What type of kitten is best for a little girl?

golok

golok

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My daughter has got this fascination with cats and kittens.

There are quite a number of species of these furry ones out there.

What species of feline creatures are most suitable for little girls? Not forgetting, easy to maintain and terribly house-friendly.

I don't want a cat that grows up to be as big as a dog!
 
Get a short hair. They don't barf up the hairballs so much and are easier to care for. Availability is an issue, but the Abyssinians are fun breed of cat.

To avoid the monster size cats, don't get a Maine Coon.

Phil
 
My daughter says you should let your daughter pick out her kitty, lol. Our daughter got to pick hers out and luckily it was a little female. Females tend to be more family and home oriented than males do and don't get near as big. Have them fixed at an early age (before they mature) and the Toms won't come calling.
 
Domestic Shorthairs You might want to keeps the claws clipped too. Kittens' claws are VERY sharp and pointy.
 
Generic Domestic Shorthair! No Bread - Go to your local shelter, and let your daughter pick one out. Even if she happens to pick a Maine Coon Kitten (which is about biggest housecat there is), it'll only get to about 20-25lbs
 
Avoid anything Persian. Cats should be free to a good home. All long hairs require quite a bit of care. Persians are pretty but a real PITA to keep up. A free, short to mid length haired, female, neutered and vacinated is a nice pet. The claws are wicked, but help the cat with self defence and mouse torturing. Declawing a cat is the same as deknifeing a knifnut, ought to be a crime!
 
Greetings from the Great State of Montana !!!

My kids have short hair cats. When my Chocolate Lab was a puppy he used to carry one of the kittens ( my daughters kitten...India )around withthe kittens head in his mouth. He was very gentle ( good thing since he is a great duck and pheasant dog ), it was funny to look at and the kitten always looked wet and pissed off when my pup let her go even though it freaked my daughter out.
 
This is a little bit off thread but segues nicely into a survival thread. For some weird reason Australia is the only continent where the domestic cat has made a succesfull transition into the wild and has become a domonant feral predator (this is probably because of the lack of predatory competition).

Even the most unspeakably harsh parts of our central deserts will have feral cats running around. They have been here so long that some aboriginal tribes now accept them as part of the natural landscape and even have a 'dreaming*' for them. They also hunt and eat them.

They are actualy quite easy to hunt because once they are flushed out they tire quite quickly. So the locals just chase them to a standstill then whack them on the head with a stick.

* a dreaming is the spirit sory of the animal. Everything - even rocks and trees has a dreaming in aboriginal lore.
 
Thousands of unwanted puppies and kittens are killed because nobody wants them. Please go to your nearest animal shelter and let your little girl pick out the kitten she wants. You will be saving the live of an animal and your daughter will find a friend for life: Trust her - she will pick the right one.
 
And have it spayed/neutered. Both genders mellow with this surgery.
It's also responsible ownership.

Phil
 
We have 2 cats now because I have two daughters. We have a Maine Coon Male and a little black and white female. Both are fixed. The Maine Coons are wonderful for their soft natures even though they grow larger. My Maine Coon is smaller than average. We went to an animal shelter and a place which only takes cats. THere was such red tape involved, and they were sooooooo painful, that I told them what they could do with their cats!!!! LOL. They made me feel like they were doing me a favour!!! I decided to speak to breeders who put me on to people who were giving up the breeding game and were giving their cats away for nothing. The small female was a stray from the area which adopted us. :D

I NEVER used to like cats, well, not whole anyway.:p , until I got these two. I was a large dog man only. These two cats have changed my mind about cats.
 
Greetings all

Ya know..I like cats..but I really don't think I could eat a whole one.

Ok that was sick..but, in a survival situation "Plate Fright" will kill you
 
I'd vote for a stuffed one.

No chance of turning around on the couch (or looking up while messing with the Mrs. on the floor) to a cat's a$$ in your face
No chance of dead rodent offerings
No chance of cat box odor
No expenses (food, litter, toys, etc.)
No claw marks going up your pantleg or arms

My favorite thing to do at peoples houses who have cats is to walk into the kitchen and hit the can opener. Talk about frustration on the cat's part.

It is not that I don't like cats, just can't have them because of allergies. And I just gotta mess with them. They think they rule, so I just unseat them for a bit...
 
Yeah, if you want a small one definately don't get a Maine Coon cat, ours weighs in at 15 lbs last i checked.
 
There's a 90 pound Maine Coon in my town. Huge cat. While it's a bit overweight, it's a BIG cat.

Phil
 
phatch, is there seriously a 90 pound maine coon in your neighborhood!
:eek: :eek:

Jeff

P.S. Why the hell is this thread in Wilderness & Survival:confused:
 
I've not seen it first hand. I saw it in the paper. They showed a pic of it in the guys lap. It was over 5 feet from nose to tail tip and overflowed him. I tried to search it in the paper's database for a link, but they only go back 6 months for free.

Phil
 
Originally posted by ajrand
Avoid anything Persian. Cats should be free to a good home. All long hairs require quite a bit of care. Persians are pretty but a real PITA to keep up. A free, short to mid length haired, female, neutered and vacinated is a nice pet. The claws are wicked, but help the cat with self defence and mouse torturing. Declawing a cat is the same as deknifeing a knifnut, ought to be a crime!
Click to expand...

I didn't mean declawing, just clipping them. I had a black and white(yeah, called Sylvester :) ) domestic shorthair. Male, not fixed, and the meanest cat on the block. He would go outside every night to fight with other cats...let's not talk about mating time! He also had a bad habit of scratching(may as well say cutting) you if he wasn't given food fast enough. Kittens claws are no joke. Your child will probably get scratched many times...or maybe my cat had a problem. :D
 
My recommendation would be to pick up a young stray cat at your local animal shelter. These cats are already acclimated to the local conditions. Where you live, large furry cats tend to be unhappy and may not always do well....too hot and humid. These big and/or furry guys come from cold climates and tend to do best there. I would imagine that your feral cats, like those in most of the tropics, tend to be small, gracile, and short haired, just the thing for the climate, though, most likely, they may be a bit more active than the "big fuzzies". Get 'em wormed, "de-flea'd", immunized, and "fixed" and you and your daughter should have an interesting friend for a long time.

One factor that has not been mentioned is color. In my experience, one good indicator of a cat's temperament is its color. For example, black cats tend to act like black cats; i.e. mysterious and trouble looking for a place to happen. My favorite cats tend to be orange tabbys, mostly males; affectionate, relatively tolerant, and just assertive enough to be interesting and "keep the resident monkeys (us) in their place".
 
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