Stages of Development

Cats go through three stages of development during their lifetime and each stage comes with it its own nutritional needs, activity levels and vet care. Kittens become cats at a year old. Kittens grow quickly and need kitten food, vet checkups and shots and lots of playtime. The maintenance years are from the ages of a year old to 10 years old. During this time cats need more nutrition, more playtimes with interactive toys and frequent vet checkups. Cats are known as seniors at the age of 10 years old and require frequent vet visits for early disease detection.

There are a couple of things that all pet owners including cat lovers should know about and that is cat behavior and pet nutrition. Cats can showcase various types of behaviors. One such type of behavior is attention seeking. If you got your cat as an adult, they could be seeking attention because of abuse or neglect as a kitten. Most cats like people attention anyhow. The rule when it comes to aggression is to teach your cat that hands are not toys. Biting and scratching is normal behaviors when it comes to cats because that is their defense mechanism. The best form of discipline when it comes to aggressive cats is to grasp him by this scruff and say no in a firm voice. Hold him for 3 to 4 seconds and then let him go.

There are several things that cats just love to chew on such as wires, cords, house plants, fabric and leather. When it comes to wires and cords you can either cover them or spray them with a spray that can be purchased at pet stores to make the cords taste bad. This will deter your cat from going near cords and wires again because they will remember the bad taste. You can do the same thing with house plants or you can simply hide or cover the plants. The same thing also applies to fabric and leather.

There are many cats that have litter box avoidance. When they are kittens, they need to learn where the little box is located. As adults there could be several reasons they don't use the cat box. As a general rule cats will not use the litter box if it is near where they sleep. The cat box also needs to be large enough, needs to be cleaned often and should contain plenty of liter. Also, if you have more than one cat, each cat should have their own liter box.