fixing yes declawed no if they get out in the wild they wouldn't be able to protect themselves.

I have a female teen-ager that is driving me bonkers! She is neutered, so no problem there, but she digs in my plants, joyously scattering the dirt around! I have shot her with the water bottle every time, but she just can't seem to help herself. Any tips on curing Libby of this?

We have our kittens spayed or neutered at six months,
right before they become sexually mature. Stops the
howling and marking before it happens.

I don't understand why you are waiting so long to have them spayed. Is there a reason for that? I'm getting 4 spayed next week, and they are 5 mo. old.

Phyllis, the way I train my cats is by growling at them, and tapping them on the nose. Not hard...soft tap. I don't know if it would work on something that they find so much fun in. I say NO! and then I growl like a cat, and the tap is like a mama cat would discipline them. May sound crazy but that is what works for me.

We have all female pets right now-Wheaten terrier dog, two house cats, all spayed. then there's myself, and our two daughters. My DH is the only male in the house, outnumbered six to one.

please research declawing before you go ahead with this procedure, it is amputation of the cats digits, very painful both physically and mentally. I am shocked that vets in the States are still permitted to do this . It is banned across Europe, not yet in Canada, but a person would be hard pressed to find a vet willing to do this. Its a sad day if this happens.

We have a intact female dobie and an intact male dobie....

When she is in heat you never hear anything out of her...but he whines non stop....Nothing will shut him up.

I'll take the females...they don't spray their nasty scent all over.

patti

Over the decades I've had cats and dogs, males and females of each.

In my experiences, the males are sweeter, more trainable, more laid back, more happy...in every case.

I have nieces and nephews. Both sexes have lived with me for extended times...months and years.

Boys win, hands down, for being "easier" to manage.

So, I guess I'm sexist against my own sex! LOL If I had a child, I'd want male. My dogs are male. My best behaved parakeets were male.

We females are just too independent and free thinking! I also think the fact the females are programed to have and raise the pups/kittens, they have the drive to protect, hunt, defend, and don't really have time for all the nonsense the boys amuse themselves with.

Sorta like us gals, huh?

Years ago I had a kitten that liked to test her claws on the furniture. When she went in for her spay, I had her front claws removed. I'll never forget that poor, frightened thing, trying to walk on her painful toes after the surgery. . I will never de-claw a cat again. I don't love my furniture. I love animals, not things.

Phyllis,
If you have big plants that your kitty digs in, try putting crumpled tin foil on the surface. I have that on my large dracaena.

Even putting stones or pine cones on the surface of your plants should deter them from digging. Good luck!

It is recommended by the vet that the cats be around a year old. It has been so long since we have had a kitten and we are just going by his advice. Our other cats were declawed in the front and had no trouble at all with it.
We have trained other cats in the past to keep out of plants or off shelves etc. with the use of pepper sprinkled where you don't want them. Works like a charm.
I think I have to agree about the male pet vs the female even though it is against my own sex LOL!!

I say before you have a cat declawed, have your fingers cut off at the knuckle. See how it feels. This is a terrible inhumane practice. If a persons furniture is so important, don't have a cat. There really are other ways to take care of the problem besides mutilating an animal. JMO Dottie

Agree on the declawing thing. When Mushroom was a kitten, she would climb the curtains and sleep on the rod until someone would come home from work to get her down. We finally decided to have her declawed. My brother-in-law did the surgery, so she had a lot of special attention after that. I didn't think anything about it until I read about surgery itself. It is VERY painful - worse than having nail tips pulled off - OUCH!. At the time she wouldn't leave the front door even if I left her there all night - until she was in season, so I didn't worry much about the protection issue. She was a Siamese and LOUD!! Before she was spayed, my neighbors would complain for me not to let her out because she sounded like a newborn that had been left out, outside. I have hesitated to get another cat because of the clawing thing. If I do, I'm pretty sure I would - at least the front claws. So, at this point, I haven't decided - tough one because I really think I want another Siamese. In fact I know of one now -male. But I can't do the furniture/curtain clawing thing either.

6 months has long been the norm for neutering animals. Many are doing it much younger now. I've never heard of being advised to do it at 1 year. The risks and aggravations are too high, in my opinion, to wait that long. Behavioral, risk of pregnancy (even if there isn't an intact male in the house, an in-heat animal will go to all lengths to get outside and could become lost or impregnated or killed).

Please consider having the spaying done now. It'll be easier on your pets and on you.

Suzieque

We have a calico, complete with claws. We have trained her to not scratch anything in the house except an old pair of my husband's shoes. Give your kitten something to scratch and make it plain to her that this is HERS and she can scratch it all she wants, but nothing else. Declawing is not a good idea, especially when it is really not necessary.
Our cat was spayed at 7 months. We waited an extra month because she was a foundling and we needed to get her weight up before the surgery.
Bless you for the spaying--you care for your kitty!

Taigen, all ours have been done at 6 months, except Poppy he was neutered at 14 weeks by the breeder.

Declawing is a huge debate, mine have all been declawed and none have had issues with it.

My fema;e cat still has her claws and I keep them trimmed she has a cat tree and several cat posts The vet trimmed her nails in Dec and tonight I clipped the little needles at the end that grew back . I have a neighborhood cat that comes in to feed at the buffet and if I were to keep her in I'd trim her nails but since she mostly lives outside I'll leave them alone so she can protect herself

I also agree with the declawing but like many other things it's a matter of the owner's preference and I don't think any of us can tell someone else what they should do simply because we don't agree.I would suggest researching it thoroughly before making the decision.As others have said,there are other ways to keep her from scratching the furniture,but you have to be consistent.Start now trimming her nails so that she gets use to it then there will be no problem keeping them trimmed.
I don't understand the delay in spaying either.My vet always recommended 6 months and I know a lot of shelters do it even earlier.I can tell you,once they come in heat if they are not bred they will come in again and again,like every 3 or 4 weeks.Why take the chance of the cat getting out and getting bred,or even more annoying,going through the howling and carrying on ever 3 or 4 weeks? I waited until my calico was almost 3 years old because she had never been outside and I didn't plan on her ever being outside,but her howling was driving me crazy!LOL

Unlike dogs, who come in heat twice a year, female cats come in heat repeatedly, as Lilliepad said. I have heard that it isn't good to neuter male cats too early because it may cause their urethras to be too narrow...and they will be prone to more cystitis.

Some vets won't do de-clawing. I've never had a cat de-clawed, but once I got a beautiful Persian that someone had abandoned at an apartment complex. Someone there tried to adopt him, but he wouldn't use a litter box, so they asked me to take him. He was a purebred and had been neutered also, but wouldn't use a litter box. I've been told that sometimes cats that are declawed won't use a litter box. He was an outside cat, and I had him for many years.

The 4 kittens I am taking to be spayed in a couple of weeks will just be 6 mo. They were born just before Hurricane Ike...so that would be early September. I've already had their mother spayed a couple of weeks ago.

My 3 cats all all de-clawed. They wouldn't use the kitty scratchers.....had 3 different kinds, (all at once) none of them interested them. But the back of the chairs and the sheers did.

To look at them.....shortly after getting done and now, there's no awkwardness or clumsiness or anything being amputated.

Bud still jumps on top of the frig and the dresser mirror and my bookcase with ease. They run around and chase each other. I honestly can't say it impedes their ability to function normally.