50 Things Every Cat Owner Wishes They Had Bought Years Ago

This list comes straight from the source: hundreds of cat owners answering some version of “what do you wish you’d bought sooner?” Everything here either came up over and over in those threads or has been tested on our own two at home, and we left in the honest pushback too, because there’s always at least one cat who hates the new thing on principle. That’s cats for you. You buy it and let them be the judge.

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Litter and cleanup (the unglamorous champions)

1. A Litter Genie or Diaper Pail. The single most repeated answer in every thread we read, usually in all caps.

LITTER GENIE. Always litter genie. I find that putting feces into your normal trash can immediately makes it reek, and I’m too lazy to go all the way outside to the dumpster multiple times a day. Litter genie does not stink if you keep it closed and change it at a reasonable rate.

— via Reddit.com

The point people made over and over is that it does as much for your trash situation as for the scooping itself. “You can get in the habit of doing it a lot more since there’s no need to make a run for the door right away,” as one put it. “It makes life easier for you and the cat.”

The frugal crowd’s tip is to keep the cartridge and refill it with cheaper bags. It’s not unanimous, though, because a few people call it a waste of money and space, which is fair enough if your trash can already sits six feet from the box.

We use this diaper genie for Thelma and Louis. We live in apartment and our trash is waaaaaay down at the end of the hall, so it’s easier to change the genie bag every few days then walk it down to the chute each time. We’ve been using it for two years with no smells!

2. The stainless steel option. It’s the number one pick in the “should have had this from the start” thread, and for good reason: plastic scratches, and the scratches are where the smell and bacteria live, while steel just wipes clean.

A metal litter box!!! A lot easier to clean than any plastic & doesn’t absorb bacteria the way plastic does.

— via Reddit.com

Fair warning from the thread, though: some cats don’t love cold metal on their paws, so keep the old box around while they adjust.

I really, really wish that this Breeze litter system we use had a stainless steel option. It’s plastic and it’s the one thing I dislike about it. Maybe they’ll listen to the comments and make one!

3. A metal scoop. For $5 you’ll save money in the long run, because plastic scoops have a tendency to warp, snap, and leave icky bits behind. A good metal one can last for years.

4. An automatic litter box, if the budget allows. Litter Robot devotees will tell you it’s a no-brainer (one said he bought the robot before he’d even been to the shelter to adopt his cat), but it’s a real investment, and the cheap imitations have a rough track record, so if you’re going to do it, get the name brand.

5. Plain clumping litter. The consensus pick is boring and unscented, and Dr. Elsey’s came up again and again. Scented litter is really for us, not them, and their noses are far more sensitive than ours anyway.

6. Some enzyme cleaner on hand. It’s the only thing that will do the job on a pet mess. We have a bottle of this Nature’s Miracle Stain Remover and Odor Eliminator around here for those monthly (sometimes weekly) occasions when someone has a second thought about their meal. You want it in the cupboard before the first incident, not after. We also use their foam litter box cleaner as part of our monthly cleaning process. We’ll spray disinfect the litter trays with a pet-safe wipe first, then spray this on to help release some of the built in odors (again, it’s plastic and we wish it was stainless steel) before washing it all with Dawn soap.

7. A mat for the box. Ten dollars to save your feet from stepping on gravel at 2 a.m., and most people say the honeycomb type is the one to get.

8. A cordless vacuum. It’s not for the cat, it’s for you, and between the fur and the tracked litter it’s the thing that turns cleaning up into something you’ll actually do instead of something you dread. While we’re on the topic of vaccums, I am also obsessed with our Roborock automatic vacuum and mop.

get a shark with anti hair wrap, preferably the pet variety, got one on black friday and i love it!

— via Reddit.com

9. Lint rollers. A lot of them. Stash them everywhere you’ll need them: one by the door, one in the car, one at work. They have saved my black pants on more than one occasion.

Feeding and water

10. A water fountain. One of the most upvoted answers, with a familiar problem you might encounter no matter how fancy of a fountain you buy.

Stainless steel water fountain. They both love it unlike the cat tree that cost three times as much and no one uses.

— via Reddit.com

We run two cordless ones and we know at one point the cats loved them, but lately Thelma is all about using this fish bowl we talk about in the fountain roundup, and ever since we swapped Louis’ dry food lunch for wet we don’t see him drinking from it as much.

11. An automatic feeder. This has saved us from waking up at the crack of dawn. Well, sort of. Louis’ breakfast will go off in it at 5, but he still likes to come up at 5:02 to let me know (and I say “me” because he lets my husband sleep) and encourage me to walk him over. Half the time he wins.

