Owners that bring home a new pet often liken the situation to bringing home a new child. A new baby requires a lot more attention, but new pets create a lot of change in the average routine as well. Welcoming a new kitten into your home comes with challenges, and one of the most difficult challenges arises when it is time to return to work.
 
The first time you leave your kitten home alone you are no doubt nervous about what is going to happen. Will the kitten whine all day and perhaps become distressed? Perhaps it will become bored and destroy things around the home. Even worse, an untrained kitten may leave messes everywhere but in the litter box. How can you prepare your kitten to be home alone for the first time?
 
1. Control access
The absolute worst thing you can do is leave the house for first time and allow your kitten to have free range throughout the house. It is important to establish a safe, but confined, environment for it to spend the day in until you return. There are several ways of doing this, but the easiest is to simply confine it to one room. It goes without saying that bathrooms, closets, and other small rooms are a poor choice.
 
Select a bedroom or office in the home, or better yet the laundry room, where your kitten can spend the day. Create a safe environment by removing anything from the room that the kitten could harm itself playing with, or destroy if it becomes too playful. Examples of items to remove include glass vases, bottles, and cleaning supplies with harmful chemicals.
 
2. Provide entertainment
Now that you have selected an environment for your kitten to spend the day in, you'll need to provide it with some entertainment. Just because you have locked the kitten in one room does not mean it is going to magically behave because you removed all of the dangers. Leave an array of toys out for the kitten to play with. It would be a good idea to invest in a scratching post and climbing house for the kitten's room. This provides an outlet for any destructive tendencies, while also providing it with a task (climbing) to do during the day.
 
3. Don't forget necessities
If there is one advantage to owning kittens over puppies, it is the ability of kittens to use the bathroom indoors without (necessarily) making a mess. Before you leave your kitten home all day in its safe environment, move its litter box into the room so that it can use the bathroom when needed without going wherever it pleases.
 
Additionally, don't forget to leave food and water dishes out in the room. Cats are grazing eaters, so it is difficult to feed them before you leave and then again when you return home. Leave a bowl in the room with some dry food in it for your kitten to munch on when it gets hungry. It's natural to get thirsty while eating, so don't forget to leave a bowl of water out for your kitten as well.
 
Some of these habits can change as your kitten matures. Without question, the most important step to follow with a kitten being left home for the first time is a controlled environment. Older cats tend to behave well with access to the entire home. Kittens are rambunctious and prone to mischief though, so it would be foolish to allow them more than one room to roam in during your absence.

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