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As cat parents, we want the best for our cats.
I know for me, I want Bella and Boba to live the best life possible (they are only slightly spoiled lol). I am constantly worrying about them – are they eating enough? Are they eating the right things? Are they drinking enough water? Are they getting enough enrichment? I can’t imagine what is like having actual human children!
As busy adults, it can be challenging to make sure that cats have the very best on top of everything else going on. That is why I have worked hard to find products that will not only save time and money, but also enhance the life of my cats.
Through a lot of trial and error over the years (and way too much money spent) I have narrowed the list down to the key things that I absolutely cannot live without as a pet parent. I have broken these up into two categories: Health and Enrichment
🐈 Health
- Stainless Steel Litter Box
- The first item on the list is a stainless steel litter box. Yes, stainless steel litter boxes are more expensive than the traditional plastic litter boxes, but that is for good reason. For starters, you will have to replace them less often. Stainless steel doesn’t scratch as easily as plastic does. Scratches hold onto litter and waste, making it harder to clean and harboring bacteria. Before switching from plastic litter boxes, I noticed that after a while, I could not get the litter boxes fully cleaned. They looked stained and dingy, and no matter what I tried, I could not get the smell out. My house would start to smell even after fresh litter and deep cleaning the box with dish soap and vinegar. That leads into the second point that stainless steel boxes are significantly easier to clean. Because there are no scratches to trap anything, the waste just slides right off. I still scrub down the litter boxes on a regular basis, but simply spraying it off with water does the trick. Gone are the days of my house smelling like dirty litter!
- Automatic Cat Feeders
- I never thought I would use an automatic feeder for my cat’s food, but it has honestly been a game changer. I feed my cats a combination of wet food and dry food, and having one of those steps automated makes life a lot easier. Bella and Boba both love to eat (both are a bit on the chonky side, but don’t tell them🤫) and will eat when they are bored, so free feeding is not an option for them. I am also transitioning them from a diet of primarily dry food to a diet primarily of wet food. So they get a serving of wet food in the mornings and evenings and then dry food mid-day. However, with working long, non-traditional hours (athletics), it is challenging to make sure they get their lunch. Having a feeder set up to go off automatically at a specified time has made things so much easier. I recently upgraded to this feeder and I can honestly say that I love it. Not only are there split reservoirs so both cats can be fed out of the same feeder, which simplifies things immensely (I got two individual feeders originally, and it was challenging to program them to go off at the same time- one would get delayed and leave one cat wondering where her food was), but it can be controlled and monitored fully with an app. I can monitor food levels, make sure the feeder is deploying food at the right time, adjust the serving size, and I can manually select the feeder to give a serving, which has been great on the days that I am working late and will be not be home at their dinner time. This is also great for when we go out of town. Although we have someone who cat sits and checks in on them regularly, it gives us peace of mind to know that the cats will still be fed in case something were to happen. The bowls are stainless steel and easily pop in and out. I ordered more bowls off Amazon and swap them out every night. I just throw the dirty bowls in the dishwasher, which makes cleaning ✨chef’s kiss✨. The food reservoir also holds enough food to last us about 2.5 weeks, this is depending of course on the serving size and frequency that you use yours.
- Water Fountain
- Much like automatic feeder, this cat fountain has made monitoring my cats’ health so much easier. Cats don’t love to drink water, but not getting enough water in their diet can lead to complications like urinary infections and blockages. Cats also prefer water when it is running (which is why many cats like drinking out of running faucets), so adding a water fountain into your home is a great way to encourage them to drink more water. There are many different fountains out there, but so far this has been my favorite. Like the automatic feeder, this one is controlled by an app. In the app, I can see the water level, the filter status, and a cleaning schedule. It also detects when a cat is drinking out of the fountain and sends me a notification of what time my cat drank water and how much. My only complaint here is that, with being a two cat household, it does not tell me which cat drank the water at each time. There is no way for the fountain to differentiate this, and if I really wanted to know, I could come up with options (like setting up a motion detection camera). But generally, I like that the fountain tracks this, and I am able to look back in the log and see the drinking habits of my cats, and I will be able to tell if anything deviates from this pattern which may be a cause for concern. Additionally, this fountain is much easier to clean than the other fountains I have tried out (one literally grew a green fungi in the filter, even though I deep cleaned it every couple days). This one notifies me when the filter needs to be changed, and the parts are easy to disassemble and put back together. It literally takes me about 5 minutes to thoroughly clean it. Highly recommend.
- Slow Feeder Bowls
- Like I mentioned above, both Boba and Bella LOVE food! However, their eating habits are vastly different. Bella is a grazer. She’ll identify her food bowl in the morning, take a couple bites, go look out the window, chirp at some birds, come back for a couple more bites, lay in a sunbeam, eat a few more bites, make some biscuits, eat some more… all day. Not a care in the world. Boba scarfs down her food like it’s her last meal- and then eats Bella’s. For some backstory, Boba came from a foster home where there were 14 other cats and 4 dogs (mix of fosters and residents, the foster got stuck with 3 litters at the same time). I’m sure there was competition for food. I am so grateful that Boba is not aggressive when it comes to food, she definitely knows Bella is the boss and respects her space, but I’m sure she’s been under the mentality that if she does not eat as much as she can when she can, she isn’t going to get food. She has slowly been getting better since we adopted her, but sometimes she eats too quickly, which then results in her throwing up. She use to throw up at least 3 times per week due to eating too fast. Now, if you have never cleaned wet food vomit out of the UNDERSIDE of a reclining chair (which was closed by the way, I don’t even know how she wedged herself under there, she’s 12lbs)…then trust me, you just don’t ever want to experience that. I ordered these slow feeders and they have honestly made such a difference. I like these ones specifically because they are wide and flat (helping with whisker fatigue) and the ridges (the ones I got are fish!🐟) are pretty large, which help displace the wet food. This really helps slow down her eating, and she is vomiting a lot less now (once every couple weeks). They are also dishwasher safe, which again, we love.
🐈 Enrichment
- Cat Tower
- This is pretty self explanatory. Cats love to climb and hunt, and they love a change of environment. Having opportunities available for them to be able to change their vantage point, climb, and scratch safely is important not only for their physical health, but their mental health as well. A bored cat is a destructive cat. This cat tree is 7ft tall, giving the cats plenty of space to climb and stretch and scratch. In our house, some of the branches are level with the windows, which the cats absolutely love. They get to sit at eye level to the trees and watch all of the birds and squirrels. Boba especially loves the hammock and the tunnel. Bella likes scratching on the legs. A worthwhile purchase to see the cats so happy.
- Puzzle Toys
- You’ll get sick of hearing this, but again, a bored cat is a destructive cat. One super easy way to keep your cats mentally stimulated through the use of puzzle toys. We have two (this and this) that we rotate through. This is great for those work from home meetings when you don’t want the cats to be disruptive. I sprinkle their dry food into all the hole in the puzzles, and the cats go to town. Helps that they are food motivated! They’ll spend 20-30 minutes working on getting all the food out, and then they spend the rest of the afternoon napping! I’ll give these to the cats when I leave for work every day, and I can honestly say they look forward to them.
If I had to start over with my cat products, or if I were a first time cat parent, these are the items that I would purchase first. I had never owned cats before and had no idea where to start. I put a lot of time and money into researching the best items for my cats. I can honestly say that these all have enhanced my life and my cats’ life in more than one way, and I spend less time worrying about their health and happiness. That is the best feeling! If this list helps one cat parent make their life a little easier, then I have done my job! How about you? What are your cat non-negotiables? Any items you can’t live without? Leave them below in the comments!