12. A microchip feeder, for multi-cat food politics. This is the nuclear option when one cat steals the other’s food, and it’s the reason Thelma can eat her allergy-safe food in peace: the bowl won’t open for Louis because it’s programmed to only open for Thelma’s microchip. We use this model. It’s expensive, but I think definitely worth it.

13. A puzzle feeder. Louis uses his almost daily and it’s the best boredom outlet we’ve found for him; Thelma has never once acknowledged its existence. Some cats are puzzle cats. Buy one before you buy five.

A puzzle/toy feeder for her dry food – she absolutely loves it and it gives her great stimulation and some play time. (But I slowly introduced it so that she can get used to it)

— via Reddit.com

14. Wide, whisker-friendly bowls. It’s not just a design choice: some cats hate their whiskers touching bowl walls and get whisker fatigue. If you can also get a bowl in stainless or ceramic, you can put it in the dishwasher and it’s a great way to prevent bacteria from forming in it or causing acne for cats.

15. Lickable treats. One of the most repeated answers in every thread:

If I run out of Churu she screams her obsessed little head off.

— via Reddit.com

A household note on this one: Thelma has a very specific skin allergy, and for some reason Churu can sometimes trigger it, so we rotate between ACANA and WholeHearted lickable tubes instead, and they equally love them.

16. Silvervine. This is the catnip alternative a lot of owners have never tried, and the threads are evangelical:

Silvervine. I can’t use catnip, because one of my cats is a mean drunk. Silvervine sticks/toys are a great, less intense, alternative.

— via Reddit.com

About a third of cats don’t react to catnip at all, but many of those respond to silvervine, and the tips in the threads are worth stealing:

My cats love silvervine! They react to it more than catnip. Tip: Purchase silvervine fruit, it is stronger but throw a couple pieces in a jar or freezerbag with all the cat’s toys and seal it. Let it marinate and it’s like the toys are brand new and irresistible to cats!

— via Reddit.com

17. Treats with nothing but one ingredient. The best treats tend to be ones with only one ingredient. Our cats go nuts over anything freeze dried: minnows, turkey liver, chicken breast. For some reason they crave the crunch, and they are healthy to boot.

Play and enrichment

18. Plastic spring toys. The runaway toy with hundreds of owner fans:

My cats absolutely love the plastic springs. They knock them all over the house before safely storing them in the floor vent 🙄or under the couch. I bought a box of 40 or 50 on Amazon for around $10.

— via Reddit.com

Our cats Thelma and Louis don’t go as crazy for these (they are currently obsessed with these balls, instead) but I think our cats are in the minority.

Plastic springs. I throw them for her, she fetches them, repeat until cat tired.

— via Reddit.com

19. A proper wand toy. The Cat Dancer and Da Bird families came up constantly as the best dollars-to-joy ratio in the entire cat economy. The wand is a great and classic option for interactive play between you and your cat, which is an important bonding time.

20. A fabric tunnel or playmat. In a house where toys get boring fast, the tubes are the exception: ours have loved theirs continuously since kittenhood, which no other toy can claim. Louis also uses his as a grooming-avoidance bunker, which we assume counts as enrichment.

We also at one point last year bought this SnugglyCat Ripple Rug Cat Activity Play Mat (pictured below), and they still love it.

I got my cats a tunnel, best money I’ve ever spent! They love chasing each other and hiding in there

— via Reddit.com

21. A kick stick. For the back-leg bunny-kicking your cat loves to do. Catnip or silvervine filled, this is the crowd’s pick for redirecting play aggression.

22. A laser pointer, used correctly. Thelma LOVES her some laser! She will run in circles for it. Louis sort of likes it, but not nearly to the extent Thelma does. Our vets’ advice is to end sessions with a physical toy the cat can actually catch, but so far when we try to do that Thelma just looks at us like we’re crazy and just wants the laser again. Still, we try.

23. Ping pong balls. This is your ticket to $0.50 of chaos, and classic ol’ ping pong balls get endorsed side by side with the springs. Try putting the balls in a bathtub or shower…it’s a free amusement park.

24. The butterfly spinner. This is, on and off, one of their favorite toys to date. (We wrote a review about it here.) One note: The mechanism seems to die down after about 25 uses, but like fools we keep rebuying it anyway. Right now it’s costing us about $1/play LOL which is crazy. Ah, the things we do for our cats!

