grow "cat grass" for her. We've seen her munch on weeds in the garden, but she doesn't touch the lawn or decorative plants at all. She does get her greens in her own way.

We also don't set out water for her because she doesn't drink it. She doesn't like still water, only running water. We know she's finding water outdoors because we've seen her drinking from rainwater puddles.

On this diet, Puffer is very healthy and has never been sick a day in her life. We have never taken her to the vet to be treated for illness.

Play

We like to play with Puffer and she with us. Though there are a lot of cat toys on the market, we don't use any of them. Oh, she will play with those toys that have feathers on a string, but her favorites are mouse-under-the-blanket and cheese-mouse.

To play mouse-under-the-blanket, we just run a hand under a blanket like a mouse and Puffer tries to catch it. We always let her win sooner or later.

To play cheese-mouse, we take a small piece of cheese (about a half-inch square) and throw it across the floor so it "runs" away from her. She chases after it, catches it, and eats it, then comes running back for more. This is her number one most favorite game. In the absence of cheese, she will also chase after crumpled bits of paper.

Catnip

We don't give Puffer catnip. We prefer to experience the joy of life without recreational substances and we don't give them to our cat either.

Training

Puffer is very well-behaved and courteous. When we are eating, for example, she will sit quite patiently and watch us eat, unless we are having chicken or cheese.

But we have had to train her on occasion in the past. When we do need to train her to not do something, we use a plastic bottle that squirts a long stream of water. It makes a hissing sound when the water comes out. She doesn't like the hiss or the water. If we're not available to squirt her, we just put the bottle wherever we don't want her to go and she doesn't go there. She knows what the bottle means. It doesn't take many squirts and it's been years since we've used it.

Now, if we want to express our displeasure with her action, we will immediately hiss at her, very sharp and loud. That stops her in her tracks. But we rarely even do that any more because she is so well-behaved.

Scratching

We recognize that Puffer scratches because it's natural for her to scratch. Using the water bottle, we trained her to not scratch the furniture.

Both here and In California, she found pieces of wood that she liked and scratched outside. Here it happens to be a wood planter, just outside the back door. Most times when we leave the house, she hops up on the planter box and scratches--she knows we will pet and praise her as we walk by.

Litter Box

When we lived in California, we lived in a rural area, so Puffer just used the garden for her litter box. She always dug a little hole and covered things up very neatly. We liked that idea of her making a contribution back to the fertility of the soil.

Here in Florida though, it is just too hot half the year for her to go outdoors much, and it rains almost every day during June, July, and "soggy August". So we set up a litter box for her in an old plastic cement mixing tray Larry found in the garage.

Our preferred kitty litter is Feline Pine. Though there are other natural and recycled kitty litters, we found this one works best of the ones we have tried. We got quite excited about kitty litter made from ground orange peels, since we have lots of leftover orange peels here in Florida, but it didn't work as well as Feline Pine. Even though we like Feline Pine best, all of the natural litters we have tried are better than the dusty litter made from clay. We dispose of the litter, as recommended, in our garden.

Health Care

Puffer has never been sick, but if she were to become ill, we would use the remedies recommended in books on natural cat care.

A couple of times she had mites in her ear, and Larry applied an ointment he got from the vet.

Once she had tapeworms from eating a wild rat or something and we gave her standard worm medicine.

The only vaccine she has had is for rabies. Living in a forest where she could be bitten by a rabid wild animal, we thought this was a good idea.

For the most part, though, she is a happy, healthy, cat.

Fleas

While there are natural ways to control fleas, I'll admit that we do use a topical flea ointment that contains pesticides (for more on both the ointment and the natural methods see Q&A: Handling a Flea Infestation).

But we minimize both Puffer's and our own exposure by using a smaller amount than recommended and we apply it less frequently--about once every three months instead of once a month. This is entirely sufficient for us and we haven't had a flea problem. Larry usually applies it and I can't even tell he's done it.

And, as I said, our cat is perfectly healthy.

Grooming

Puffer is a self-grooming cat. We never shampoo her or trim her claws. She does it all herself and is fastidious. Occasionally we will dry and fluff her fur with a soft towel if she gets caught in the rain. Once Larry had to cut some matted fur with a pair of scissors.

We are constantly monitoring the condition of her body as we are petting and playing with her, so we can see right away if there are any problems we need to help her with.

Neutering

We're well aware of all the reasons to get cats neutered and spayed, but we allowed Puffer to have probably more than her share of kittens. We kept some of them and found good homes for the others. We just loved the experience of having kittens. And Larry wanted me to add that if all cats were neutered, cats would become extinct. Since we raised healthy, natural kittens, we were making a positive contribution to the cat gene pool.

Eventually though, she had a kitten that was too large to be born, and we had to rush her to the vet for surgery. At that time she was neutered.