As promised, the full story.
One of my husband's coworkers found/rescued a mother and father cat and 3 kittens sometime last summer or fall. They were feral, but have been semi-domesticated, the kittens especially. The kittens are now around a year old. This woman already had 2 cats of her own, and she's decided that 7 cats is a bit much
so she is trying to adopt out the cats.
My husband is allergic to cats, but he has been taking shots for some time now. The cat we're talking about is a shorthair, and hopefully less allergen-producing - so the idea is for us to have the cat in the house for a few days, and if DH gets into trouble, we will return the cat.
The cat is an indoor cat. He won't be allowed upstairs, and we will try to keep him out of the office/computer room, but there's plenty of other room downstairs for him to run around in.
I have about a zillion questions, most of which could probably be answered by "Cats for Dummies" or some such thing, but I figured I'd pick your brains too
I'm assuming we'll have to "cat-proof" the house like you would "baby-proof" a house... remove all breakables and household cleaning supplies from the cat's reach, make sure there's nothing he can knock or pull down, etc. What about curtains? Do I have to worry about my plants? (Most are outdoors now, but I have some African violets inside. I'm worried both about him eating them and getting sick, and him damaging the plants.)
We have hardwood floors. Will that be hard on his paws? Would his claws damage the wood?
Where is a good place to put his food/water bowls and his litterbox? (I'm guessing not next to each other!
)
How do you pick up a cat if you don't want to get clawed?
(I gather he is 16 lbs)
I already figured we would be getting him cat food and not people food, no matter how plaintively he meows for a piece of sushi
I've heard milk and cream are actually bad for cats, and they should only get water to drink?
What about grooming the cat? This is likely to be my job.
What do you do with a cat when you go on vacation? I figure some cats are self-reliant enough to be left alone for a weekend, but are there places where you can board cats for a week or two? (Neither my parents nor his would cat-sit, and most of our neighbors have dogs that might not get along well with a strange cat.)
Of course, we will need to find a vet if we keep him, but I was thinking of taking him to his current vet for now - we'll cross that bridge when we come to it
Thanks for the suggestions, keep 'em coming!
