Home Care Considerations When You Own an Outdoor Cat

While it’s best to keep your cat indoors, semi-adopted strays, community cats, and sometimes housing restrictions just don’t make this possible for every situation. When you have an outdoor cat it doesn’t mean you’re free of home maintenance concerns.

Here are a few factors to be aware of when you have an outdoor cat living on your property.

Keep Nontoxic Plants

Your cat will likely want to hide among and urinate on the plants around your home.

This is why it is important to have plants that are generally safe with cats.

However, certain plants are highly toxic to cats and should be removed from your property.

The last thing you want is for your cat to eat a poisonous plant and die unnecessarily.

Weed Killer

Another danger around your home to you and your cat could be the kind of weed killer you are spraying outside your home.

While it is true you want your grounds to be weed-free, you do not want to risk your cat getting sick from exposure to the type of weed killer you have been using.

This is why you may want to check out other, less toxic options for keeping your weeds at bay.

Cats Can Do Roof Damage

A cat can get a bird’s eye view of what is going on from the roof of your home. In fact, some cats will even use your roof for their toilet and scratch up roofing tiles.

It is best to keep your cat off your roof so that it cannot do any significant damage.

Otherwise, you may find yourself contacting a roofing company to have them come out and make expensive repairs to your roof.

Keep up With Changing Your Cat’s Litter

Although your cat lives outside, you will still want to provide your cat with a litter box. You should also clean the litter box on a regular basis.

This will help to manage where your cat prefers to use the bathroom.

It will also help to keep other animals from coming around if your cat’s waste is dealt with in a proper manner.

It is best to use a litter box that is not covered. This ensures that smells inside the litter box do not drive your cat to start going elsewhere.

In the end, keeping a cat indoors is the best option for their health and safety.

When this isn’t possible, however, it’s important to consider the impact that your property has on them and vice versa.

Take the time to evaluate your home and yard to ensure that you are prepared for the responsibilities that come with an outdoor cat.