Tips For Handling An Energetic Kitten
As many of you know, Best Life Pets is dedicated to all things holistic and sustainable to ensure us kitties live a long and healthy life.
Holistic means that you consider our whole being – physical, mental and environmental. Today we are going to focus on the mental, aka behavior issues, and talk about the hyper kitty – the crazy cat who runs all over the house and jumps on everything, always up for mischief.
At the Meow Mini Mart pop-up shops, mom gets asked a lot, “How can we calm down our anxious cat or our high energy kitty?” .
Mom’s first question – “How old is the cat?”.
90% of the time they are referring to a kitten or a teenager who is generally anywhere from a few months up to one to two years old.
Let’s all agree – kittens are crazy! Therefore, you can forget “calming down” a kitten at this time. But you can start training your new kitten so it grows up to be a confident adult who understands that you are “top cat” and you have some basic rules of behavior we cats have to respect.
Cats are very smart and, yes, we can be “molded and trained” to be a “better cat” with a series of simple but steadily applied training ideas.
Before you bring a new fur baby into your family, it is important that you give very serious thought as to how you feel about this natural behavior and whether you can handle it.
Some cats like Beau, who is 3-1/2, for example, never completely grow out of their kitten-like “juvenile delinquent” behavior, although they definitely calm down somewhat as they become full-grown adults.
Mom vacillates between being amused and being annoyed when Beau is up to mischief! After all Beau is just being a cat!
For many people, they choose to adopt an adult cat who is already done with the kitten stage and they are already “trained”. This is definitely an easier path for many cat owners and families.
I was at least a year old when mom adopted me and my personality was fairly well-defined, though I still had room to evolve and develop into the affectionate, cool, alpha male that I am today.
So how do you get started with a kitten or a hyper cat?
Educate Yourself On All Things Feline
The internet is rich with information from many reputable sources including veterinarians, universities and cat behaviorists.
She always recommends that pet owners sign up for Dr. Karen Becker’s blog as she is a great source of information on every topic possible.
She also recommends that they invest in a few reference books such as Jackson Galaxy’s Total Cat Mojo and Catster’s Naughty No More by Marilyn Krieger.