We had never heard of this tactic before, but the people who we rented from in Myrtle Beach already had some on their furniture because they had a cat of their own. Essentially, it’s just super wide and sticky double-sided tap that you can stick to the edges/bottom of furniture to keep cats off and deter scratching. They don’t seem to like their paws getting stuck a bit. We found our cats learned pretty quick to avoid the furniture that had any tape on it. Our one warning is that you should test a small bit of tape on the furniture ahead of time for a day or so to make sure it doesn’t affect the fabric. We’ve put it on a leather couch before and removing it was a little rough on the leather, but in the end we were able to buff and clean it out so it was no problem.

Sofisti-Cat Training Tape

We just discovered this and we’re in love. This lint roller is so convenient because it traps all of the hair in a little cartridge that is easy to clean out, and it’s super effective! We find it works better than regular lint rollers and it’s so much less wasteful. Also, if you’re into seeing how gross things were when cleaning (let’s be honest, a lot of us are), this is just super satisfying to see how much hair and lint you actually get up. It definitely costs more than your average lint roller, but you won’t have to buy new ones constantly so we think it’s worth it. I sent my family pictures after using it for the first time and everyone wanted one so we sent a couple their way!

Delomo Pet Hair Remover

Keeping up with clipping your cats nails is huge. It’s not fun for you or them, but once you learn how to do it and they get used to it, the whole thing should be pretty quick. Dan has taken over this job and both of our cats have gotten used to it after fighting it for the first couple of months or so. It probably takes him about 15 minutes to clip both of their nails at this point. Clipping your cats nails is just another way to help protect and maintain the furnished home you’re renting, and can be a bit of a selling point if you’re talking with a landlord/property manager who is considering waiving their no pets (or no cats) policy for you.

I couldn’t find the exact nail clippers we have, but I think they may just be an older version of these ones.

Cat Nail Clippers

I suppose this depends on our cats, but we’ve found this to be the most effective way to train them not to do things. Pepper and Sage are not fans of water, especially not being sprayed with our little plant mister and most of the time stop whatever they’re doing once they see us just pick it up. At this point, they seem to know when they’re doing something wrong and we don’t actually have to spray them most of the time, but it’s been a great way to teach them not to scratch furniture, etc. It’s also a great thing to have if you have plants!

Mist Spray Bottle

This is the catnip we use and our cats love it! They go a little crazy when we pull it out, yes, but it also seems to be a way to help them calm down which is why I recommend it. We use it on long road trips sometimes to help them relax and distract them from the discomfort of being in the car all day. Treats are also a good way to incentivize/train them to not mind the car.

SmartyKat Organic Catnip

Obviously you’ll need a litter box; if you have more than one cat that you’ll be bringing with you we recommend either bringing two litter boxes or a large one. It’s a sacrifice when it comes to car space, but this will allow you more flexibility when it comes to travelling and leaving the cats for a few days and it also could help to avoid any situations of them going outside of the litter box. Keeping their litter box and litter consistent is important when their environment is constantly changing, you definitely don’t want them to get confused on where they’re supposed to go to the bathroom.

We also recommend getting a litter box with a top (and possibly even a filter). This is the one we have and we love it because it’s large and has the cover and filter. These are especially helpful to avoid litter going everywhere when the cats dig in it (Pepper is particularly dramatic with this and used to send litter flying everywhere before we got this one). It’s also great for road trips because it contains any odours much better than an open litter box. We’ve also been wanting to try putting a couple of drops of essential oils on the filter when we’re on a long road trip to see if that further helps with the smell.

Catit Jumbo Hooded Cat Litter Pan

This is the cat carrier that we have, but we really need to get another one or a bigger one as our two cats don’t fit very comfortably together in this one anymore. That said, we love it and they love it. When we’re in the car on a road trip we let the cats roam free, but Sage especially has nowhere she’d rather be than curled up in the cat carrier which is fine by us. Alternatively, Pepper often likes to curl up on one of our laps which we also have no problem with 🙂

Sherpa Original Deluxe Pet Carrier

This is the water fountain that we have for Pepper and Sage. We originally got it to encourage them to drink more water as they both had digestive issues for the first year or so of their lives. It ended up also being helpful to have it when we would go away for a few days, because we knew they wouldn’t run out of water while we were gone and we knew we weren’t just leaving a huge bowl of stagnant water out to collect bacteria. Overall, we’ve loved it, the only downside is that you do need to keep up with changing the filters which is an added cost, but they trap a lot of fur and things that end up in the fountain so we recommend staying on top of that.

We absolutely love this automatic feeder and so do Pepper and Sage. Similar to the last recommendation, we also wanted to get this to help with their digestive issues because it seemed to help when we would feed them smaller and more frequent portions of food. As you can imagine, that got old pretty fast, but with the automatic feeder we’re able to feed them six times a day without having to do a thing. We both feel confident that it’s been one of the things that’s helped with their issues and it’s also made it possible for us to go away for a few days and not worry about if we left out enough food. It has a backup battery so you don’t even need to worry about if the power goes out which is such a great feature!

These are a couple of other helpful things we bring along with us to keep the cats busy and entertained. It’s important to give them plenty of alternative things to play with other than the furniture or little knick knacks they knock off of the table/countertop.