😽 EVERYTHING I WISH I KNEW BEFORE ADOPTING A KITTEN

hi my name is chris and my childhood dreams of owning a pet have finally come true i am officially a cat mom now i'm a cat mother now i've only had my baby for a few months now but here is what it's been like so far and some important things that i've learned in case you're interested in adopting a kitten or even if you're not i hope you enjoy this video because i think the world needs to be more educated about cats they are very misunderstood and highly fascinating creatures at first i searched up on pet finder adoptable cats in my area i told my friend that i really was looking to adopt a kitten my friend knew of my other friend's friend's dad who he was trying to give away his 10 kittens because he had two cats he didn't spay them and they gave birth to a bunch of kittens that he couldn't take care of on his own and so i saw that as a perfect opportunity hey free kittens available sign me up so the cat guy texts me today saying four kittens are adopted already that are at six weeks and they're from the first letter and only two are left i worry you might not like them because they're not so cute but if you want cute ones from the second litter which are now four and a half weeks you better pick it up next week the two kittens available now are not looking cute literally but he's like up to you though i'm like what does that mean so i asked if he can send photos of the two kittens and the first photo that he sends me of this kitten i'm immediately in love like that's my baby i'm just like i've seen so many pictures of kittens by now but i've never felt this emotionally attached to one the first order of business was to cat proof the space and prepare to welcome this new kitten home and so this included getting rid of any toxic house plants i also ordered some essential cat supplies that i needed which turns out the main things you need is food i asked the previous owner what he's been feeding her and it was a combination between wet and dry food so that's what i bought i also got a shallow food bowl and water bowl and a food and water bowl place mat very important you will need a litter box preferably at least one litter box per cat i ended up getting two litter boxes to put in the bedroom and in the bathroom i know and equally important you'll need some cat litter and a litter scooper i ended up trying three different litters before i found one that i like decently litter is litter how much can you love litter you'll also need a cat carrier to take the cat home from wherever you're picking her up to your home and it also helps if you have a cat tower and a cat her because your cat will be scratching what i didn't know is that you don't necessarily need a cat bed because this whole couch is now my cat's bed um i'll get into that basically i ended up getting a cat bed that she never ever steps foot in and the most important step in this preparation phase was to learn learn learn learn learn and do my research on cats in general and this was the most fun part because i didn't know anything about cats and their behavior and i didn't grow up with either a dog or cat so i didn't know what i was signing up for the two people that i found to be really helpful are both on youtube the first is the kitten lady she is a kitten expert and she recently very timely came out with webinars going over every single detail of how to prepare and how to take care of kittens and also jackson galaxy he has his own show called my catch from hell he basically goes into people's homes who have cats that are literally so difficult to deal with hi sweetie it's okay wow he kind of tries to examine what the real issue is and to give advice to the owners of what's really going on and how to turn this devil of a cat into a sweet loving confident cat that was really helpful and that actually prepared me to expect the worst when adopting my cat let's talk about the journey of bringing my cat home because it was a journey week one was a journey so meeting my cat for the first time we drove to the owner's home we wore a mess we got to meet her and immediately she was running away and hiding the owner actually lets the cats go outside in the backyard so she had a ton of fleas on her really bad so the first day or two i really wanted her to feel comfortable and cater to her when we first brought her in here and opened her carrier she immediately scurried on over under our media console so that's why it's very important to prepare your home block your unders it was first the media console and under our bed those are the two spots that she stayed in for the first few days and she did not want to come out at all she was incredibly shy she was meowing constantly she was so itchy because she had a ton of fleas on her it was disgusting her eyes the entire time were super dilated and anxious and she just looked really sad and tired it was so strange because i did not expect this at all i thought worst case scenario will take her home and she will be super chaotic super hyper knock everything down but in fact she was the exact opposite literally for the first day or two it did not even feel like we had a kitten because she was hiding the entire time i searched up online and read an article that said that it really takes time for kittens to adjust to a new environment it could take weeks to months to years and reading that i just embraced the fact that maybe she might be hiding in our home