Home Safety

Home safety for cats is mostly about removing the handful of things that cause serious harm and accepting that some battles are not worth winning. Lilies are the plant to know by name: even a small amount of pollen or a leaf from a true lily can cause kidney failure in a cat, so a vase of flowers is a genuine hazard rather than a decorative one. Other common plants — certain sago palms, oleander, tulip bulbs, azaleas — vary in how dangerous they are, but anything you cannot identify is best kept out of reach. The same goes for human medications, a frequent cause of poisoning because pills dropped on the floor are found quickly.

Food emergencies have a short list of the truly urgent. Chocolate, onions, garlic, alcohol, xylitol-sweetened gum or peanut butter, and grapes or raisins warrant a call to a vet or a pet poison line rather than a wait for symptoms, because with several of these a cat can look fine for hours before getting worse. Have the packaging to hand so you can describe the amount and the concentration.

Cat-proofing the rest of the house is more mundane: blind cords looped out of reach, open windows fitted with screens, washing machine and dryer doors checked before closing, and small toys, hair ties and sewing thread put away, since linear objects cause serious intestinal damage when swallowed. Safe toys are the simple ones — balls, wand toys with feathers or fabric, puzzle feeders — with no loose eyes, bells or strings that can be pulled off. On indoors versus outdoors, the balance of risk is clear: indoor cats live longer and face far fewer cars, fights and diseases, and an enclosed catio or a harness walk can satisfy the outdoor urge with the dangers removed.