When people are waiting for a kitten, they usually have several weeks in which to prepare for its arrival. This is a very dangerous time for a bank card. You go into a pet shop simply to look at a bowl, and twenty minutes later you are choosing between three beds, a water fountain, a tunnel, an interactive mouse and some sort of intellectual toy whose purpose is not entirely clear but which looks convincing.
In reality, a kitten needs far less by the time it moves. The most important thing is not even the number of possessions, but making the new home understandable and safe at first.
The kitten does not know that you have spent two months preparing for its arrival. It simply leaves a familiar place, familiar smells, people, other cats and its routine one day, and finds itself in an entirely different world. That is why I always advise against introducing a revolution in both food and litter during those first days.
Our kittens are accustomed to Craftia Harmona Duck & Turkey dry food. It is best to buy this in advance, at least for the first while. If the owner later wants to change the diet, that is perfectly possible, but it should be done gradually, after the kitten has settled in. Moving is stressful in itself, and even without a change of diet it can sometimes affect the gastrointestinal tract. This does not mean that an upset is certain, but I would certainly not add unfamiliar food, tins and lots of treats at the same moment.
The same applies to the litter tray. Our kittens know Pi-Pi Bent clumping litter, so it is best to buy that to begin with. I would recommend choosing a covered tray from the start: this will more closely resemble the familiar automatic toilet the kitten used with us. The important thing is that it should be stable and spacious enough. Kittens have the inconvenient habit of growing, so a tiny, charming litter tray can rather quickly become simply tiny. If you later want to change the litter, it is best to mix in a little of the new type with the familiar one for a while.
You will need bowls for food and water. I prefer stainless steel or good-quality glazed ceramic rather than plastic: plastic surfaces become scratched over time and are harder to clean, which makes it more difficult to keep them genuinely clean. The material does not remove the need for ordinary care — bowls must still be washed thoroughly and regularly, and fresh water should always be available. You can buy a water fountain if you wish, but there is no need to do so in advance. First you can get to know your kitten and see how it actually prefers to drink.
Beds are much the same. It is worth preparing a quiet, warm, draught-free place, especially for a Devon Rex, but I would not buy five expensive beds in advance. Cats have a rather individual understanding of property values, and sometimes the best bed costing several thousand roubles loses hopelessly to the box in which it arrived.
Toys are necessary, but you do not need to open a branch of a pet shop. A few toy mice, balls, a teaser wand and perhaps a tunnel are more than enough at first. What matters far more is that you play with the kitten yourself. Playing together helps it settle in, use up its kitten energy and gradually build a relationship with its new person. A scratching post should also arrive before the kitten, not after it independently appoints the sofa to that role. Both horizontal cardboard scratchers and sturdy activity trees work well; in time you may have several in different convenient places. An ordinary cat nail clipper will also be useful.
Home safety, however, matters far more than all the attractive purchases. Windows come first. Every window that you plan to open must have a secure cat-proof screen. An ordinary insect screen is not suitable: it is not designed to bear an animal’s weight and can fall out with the cat. Tilt-open windows are also particularly dangerous, because a cat may try to squeeze through the gap and become trapped. This is one subject on which I prefer to be tedious: you can buy a toy tomorrow, a kitten will survive without a beautiful bed, but there is no substitute for a safe window.
Before the kitten arrives, it is also useful to look at the flat through its eyes. Anything that dangles, hangs down or moves may become a toy. Kittens like playing with wires, pulling chargers, catching hanging cords with their paws and sometimes trying all of them with their teeth. It is therefore best to put wires away or secure them wherever possible, and not leave chargers hanging where they are easy to reach.
The same applies to small objects on shelves and tables. I would interpret the word ‘reachable’ very broadly. Kittens usually move to a new home at three or four months old, and by that age they can already jump and climb quite successfully. A shelf that a person considers high may simply be the next step for a kitten. It may knock down and break fragile objects, while very small, light or rustling things may be carried away, chewed or swallowed. I would be especially careful to remove elastic bands, thread, ribbon, small components and anything else that looks like potential prey. During the first weeks, it is useful to follow a simple rule: if something can be stolen, knocked down, chewed or carried away, the kitten will at least try to find out whether that is true.
I should say something separately about the first day, because this is often when new owners start to worry too soon. A kitten may arrive home and not go straight to its familiar dry food. It may not use the tray for several hours or have a bowel movement for almost the whole first day. The new home, journey, new smells and general excitement may temporarily disrupt its normal routine. In my experience, the kitten will usually begin eating and using the tray within the first twenty-four hours.
At the same time, if you notice that the kitten is not eating dry food, there is no need to lay out a buffet of ten different delicacies immediately. It will probably try something especially tasty even if its ordinary food has not yet interested it, and it will very quickly understand how the system works. With the best of intentions, many owners begin offering tins at once: the kitten has arrived, and naturally they want to make it happy and give it something more delicious. Then one day they find themselves in the kitchen at five in the morning with a tin in their hand because the kitten is awake and absolutely certain that waking the person thoroughly enough will make breakfast more interesting.
The kitten is not at fault in the slightest. It has been taught to do this.
Wet food can perfectly well form the basis of a diet if it is formulated as a complete food. But if the kitten already eats a good balanced food, there is no need to add tins on top merely to make the diet seem ‘richer’. If you want to feed wet food, it is better to include it in the normal feeding routine from the start and follow a clear system rather than use it as a reward for persistence.
There are different ways to feed a cat, including a properly formulated natural diet. But the more an owner intervenes in the composition of the food, the more responsibility they assume for its balance and safety.
During the first days, it is best to leave the familiar food and water available, show the kitten the litter tray and give it some time to settle in. If it appears lethargic, vomits, is clearly trying and failing to urinate, or develops other worrying symptoms, that is no longer something to attribute simply to adjustment. Contact the breeder and a vet straight away.
My real list for preparing for a kitten’s arrival is therefore quite short: its familiar food, familiar litter and a spacious covered tray, good bowls, a scratching post, a few toys, nail clippers, a quiet warm place and safe windows. Add a little time to remove wires, chargers, fragile objects and very small items from reach.
Everything else can be bought later. In fact, I would deliberately postpone some purchases until you have met the kitten. You will very quickly discover what it likes: sleeping in an enclosed bed or on an open cushion, scratching vertically or horizontally, chasing a ball or carrying a toy mouse, drinking from a bowl or showing an unhealthy interest in your mug.
There is no need to invent its entire life in advance. Prepare the essentials, make the home safe, keep a few familiar things unchanged during the first days — and leave a little room to get to know the individual who has arrived. A kitten brings into your home not a set consisting of a bowl, tray and scratching post, but another resident. Fairly soon, that resident will reveal opinions of its own about everything you bought so carefully.
