Organizing for Better Pet 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: 

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

There are various supplies you could use to help you take better care of your cat at any stage of life or any activity. See Med/Supplement tab to learn about those items.

1) A non slip easy to clean and roll up to put away silicone counter mat helps you hold your cat in place while giving medications. The mat doesn't move and the cat doesn't slip and slide out from under you.

2) Plastic syringes in 3ml and 10ml help you safely hand feed and hand water your cat.

3) Medication syringes .50ml and 1ml purchased by the box helps you to always have medication syringes on hand because they easily can break or the markings can easily wear off. You will definitely need a plastic 3 ml measuring syringe which you can also 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.  

4) Trays to use to be organized (link is one example)-various sizes of various materials from various stores-contains medications, supplies, food for on the counter, in the cupboard, and in the refrigerator for ease of convenience and control so that things do not take up a lot of space or fall over, get lost, make a mess.

5) A pill cutter and pill sorter-various types can be found at the local pharmacy/store/online store. The more meds that are given, the more often the meds are given, will require a pill sorter that has multiple times a day for each day of the week. 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.

6) Raised food bowls make it easier for sick cats, senior cats to eat. Bending over is easy but when they have CKD or other diseases, bending over can cause nauseousness. Raising the bowl helps to prevent or ease this. You can use a pet feeder or a non breakable low cake stand, bricks, books, etc. anything that can hold up a food bowl (maybe cover the items to protect it from water and wet food.)

7) Those silicone mats can also hold food and water bowls, go under those raised bowls; or you can use decorative melamine trays. 

8) Heated cat beds-self heating or electrical-provide warmth for sick cats, cats that need comfort for health issues, senior cats, cats with arthritis, etc. There are also regular thick mats, fluffy beds, and ones cats can climb into and hide. All sorts from all stores made of all types of materials in all sorts of colors and patterns.