Adopting a new family member soon and looking for advice/suggestions!!!

[jaam]

I am so ridiculously excited about this!  But I've decided that I'm finally ready to adopt a cat to our household. I want to make sure I cover all my bases though and it's been a while since I've had a cat (and last time I didn't have kids!) so I have some concerns and questions. 

First, here's my plan: I'll get a big break from school in December so I think we'll try and bring our new kitty home right before then so we can be home with it as much as possible in the beginning. I have a 7 year old and a 4 year old. My boy can be very gentle but he's also, well, a rough-and-tumble little boy. We do want a kitten vs. an adult, and the shelter here has a lot of older kittens (5-8 months) so I think that's the age group we'll choose from. We rent and are only allowed one pet, so adopting a pair is out of the question, as heartbreaking as that is, as many of the kittens there are with siblings.

I'd love input on a few issues I'm worried about:

-indoor only vs. outdoor sometimes?

-cat hair in my food... cat hair everywhere! (I know that's partially unavoidable, but the idea does bother me a bit)

-declaw the cat?

-male vs. female... we kind of want a boy, but I have heard that sometimes they "spray" even after being neutered and no amount of training/deterring changes that.

-*and the big one*... the litterbox and its smell: we live in a tiny tiny tiny house with NO extra closet/storage/garage/basement space for this. So no matter where it ends up, it will be in a main living area. And with how small our whole house is I am freaking out about the place smelling like one giant litterbox.  I hate walking into someone's house that smells like that, (even big houses) and they live with it so they don't even notice it, and the whole time I'm there I want to throw up. 

-is there anything else I should be thinking about?

TIA for all your help!

[starrlamia]

most rescues will require you to agree to keep the cat indoors, I mostly agree with this, it is safer for the cat.

brush the cat! lol

declawing is cruel and even outlawed in some areas, the procedure involves cutting off the toe to the first knuckle. It is extremely painful and deprives the cat of its best defenses. Your best bet is to train your cat to scratch appropriate things, get lots of scratching posts.

boys can spray after being neutered but usually only do so outdoors, my cat doesnt spray at all.

i keep my litter box in the bathroom when in an apartment, i would get really good clumping cat litter and scoop it several times a day, I bought a litter locker (like a diaper genie), so you just scoop it into there and empty it out every so often.

Make sure there are areas of your home where the cat can get away from the kids, either a room they are allowed in or areas they can jump on so they are not getting overly harassed.

[jaam]

Ah yes, a place for the cat to retreat.  Also, plants! I have houseplants that I may need to find new homes for if they're not ok for kitties, right? Will google a list of plants that aren't cat-friendly.

I do plan on scooping litter a couple times a day at least, I wish there was room in my bathroom for a litterbox, but there is barely room for one person to stand and open the door! And then we'd all have to remember to leave the door open so the cat would have access, which I don't think would work. I'll come up with something I'm sure. 

I picked up some pamphlets at the local shelter yesterday and read about declawing... yikes! Not what I thought it was at all, so we wont' be doing that. They don't require but do recommend that you keep the cat indoor only, which is the way I'm leaning anyway.

Dd has already volunteered to be the "daily kitty brusher".... so that's a good start :) And we will probably be bringing home a short-haired cat ;)

[starrlamia]

i would look up the type of plants you have and see if they are dangerous to kitties. The other spot we put a box was our front hall closet, you would never have known it was there because it was kept super clean.

as for outside, you can always put your kitty on a harness and take him for walks!