25. A toy rotation bin. If you have a cat you know the drill: They might play and jump like crazy with a toy one week, and then next barely acknowledge it the next. So instead of buying a new toy every week (which lets be honest, you’ll probably do anyway) try this system instead: Keep most toys out of sight in a bin or cupboard, and have four or five in circulation, swapped weekly. If it doesn’t work and you go back to buying a new toy every week, at least you tried.

26. A bird feeder outside the window. The cheapest television subscription a cat can have, and the crowd’s favorite enrichment hack for cats home alone. (Our two are lukewarm on actual bird videos, but the real window is prime time.)

Comfort and furniture

27. A floor-to-ceiling cat tree. The category the threads regret not buying SOONER and bigger. Vertical territory calms multi-cat households down more than almost any other purchase. We are currently redesigning our office and have a goal to make a cat wall with a floor-to-ceiling tree. We’ll report back on it soon!

28. A cat tree that doesn’t insult your living room. I want our cats to be happy, but I also don’t want to be surrounded by furniture that looks like it’s covered in carpet from the 70s. Thankfully cat trees have gotten a major upgrade in the past few years. We have the Mau Ivy, and it’s pretty enough to have a primo spot in our kitchen. Most people comment on how pretty it is when they walk in! (You can see more of our picks in our cat tree roundup.)

29. A window perch or hammock. This claims multiple “best gift she ever got” stories in the threads. The suction-cup hammocks surprisingly hold more weight than anyone believes until they try one.

My husband bought our cat a window hammock for Christmas. I thought it was stupid and complained about putting it together. It was the best gift she ever got.

— via Reddit.com

30. A heated bed. Devoted testimony across several threads, especially for older cats. Ours is Thelma’s official daytime office by the window, though she still declines it overnight, because the human bed exists.

It doesn’t matter if it’s 100 out, [our cat] will stay on top of his shelf on his heated pad. I have 5 heated pads around the house. They adore them!

— via Reddit.com

31. The donut bed that actually gets used. Beds are the highest-failure category in cat retail, so when one works, you buy more of it. We’re three identical donuts deep, stationed around the apartment, all claimed. (The autopsy of every bed that failed first is in this cat beds article.)

32. Cardboard scratchers with replacement pads. “100% best purchase” energy in the threads, with the biggest negative being the money spent on the replaceable pads.

33. A scratching post taller than the cat. The rule the threads converged on: a post has to let a cat stretch to full length, and most starter posts don’t. Ours outgrew their kitten post within the year; now, the tall replacement gets used daily.

34. Cat wall shelves. Cats love territory measured in altitude, not square footage. This is the apartment answer to the floor-to-ceiling tree, just make sure your cat shelves are installed securely and your cats have a safe spot to land.

35. A blanket that officially belongs to the cat. We bought a handful of these waterproof blankets when we first got Thelma and Louis. Thelma can live without them, but not Louis. This is his suckle blanket of choice, and we put it on our bed each night so he can come up on it and snuggle.

Grooming and upkeep

36. A grooming mitt. When a cat has no use for a brush, this is the workaround. It gets the job done while it looks like you’re just giving some affection.

37. An up-to-spec deshedding comb. You’ll want one for those weeks when the coat seems to be everywhere. We’ve been told time and again that forming a routine is what counts, not the tool itself. But when you see the amount of hair that can come off with one of these, I start to think it might be the brush.

38. Nail clippers and some styptic powder. The clippers are a given; the powder is something to have on hand just in case (if you don’t already, don’t feel bad. This list is making me realize we need a few things as well). Just make sure to get a cat safe styptic powder.

39. A ChomChom. The kind of reusable pet hair roller that many say the household will come to revere. It works on the sofa, the car, and the cat’s bed with no need for refills. We had one and it didn’t do a great job for us on our dining room chairs, so we switched to this mitt and it’s been better for us. We use it on our chairs and even bed coverlet, which we wash every other week and use this on the one we don’t.

40. Wipes for the house. We have a can of vet wipes for the everyday mess: around the litter box, where a hairball may have made an appearance, or for the rogue poop that might get stuck on some hair and get dropped accidentally. TMI, but it happens LOL.

41. A toothbrush for the cat. You should have a toothbrush and toothpaste for the cat. And I will tell you that vets say to brush their teeth at least weekly, but I will tell you that we are bad at this and I feel guilty even typing it out. But we do have the brush and toothpaste ready to go! For more on how to actually brush your cats’ teeth, see our grooming guide for the full story.

