When I was a new cat owner, I knew almost nothing about cats or cat safety.
Over the years, I learned that it’s easier to go without some things when it comes to indoor cats.
This is my personal list and preferences, which are usually impacted by our experiences.
For example, I decided to never jump on a trampoline again after my sister took care of an adult paralyzed in a trampoline incident (and plenty of kids are injured each year). But I still drive my car even though three million people are injured each in car crashes most years.
So, you may disagree with my logic below, and that’s fine.
Flowers and Plants:
We had cats for more than 10 years before discovering that some flowers can be deadly to cats.
In the book Love Saves The Day by Gwen Cooper, the cat has an incident with lilies. This is when I found out that beautiful, innocent flowers can be deadly to cats.https://youtu.be/ECHgJZsk_xII’ve
The list of flowers and plants poisonous to cats is long. It’s so long that I decided it’s easier not to have flowers and plants inside.
The decision feels less complicated than figuring out which are safe and which are not.
There was a time, though, we Ted (my husband would give me flowers). And the picture above is of Lina with flowers. Anytime we had flowers in the house, the cats would like to smell them.
After a few knocked-over vases, we learned to set the vase in the kitchen sink.
This guy has figured out how to have more than 400 cat-safe plants in his house.
I feel very lucky and fortunate that the cats never took a bite or lick of a poisonous flower.
As an alternative, we now have artificial flowers. There is also grass known as cat grass, which is safe for indoor cats to eat.
We tried growing cat grass once, a very long time ago, back when we only had Lina and Kilala. They decided to dig in the dirt, so we gave up on that idea.
My sister gave me a Chia Cat Grass Planter, which I will try out soon.
Mini Blinds with Cords
When we were new cat owners, some of our windows had mind blinds with cords on them.
Or course, the cats liked to look out the windows and would peek through the blinds or crawl through them.
This is normal cat-like behavior. And we didn’t think that much of it.
It was okay until it wasn’t.
One night, while Ted and I were playing video games (in the room with the blinds), Lina got tangled up in the cord of the blind.
We heard her gasping as she was hanging with the cord wrapped around her neck. Fortunately, we were in the room, and Ted quickly rescued her, and she was fine.
After the choking incident, I decided no more corded mini blinds in our home! We switched to curtains for some of the windows and cordless miniblinds for the kitchen windows.
I try to keep the house as safe as possible, and corded mini blinds were easy enough to replace with safer window coverings.
Privacy
Shutting doors isn’t really a thing in our house anymore. When awake, some of the cats will follow me wherever I go.
A closed door is like a challenge. They want to know what is on the other side! Sometimes they will scratch the door or try to put their paws under.
The cats are like little spies, always having an eye on me, including in the bathroom.
We installed a kitty door in our bedroom door to come and go as they please, but we still get the benefit of a darker room at night for sleeping with the door closed.
No more privacy once you have cats.
Candles
I’ve given up candles for two reasons:
- Safety. With the number of cats that I have, I feel like the candles would need to be watched constantly when lit. A cat could knock over the candle or get too close and singe its fur.
- Scents. Many scents give me a headache. Maybe the cats don’t want to smell the candles either.
Scented Cat Litter
Cats can smell 14 times better than humans. Maybe the added scent bothers the cat.
I feel that the scent isn’t needed for the cat. The scented litters are marketed to humans.
If the box is kept clean and scooped often, there should not be much smell. Of course, some cats have stinkier poo than others, and perhaps they don’t bury it. But if it’s not buried, is a scented litter really going to be able to cover the smell?
This cat litter review shows the unscented versions of the clay litter I’ve been using with my cats.
What have you decided to go without due to having cats?
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Heidi, I have miniblinds in several rooms. What I do is to raise and lock them at cat viewing height. I even have cat window seats in two of the windows. The other thing, of course, is to either buy blinds that do not have looped adjusters, or cut them to remove the loops. You can also wind the adjusters around the top part of the blind, where it attaches to the frame, so it is entirely out of the way. There’s no need to forego miniblinds.
It sounds like you are doing fine with your blinds. Lots of people do. I felt really scared after the incident we had with Lina and could not figure out how she managed to get tangled. Now, we have cordless miniblinds in our kitchen where the raising/lowering mechanism is completely contained and there are no individual slats. It’s sort of like one big piece of fabric. Like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/LEVOLOR-Trim-Go-1-in-Cordless-White-Vinyl-Room-Darkening-Mini-Blinds-Common-35-in-Actual-34-5-in-x-64-in/1000576827
I agree with you Heidi, there is no more privacy after you get a cat. I used to shut my door while sleeping but now I am thinking of installing a kitty door for my cat, the little spy got scratches all over the door. Thanks for the idea.