How to choose the right equipment for a cat

It’s probably clear to you that the cat will have to sleep and eat somewhere and have a place to do one’s needs. But it might be difficult to choose the right things from such a number of products. And is a bowl, a toilet and a bed everything that a cat needs?

Bowls

You can choose between plastic, stainless, glass and ceramic bowls. I personally don’t recommend the plastic ones. Impurities settle on the surface a lot and the bowl absorbs odours. Some cats also might be intolerant to this material and the so-called feline acne might form on their mouth. Besides, these bowls also like to travel around the flat and they get knocked over. Therefore, I’d rather pick from the other three options. I’d also like to remark, that lime scale settles more on stainless steel than on glass or ceramics.

Apart from the bowl material, you also have to choose the right size. The ones with a volume around 0.25 l are ideal, both for water and food. I’d rather choose bowls with a lesser depth, especially for wet food.

The placement of the bowls is also important. Water bowl shouldn’t be right next to the one for food. Since feline instincts tell it to drink in a different place than where it eats, because in nature dead meat contaminates and spoils water.

If you would like to provide more comfort to the cat and support its generally small appetite for drinking, you can get her a water fountain. And if the cat has a free access to granules and you would like to be sure that they will never run out of them, buy it a feeder.

Toilet

And even here, you can choose. You can pick a toilet that is covered, open, with doors, without doors, a flush toilet, a single-use toilet, corner-, round- or angular-shaped toilet, large, small, not to mention the colours. From purely functional all the way to design home accessories. The decisive factor here is how much you’d like to invest. You can spend both a hundred or ten thousand. Now briefly to some of the types:

Covered toilet: Some cats like to do their need in private and a suitably placed covered toilet will serve them well. On the other hand, some cats might take some time before they get used to it. I got the version with doors, first I took them off and put them back in only when the cat got used to the new toilet.

The advantage comparing to a classical toilet is, that they keep the odour inside to a great extent and the litter doesn’t get outside as much.

Single-use toilet: This is quite a novelty. I first saw it at the For Pets fair two years ago. These are ecologically produced cardboard toilets. You can buy them already set up with litter from 100% quality wheat straw. Then you simply assemble the toilet and after it’s used, you dispose of it. The toilet lasts for up to 5 days for a single cat.

This type is ideal especially for travelling. If you take the cat along with you on a holiday or to a cottage, you just pack the necessary amount of toilets that are as a big as a sweet box when assembled.

Robotic toilet: This is a self-flushing and self-cleaning toilet. If you’d like to avoid cleaning the litter and you don’t like the single-use toilets, a robotic toilet is the right choice for you. But count with high purchasing costs and the necessity to connect the toilet to an outlet. From time to time, you will have to change the washable granules and regularly, after 120 - 240 flushes, you will have to change the cartridge: a solution that cleans and disinfects the granules and the toilet itself. Operation of this toilet will cost you about the same as buying cat litter.

It is generally advised, that there is one toilet more at home than there are cats. You will read about the correct placement here and about the choice of litter here.

Bed

In this area, I’ve already given up. Whether I’ve bought the priciest or the most luxurious bed, the cat always preferred to nestle down in a cardboard box, my laundry basket and the like. So instead of buying beds, I only make places where it likes to lie down. Or I line a box with a blanket or buy a regular soft mat. Therefore, I don’t consider a bed to be a necessary piece of equipment.

What next?

Scratcher - If you like your furniture, I recommend buying a scratcher or a resting post. Even here, there’s a selection from small ones up to the ones that go all the way up to the ceiling, from regular ones to luxurious design pieces. It might even be the most expensive piece of furniture in the apartment. I wrote about various types in the article Cat trees and scratchers.

Carrier box - Another indispensable thing is a carrier. For one thing, you have to bring the cat home somehow, for another, you have to be prepared to transport the cat to a vet anytime. You have the option to choose here as well. I personally prefer a sturdy plastic carrier box with a simple opening than various types of bags (whether open, or closed ones).

Window meshes - I consider window or balcony meshes to be an absolutely necessary equipment if you’re not planning that the cat won’t have access outside. And it doesn’t matter whether you live on the ground, first or the tenth floor. You’ll find the reasons for putting up a mesh into the windows and the possibilities how to do go about it in this article.

And what types of equipment did prove the best for you? And did you choose according to functionality or design as well?