I fretted a lot about cat food at first so I thought it might be useful to show what's in my food cupboard currently. With Mali I always just bought what she liked, as with senior cats the main thing is ensuring that they DO eat. With Opal and Mica though, I wanted to avoid the usual supermarket brands. Knowing that the majority is owed by confectionery corporations is generally enough to know it's not the best cat food available. A common misconception with cat food is when the label says it contains 4% meat. What this means is that it it contains at least 4% of the meat advertised, so it's 4% chicken, beef or lamb for example. The rest will be made up of other meats, but it may also contain unnecessary fillers like grains. I'm no expert, so when I'm choosing a new cat food, I check the ingredients and avoid any that have sugar listed. There is no reason whatsoever for cat food to include sugar. It's just going to wreck their teeth and lead to weight gain. When...

I recently bought a  Diogenes Scratching Barrel  from Zooplus. Currently it's in the sale and you can get an additional 5% discount if you buy the grey or beige version. I buy most of my cat food from Zooplus so I've paid a one off fee to get 3% off on all my orders, and also remembered to login to my ancient TopCashback account to get some money back (a mere 36p it turned out, but I'm sure it will add up given the amount of money I spend on Zooplus!) I've seen a few of these lately in people's catios and thought they would be a nice alternative to the standard cat tree for cats who like hiding. We already have two indoor cat trees though (one each, they're spoilt) and an outdoor one. We also have a distinct lack of free space in the house. Since I blogged about the stuff we keep in the catio it forced me to think about what the cats actually like and use. Having seen our poor neighbour cat crying on his balcony to get in at 6am, I took their cat den out and put...

Now that summer is here I thought it was time to add some plants to the catio. Working out what plants are safe for your pets is a minefield, especially as so many websites say conflicting things. The reality is that even non-toxic plants can cause issues if they're eaten in large quantities. I've learned that I can't have spider plants in the house, because Mica will eat them. I briefly considered letting him have one in the catio as part of a salad bar, but they like warmth and you don't get much of that in the UK. Plus it's an expensive business replacing plants your cat can and will kill off in seconds. So, I've played it simple. We've now got regular catnip, lemon catnip, cat mint and valerian. The valerian got dug out of the planter pretty much immediately so that's been removed from the catio until it roots in a bit more. Thus far, Opal has been enjoying a sniff of everything, and Mica's shown no interest whatsoever. I still think it's wor...