II 



CARE AND MANAGEMENT 



THOSE who have had a long experience with cats or kittens 

 know how impossible it is to lay down a hard-and-fast rule 

 regarding their feeding and management. As with human 

 beings so it is with cats. They have their likes and dislikes, 

 their dispositions vary, and their constitutions are totally 

 different. If we wish our pets to thrive we must study them 

 individually, not collectively. There is a saying that "what 

 is one man's meat is another man's poison," and I have known 

 some kittens to grow fat and look well on food on which 

 others have dwindled away. 



It is a mistake for a novice to start with a large number of 

 cats, for failure is sure to follow. Two good females is 

 enough to begin with, and these would probably be indoor 

 pets. 



Kittens are no trouble to " settle down," but with grown 

 cats it is very different, and it is well to find out from pussy's 

 late owner whether she has been a house pet or cattery cat, 

 as well as her favourite diet, and whether she had been used 

 to sawdust or earth in her sanitary-pan. Her happiness on 

 entering a new home depends greatly on her own disposition. 

 Some cats do not seem to mind a change of abode and 

 ownership in the least, and are most affectionate and 

 demonstrative on being liberated from the basket. They 

 will eat anything that is placed before them. Unhappily 

 there are others that, as soon as they find themselves in a 

 strange place, are frightened and miserable, and will rush 

 into the farthest and darkest corner of the room under a 



