All my cats ever want to do is sit by the pool, watch tv, or gossip on the patio.... (PS No, I don't dress up my cats, I found the sunbathing picture on the net but I thought it was the cutest thing)

Cant you love both? Actually cats have edged out dogs in recent years as being the most popular pet in the USA - as people are tending now to live in more urban environments. I love cats their beauty and personalities - would love to have alarge dog like I grew up with but that would not work where Im living now.

Several years ago, my brother had a pixie bobcat living in the small patch of woods at the edge of his property. I saw it once. Maybe size of a big house-cat, kinda stocky. It was obviously feral but didn't disappear as soon as a human came into view. I was always a LARGE breed dog person until I lost the last ne. Then I got adopted at the animal shelter by a kitten and have been being trained on cat ever since. I'm thoroughly convinced that a house cat is NEVER completely domesticated to the same extent of a typical dog. If you accidentally step on your dog's paw/tail... there will be maybe a little yelp and then the DOG will apologize over and over again. Accidently step on you cat and you get the stink-eye for a LONG time... she KNOWS you did that on purpose!

My rule has always been to have one more litter boxes than cats. Yes, when I had 10 cats I had 11 litter boxes. I also scooped twice a day every day. Kept problems from starting. (I am not the crazy cat lady, I worked in the Humane Industry and acquired sick, injured or homeless cats that probably wouldn't get adopted.) Cat colors are colors, not personalities. I have seen spit fire mean cats in every color and sweet, loving cats in every color. BTW - about 80% of Orange Tabbies are male, 20% female. Cat color is carried through the X chromosome. Because a female cat has two X chromosomes, they need the Orange color to come from both their mother and father; because a male cat has an X and a Y chromosome, they need only get the orange chromosome from their mom. Calicos/Orange and Black tortoiseshell are almost always female and male's will be sterile. To be Orange and Black a female cat (two X Chomosomes) gets the orange color from one parent and the black color from the other parent. For a Male to be orange and black it needs to have an extra X chromosome YXX instead of YX. Siamese - pointed colors are very interesting. The cat is actually the color of their points, but they have a gene that suppresses melanin production at 101 degrees (body temperature of a cat) Their extremities are cooler and so they get color only on the ears, face, tail and lower legs. If I were looking for a cat for a kid and did not want to get a kitten I would watch next door - seems that someone is always looking for homes for cats on next door. At the shelter we don't get to see how the cats will behave in a home, so we don't actually know if the cat will consistently use a litter box. If you or I take a cat home and find it doesn't use the litter box all the time we can take it back to the shelter. A kid is going to be heart broken if they get a cat and have to give it back. The other option is to have the cat stay at your mom's house or a siblings house for a few days to test how well it uses the litter box. While it is at the temporary home take it to the vet and have it tested for Feline Leukemia and FIV. This will protect your daughter from getting too attached in case something goes wrong. With multi cat households usually only one of the females will vie for your attention. In the wild there is one male cat and lots of females, but one female that is the matriarch. The matriarch is the one that gets all of the attention. When I would have a matriarch that passed away, another female that used to sit off on the sidelines would become the new matriarch and suddenly become my lap cat. My husband was apparently the lesser human - while the matriarch would take my lap as their home, two or three could hang out on my husbands lap and recliner at the same time and not get hissed at. The boys didn't seem to have this issue, but I only brought boys in that had been neutered early in life. I had a few when I first started in the industry that were not neutered early and sprayed - had to build an outdoor cattery attached to my garage for them. They did not get to live in the house if they sprayed.