for like the next year i legitimately thought that she's just really shy really anxious and this is just how it's gonna be anyway i didn't mind her hiding but i was getting concerned because she did not come out to eat or poo or pee until the next day anything that i tried to introduce to her she would be extra cautious of even her food i basically brought the food bowl to her sleeping spot because she was scared to venture out another main problem was her fleas so she was incredibly incredibly itchy and she had fleas like all over her and we needed to give her a flea bath but we also didn't want to just grab her out of her hiding spot where she felt safe cats do not like to be pulled out of their hiding spot they especially are fearful of water and i was being extra sensitive and careful not to make her scared of us but this is just something we had to do we pulled her out and we had to give her a flea bath and she hated it honey it's okay [Music] we want to make you feel better okay no it's going to be okay it's crazy [Music] good girl good girl how am i supposed to get that [Music] oh my goodness [Music] should we go for the first few weeks we were constantly combing her we had to vacuum the whole place down and spray the flea spray we had to give her flea medication and then a few weeks after we found out that she had some digestion issues so we were feeding her three different medicines for like two weeks or so that's just something to be aware of when you're adopting a kitten is you never know what kind of issues that they will also come with but you know that's just something that you have to be financially and mentally and emotionally prepared for now she's a lot healthier and happier on day three she finally pooed which i was celebrating i literally took photos of her poo i am such a cat mom making sure that they were healthy but she was really really constipated i basically wrote down a little kitten diary every day to track her progress and i documented all of her little victories because every single day she was getting more comfortable more confident enough to explore new places in the home and that just made me so happy just seeing her have the courage to take those small steps forward it made me so proud of her day three is when she sat on my lap for the first time i believe that entire day she would not get off my lap i'd be trying to work she'd be sleeping on my lap i'd be trying to read she'd be sleeping on my book she would not get off of me and i found that to be really adorable because that kind of signaled to me that she trusts me now [Music] i wanted to introduce you guys to my cat she's sleeping right now so i don't want to bug her her name is uni she's otherwise known as uni bear pretty baby unicorn me blossom boom boonie baboony booney booty you cutie booty you get the point i think once you become a cat mom or mom in general you literally stop caring about how insane you sound when i talk to my cat i sound um really happy let's put it that way but we named her uni because she number one looks like uni she's controversial like uni you either hate uni or you love uni cats in general are a little bit either like him or you don't she may be spiky on the outside but on the inside she's buttery sweet she's very playful very curious and affectionate i consider her a tortico because i cannot tell for the life of me is she is a tortoiseshell cat or calico cat both aren't a breed of cat it just refers to the color of the coating so she is tri-colored from the back side she completely looks like a tortoiseshell cat but then when you look at her from the front side she has a white chest and belly area and then she has orange fur right under her eyes those are her little uni cheeks and i was on the fence of getting either a black cat an orange cat or a white cat and she happens to be three in one so worked out perfectly and someone told me on my cat's insta story that uni means rest in estonian so i thought that was so cute because she's the absolute most adorable when she's resting and then the other day my husband pointed out that when you spell umi it spells you and i and i didn't even know that and now for the part of the video that i've been meaning to get to this is everything that i wish i knew before adopting a kitten i did see several of these videos but there were additional things that i learned along the way that i wish someone would have warned me about i don't know they're not all bad things number one uni is now my new alarm clock which is good and sometimes frustrating cats in general really like their routine so it keeps me accountable to be on top of it of when i feed her when i sleep when i wake up because the earlier i feed her last meal at night the earlier she will wake up so she will sometimes wake up between five to seven am now i try to feed her midnight to 1am and then she'll wake up a little bit later that's also because we choose not to free feed her it's kind of cute because sometimes i'll be dead asleep and she'll be all up in my face sniffing me and basically letting me know that she wants to either play or eat or just acknowledge her presents playing with your cat is such an important part of bonding with them if you're going to adopt your cat you will have to adapt your schedule to fit in at least like 10 to 15 minutes a few times a day to play with them the raw cat needs to hunt it's in their dna so if they aren't able to expend that energy they might