Organizing For Better Cat Care

Being Organized for Better Cat Care

Being organized for cat care will help you take better care of your cat.  It will relieve you of any stress and anxiety, and will save time as you will be able to quickly gather what you need.  I find trays and boxes for counters, cupboards, and the refrigerator to be useful.   The better organized you are, the more you do in advance at the beginning or end of the day, the more smoothly the time goes when it comes to dispensing meds or doing procedures.

How to be better organized? It depends on what you must organize for the cat.  Cans or boxes and bags of food; many bottles of meds and supplies; grooming supplies like brushes; basic supplies such as collars, leashes, toys, can all go into containers that fit the items and fit where you want to store them.  Anything that can be contained means that it's one less thing bouncing around a cupboard or shelf, taking up space, and being difficult to find or to collect when needed.  Trays or boxes can be grabbed and pulled out easily with the needed item easy to reach.  There are trays that are made to be used in cutlery drawers and in cupboards; boxes and trays for closets; all sorts of things are available in all sorts of materials which you can use to be organize.

Does your cat take meds or supplements that are refrigerated?  Use  an organizing tray that sits on the shelf in the frig to hold these together.  This way, they don't bounce around in the frig, fall over, and take up room, and are easy to find and easy to remove with one hand.  A tray keeps the items from getting knocked over; from being misplaced; or from being damaged. 

You can do the same for the meds which sit on the counter or go in a cupboard.   I use one long organizing tray in the cupboard to hold the meds and the pill splitter.  I use a tray on the counter to hold syringes  used for water, and syringes used for the other cats' liquid med.  There are boxes in the cupboard that holds larger bottles of supplements such as COQ10.  Other cupboards hold stackable trays full of various items we need for the cats: brushes, wipes, nail clippers, etc.

Another organizing tool is to once a week, prepare an entire week's medications.  We use a seven day, four times a day, pill holder.  It takes me about 25 minutes to prepare a week's worth of medications but it saves time in the morning when I can grab the container and give Myrna her medications immediately. And it means I'm not spending every night preparing meds for the next day.  We have busy lives and not having to prepare the meds each day just seems to make the evenings easier.  We have enough to do in the evenings after Myrna needs meds three times as well as the cats (and we have seven) need to be fed. 

Items You May Need On Hand for Cat Care

The more items you have on hand, the better prepared you are for anything.  Aside from bandages and a good first aid kit or cat health book, these are the basics I recommend: 

A pill splitter is a must for cutting up medications.  You need one that holds a pill in place as you bring down the lid that holds the blade which cleanly cuts the pill. Pill cutters help you cut more accurately.

Pill boxes are very handy and are easy to find at the pharmacy. You can get single ones or week long containers. 

You will definitely need a plastic 3 ml measuring syringe which you can get from the vet.  This helps to dispense water by mouth which you will need to do if your cat ever has a UTI and needs more water.  Or if you need to dispense pills, squirting water into the mouth helps the cat swallow the pill.  To dispense water by mouth, place the tip of the syringe in the side of the cat's mouth and press as gently as possible to squirt a bit of water at a time into the mouth.  

An eye dropper, a normal size one especially with a bent tip, also helps to dispense water.  

This is a link to a blog post which shows photos of the items we use to organize Myrna's items.

Make a list of everything you need to buy, order, or have refilled-food, supplements, meds, syringes, etc.  for your cat.  Decide and list when during the month you need to purchase them. Write down Week 1, Week2, etc.  and then list which week you need to get what.  Then mark off each item as you get it.  Rewrite the item on the list if it turns out you need an item sooner or later.  Then, when the month is over, you can take the list and make a new one for the following month.  I found this useful as Myrna's needs progressed and as I was also busy with the other cats' needs.