If it's with its mom and it's a newborn kitten, I would encourage you not to—at least not to do a lot of handling. Because those first hours and days are a time where they bond. The problem would be that mom could decide that the kitten doesn't smell like her, or she doesn't recognize it if your scent or smell is on it, and so she may reject it. That would be one concern. And the other would be just safe handling. They're like babies. Be careful that you're not rough or mishandling them so that they could be injured or hurt.

Yes, that's very important. And you want to try to do that the least confrontational way. One thing we talk about is: is it possible to do that in a neutral setting? But that might not be possible if you have cats or dogs at your home, and your kittens come into your home. But you might want to think about doing it in an area of the house that's not the other pet's favorite chair, or favorite sleeping area, or around their food. Don't do it around those things that they might be a little more territorial of. And then you want to do it safely by making sure that both of them are not at risk of hurting each other.

You might want to do that with a cat, for instance, in a carrier setting. You can leave the kitten in its carrier. You could even put your other cat in another carrier. Let them see the other one without necessarily being able to touch or interact for the first meeting. And then, of course, gradually increase that distance or decrease the distance. So, you increase the face-to-face time. And then let them touch each other, smell each other. I would keep the dog on a leash. And that way you have some control of the situation if they decide they don't like each other at the first meeting.

If you were to find a kitten, depending on the age, you would want to, of course, look around and see. Is it possible the mother cat could have been scared and ran off and is coming back for the kitten? You may want to avoid touching the kitten initially and just observe the area at a distance. Observe the kitten and the area at a distance. If the kitten's in a safe place that it's not going to get hurt, come back and check on it a few hours later. The other thing I would think about is if the kitten is very vocal and acting very hungry. Then maybe it would be abandoned or orphaned versus if the mom had just left it, it might not be looking like that.

I don't know if that is possible entirely, but things to think about would be: is there something that you would not want them to be on or potentially scratch? And if so, put it away. Pick your battles. If there's something that's Mom’s or Grandma's favorite chair that you've inherited, maybe tuck that away for the kitten season. And then also you want to think about safety, so you want to look around at your house for plants. We think about that. Cats are curious, and they investigate. Some of the things that just come to mind would be plants and any candles. You want to be careful not to have candles that are lit. Cats are curious, and kittens are more curious, and so they can get into those things. You want to think about surfaces that they might be able to get up on and climb and then be more apt to be hurt or injured.

When you decorate, think about it like having a baby. I believe until ours were maybe four, we didn’t decorate a lot of things. Or with the Christmas tree, we decorated from here up and not from here down. So, things like that you want to consider. Think about if you were the kitten and how fun those things would look to play with, and they might not be something you would want them to play with.

Yes, I believe so. And in some ways, some people think that kittens or cats take less time than dogs or puppies. And I would agree with that to some degree. Again, depending on if they're indoor, indoor/outdoor, we don't necessarily walk our cats to use the bathroom. And so there's that house training aspect. It's a bit different. They use the litter box, but you do have to frequently invest in cleaning the litter box because we don't want to develop bad habits for our cats or kittens.

And then just remembering the time. Even though they may have lots of toys in the house and have been there all day, they're probably sleeping most of their day while you're at work. So when you get home, they're ready to play. Just make sure you set aside time, that one-on-one interaction so that you can bond with them and also get out some of that energy before you're ready to go to sleep.

When you're looking at a kitten, outwardly, you can look for any upper respiratory signs. As far as any problems or concerns, you can check the ears, check the fur to see if there are any bit black things that wouldn't be normal or good. And then you also want to look at behavior. Are they interactive? Are they curious? That's usually a good sign. Or are they petrified and nervous? Do they hiss and spit at you and are scared when you come towards them? Those would be good things to look for.