It will depend on you throughout its life around 15 years with proper care so properly budget for visits to the vets and other costs before making a decision to get a cat. You have to budget for cat food, cat litter and scoops and other accessories to make the cat s life comfortable at your home. Kitten or adult? More than likely, he ll settle down within a few minutes. Now that he s calm, you can wet him down. Use the sprayer but if this scares him, you ll need to pour water over him using the pitcher. A word of warning, do not pour water on his head. You ll clean his face later. Now he s wet. You can squeeze a palm sized amount of shampoo and massage the shampoo into his coat. Before you head off to have him de clawed, you may want to try out some of the alternative methods of preventing the scratching. Alternatives One way is to provide them with scratching pads or posts. There are a wide variety of them available including those that are part of a cat condo. You can even make your own by using two foot high section of a four by four, two foot by two foot piece of heavy plywood and a carpet remnant. You ll need to ask your vet about having the tick removed as you can not do this yourself without risking the tick s head staying behind in your pet s skin. In order to get them under control, you ll need to use one of the liquid flea and tick treatments. You can also use flea or tick collars and baths as well. Make the introduction, slowly, bit by bit, it is a good idea to let your existing cat sniff your new kitten's blanket a few times before they actually meet. Make the initial periods of contact short. Gradually increase the time that they spend together as they get used to one another. It is not unusual for there to be a few spats in these first meetings, so do not leave them alone together until they get on. Female cats have many heat periods over a year, and each heat period can last around 6 days if a male mates with her, but if she is not mated, then the period of heat will last longer and will recur regluarly (This is known as 'polyestrous'). She can give birth to an average 3 kittens 3 times a year and being 'superfecund' meaning that each of the kittens in her litter can belong to a different father each!