release that energy in aggressive ways that you may not like so play with your cat you do not need fancy toys at all this toy right here i believe is like two to three dollars off of amazon and it is one of the most popular cat toys because it recoils back and she likes to destroy these little cardboard pieces i don't know what it is be willing to love your cat more than your possessions um i kind of already gave up my cat is a scratcher she does not ever scratch her actual cat scratcher because she loves to scratch she'll scratch our couch she'll scratch our rug literally i don't know where all of our pens go or my rubber bands because she will hide them like under the couch or in the couch she loves playing with pens she loves playing with wires she bit through my earphones she loves slippers and strings she loves corners she loves corners of anything whether it's a books tables chairs laptops phones pillows and she also likes to climb so she will climb our window screen she will climb all the way up in a matter of seconds and then she also tries to climb our curtain kitten frap is real it stands for frenetic random activity period cats are nocturnal creatures when she's in her frap mode she is caffeinated it's so funny she will chase her own tail she will pounce on nothing she'll get really paranoid it's honestly really hilarious i found that it is impossible to have band areas with the kitten unless you strictly close them off with a little door that they cannot open or a gate that's just impossible to hop over because no matter how many gazillion times we will take her off of our bed or the dining table or my laptop she will always go back to it because that's what she wants and a cat will get what they want at first any time we would let her on the bed she would start peeing on our bed and this would happen in the middle of the night and then i'd have to put the bed covers in the laundry and the next night she'd do it again she'd pee on the bed and it's sometimes hard to tell because she would look like she's sleeping and then we look and we smell and we see that she has actually peed on her bed i actually put sticky tape all around the bed that did not work we tried to be nice and civil about it and gently put her off the bed every time she would try to go on that obviously didn't work so we tried to be really strict and aggressive that did not work essentially after multiple times of her peeing on the bed and us washing the bed she just suddenly stopped peeing on the bed she never pees on the bed anymore we just allow her to sleep on the bed i guess there's truce i guess she marked our bed enough i never thought that i'd want to share my bed with a pet i never thought i would actually allow it but surprisingly um i like encourage her to come on the bed with me now so i love her soft little body i literally cater to her so much she will literally put me in such uncomfortable positions but i will not move because i do not want to disrupt her sleep i honestly think she owns me more than i own her any time that we are eating she will be really curious and she'll need to give it a sniff and now we just kind of let her sniff it she's just curious she just wants to sniff it or we like to have lemons on the table and for some reason cats are repulsed by citrus so she'll literally like back off if she smells lemons so we just put lemons in her face um we like to troll her as much as she likes to troll us because i do work from home it's sometimes really hard to focus when she really wants my attention because she will literally like get on the keyboard and rest on the keyboard i don't know if it's the warmth or the magnetic radiation from the keyboard she really likes sitting on the keyboard cats can actually scratch my cat is definitely a scratcher and a biter they do say that calico and tortoiseshell cats have tortitude sometimes when i'm going in to pet her or cuddle with her i never know if she's going to allow me to pet her and purr or she'll try to go for my hand or my face a lot of times she'll scratch on accident just because she's in her play mode and her hunting mode a good way to actually avoid that is to train your cat to never see your hands as a toy if she tries to go for her hands distract her with an actual cat toy i have cat scratches and scars just all over my arms my husband gets a slight allergic reaction to her scratches but it doesn't hurt as badly as you would expect i don't know if it's just because i'm like blinded by my love for my cat i think if i was younger i would have thought like i would hate to have a cat that always scratched me but i don't know i think maybe i'm just used to it another thing that i wasn't fully aware of is that cats spend a third of their waking hours grooming themselves so they self-groom which is hallelujah so cool i did not know that cats can literally lick themselves clean it's kind of gross because she will like sometimes step on her poo and start licking her paws but that's just part of their ritual but even though they groom themselves it's so important to upkeep their hygiene apparently it's recommended to brush their teeth every single day which is something that we failed to do i'm not gonna lie it's also important to keep her nails trimmed again she does not like that either sometimes she'll get a lot of random dust on her body and it's important to kind of comb her fur through and also it's important to keep their litter box clean so we'll