Health, safety, and getting around

42. Get some pet insurance, or put the money in a savings account. The consensus on the forums is pretty clear: you may chafe at the cost of the premiums, but when an emergency strikes, you’ll be glad for it. The one thing nobody looks back on with any good feeling is being without either.

43. A microchip and up-to-date registration. There have been a couple of viral threads made up of nothing but amazing stories from owners who got their beloved fur babies back because of a microchip. One even involved a cat that came home six years after a break-in, thanks to the chip.

So many people don’t understand how important a microchip is. I work with a local shelter and we found a dog in Ohio, that was registered in Washington State.

— via Reddit.com

The chip is half the job; you have to make sure you register it with your current phone number, address, and cats’ photo and information.

44. An AirTag or GPS collar. If your cat goes outside, you’ll want to get this supplement to the chip, according to the threads. While the chip can help track YOU down if your cat gets lost, the tracker (on a breakaway collar mount only) can help you find a lost cat.

45. A soft-sided carrier you actually like. Our cats had a host of typical shelter kitten issues when we first got them: ringworm, eye infections, etc. So they made quite a few visits to the vet the first few weeks and month we had them. At first we used the Petco cardboard carriers you get in the store until Louis got too big for them. Then, we found these great, soft expandable carriers we finally bought are still going strong. The cats genuinely don’t mind them, whichhas paid off during every emergency drill we’ve run since.

I think the frequent visits to the vet helped our cats be comfortable with the carrier, but many owners help skittish cats by making them a cozy place vs. a scary one.

You can change what the carrier represents though. Yeah it’s for going to the vets. But when it’s not, I leave mine dotted throughout the house with bedding inside and they’re a safe space to sleep in.

— via Reddit.com

46. A stroller for the cat. In all seriousness. I am one of those cat owners who wants to safely take our cats out, so we got them a stroller. They genuinely like it! I’ve paused it until we can also harness train them (I’ve gotten a bit nervous about the idea of them escaping, and even though our stroller has a secure, latched cover I’m still a worry wart). We did however recently use it when we very randomly felt an earthquake (in Florida!) and wanted to go outside with the cats to make sure everything was OK. Thankfully it was, and I was happy we had an easy way to get the cats out together quickly.

I got the PetGear View 360 for my cat, because I don’t drive, and I can take the carrier part off the stroller base and fold the stroller part up if we’re taking the train into the city. My cat likes the carrier part enough that she’ll voluntarily get into it and sleep, when I leave it open at home.

— via Reddit.com

47. A harness, if you have the patience for it. Like I mentioned above, harness training your cat is up there with brushing their teeth (aka something you keep meaning to do). This isn’t an overnight process obviously, but once cat owners do it they are thankful they did! Check out our guide to harness training here!

48. An ID tag on a breakaway collar. Whether you have a cat that occasionally goes outside or one that tries to make a run out the door, a breakaway collar with an ID tag (or AirTag) is a good option to have. But every vet will tell you, if you’re going to put a collar on your cat, it needs to be breakaway.

49. Some basics: a nightlight for the older ones, a go bag, and a file for the paperwork. You see this combination in the emergency posts over and over. Everyone thinks cats have superhuman eyesight and can see perfectly in the dark, and while it might be true that it’s better than us humans, it’s not always the case. Cats can still get nervous in the dark, so having nighlights in and around areas they go at night can help (it’s also good for you so you don’t accidentally land on a cat’s tail!). It also helps to make sure you have the carriers in an easy-to-access spot if you need to leave in an emergency (such as a fire) and it wouldn’t hurt to have a small go bag next to your own, and theirs can have important paperwork, some cans of food, a water bowl they like, and if you’re really prepared a travel litter setup.

50. A first-aid kit for the cat. The final entry, and the one everyone in the crowd would have put together sooner had they not been in the thick of a bad night. You can buy a already put-together emergency kit online, but the basics you’ll need if making your own are gauze, animal bandages, some saline, scissors, antibiotic ointment, cotton swabs, a pet thermometer, a styptic, and tweezers.

What the threads all agree on

When it comes to cat must-haves, think safety, comfort, and enrichment. An emergency plan and supplies, backup food and water, a carrier to get them where they need to go safely, and updated records and a microchip with update registration info. For enrichment look for toys that they can play with and that you can play with them. And of course for comfort think cozy and things they can safely climb! Most important the one thing not mentioned on this list but one of the most important is your love and time! Cats are here for a portion of our lives (hopefully a long one) but we are their entire lives. Lets give them the best one ever!!