empty out her litter box every day and every week i'll try to clean the actual litter box because if their litter box is not clean they will literally just find another place to do their business uni is so quiet because she's so quiet and sneakily moves so quickly everywhere i will sometimes step on her which i've done on multiple occasions on accident obviously and sometimes she'll randomly sneak up on me sometimes we accidentally left her once in our pantry and a little while later we heard meowing and we were like where is that coming from and we realized she quickly snuck up in there and then we closed the door on her and she was stuck in there and we didn't even know another thing is that i have to be really still around her this was more so in the beginning when i was extra cautious of her especially in the beginning anytime we introduced new sounds she would either be curious or scared of it and now she's used to all of her little sounds for example the first time we would vacuum she would immediately run under the bed now she just watches us any loud noises like when i'm making coffee or loading the laundry or taking a shower she's used to all of it now but in the beginning i was extra sensitive about introducing these sounds to her no one told me that a sleeping cat is the most adorable thing in the entire universe i don't know how other cats sleep but when my cat sleeps she loves to just stretch out and be super long or she'll like cover her face she does all sorts of sleeping positions but when she's sleeping she's so cute a cat purring is a noise like you will never imagine i never knew that cat's purr that way be prepared for the majority of your camera roll to be filled with images of your new cat cats are over stimulated with a lot of things but i really wish that i could pet her without worrying about her possibly scratching my face or going at it with my hand i don't know if that's just because she's a kitten and she's in her kitten phase most cats get easily overstimulated you have to know the right places and the right timing to pet them so i mainly only pet her when she's calm when she's sleeping and not when she's in her attack mode obviously once your cat gets comfortable they may perhaps follow you everywhere my cat follows me everywhere it's actually really adorable i heard this is common in cats but especially when i go to the restroom every single time she will trot along immediately behind me she will go on the waistband behind the toilet and look at my butthole watch me pee poo wipe and flush every single time i go to the bathroom that's like her routine she has to watch me do this you little weirdo but yeah that's the level of friendship we have and whenever i'm doing something new she's so curious about what i'm up to she's just as curious about me as i'm curious about her and the other day i took a bath and she'll just perch over she'll just sit there patiently watching what i'm doing or anytime i'm eating she'll just sit there she has such good posture i love that about her she'll just sit there super polite waiting for me to finish and last but not least despite any stressful thing that i mentioned about owning a cat i did not know how much i would love my cat to death despite everything despite all the battle scars that i have of her attacking me despite her ruining my things and causing me to lose sleep i cannot imagine life without her she's a source of so much joy for me now and she gives me a healthy dose of distraction when i need it sometimes she reminds me that life doesn't have to be so serious i could just laugh a little she's so entertaining i love seeing her reactions to everything i love her touch her paws are the softest thing in the world her little toe beans as you can tell i'm very obsessed with her now everything with cats takes a bit of patience she's still a kitten so she's like a baby and i had to i had to realize that it's important to respect their personal space it's important to give her the attention she needs sometimes the more time i spend with her the more intuitive i become to what her sounds mean other times cats are just weird and an enigma and i have no idea what she's doing or thinking you may find yourself constantly asking google questions every day it's so crazy my love for her grows more and more and more didn't think it was possible i never knew how much i could love a cat if you're on the fence about adopting a cat don't be afraid um i was scared that i wouldn't be able to love an another creature i guess it just kind of comes naturally the more time you spend with them i hope you found this video to be helpful maybe it encouraged you to adopt a kitten there are literally millions of kitchens out there who need homes and a loving owner to take care of them i also have an instagram for uni you could follow her at meow.iamuni i actually put more effort into my cat's instagram than my own instagram so please make sure to go follow her i love y'all and i'll see you soon bye [Music] [Music] [Music] honey [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] you

Channel: krist & yu

Views: 781,688

Rating: 4.9660015 out of 5

Keywords: adopting a cat, adopting a kitten, things to know before, things i wish i knew before, everything i wish i knew, everything to know, preparing to adopt a cat, krist soup, krist yu, kitten lady, jackson galaxy, why i love my cat

Id: 7ltppxhemsE

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020