The best cat breeds for first-time owners

The easiest first cat is an adaptable one: affectionate without being needy, robust instead of delicate, and content with the ordinary care a beginner can give.

The flashier breeds — the vocal, the high-strung, the heavily-coated — are more rewarding once you know what you're doing, and more of a handful when you don't.

What makes a cat beginner-friendly

Four things smooth the first year.

An adaptable, tolerant temperament that forgives a household still learning its ways. A short or easy coat, so grooming doesn't become a daily chore. A sociable but independent nature, so the cat enjoys you without falling apart when left. And sound general health, not a breed carrying a long list of inherited caveats to manage from day one.

Breeds that tend to fit

This points to the calm, sturdy, undemanding breeds. The British Shorthair is easy-going and content on its own terms; the Ragdoll is famously docile and handleable; the Maine Coon is gentle and good-natured, though its coat asks for more brushing. None of this is a rule, but each of them tends to forgive.

Breeds to think twice about at first

Some wonderful cats are a demanding first choice. The talkative, high-energy Oriental and Siamese types want constant engagement; a Persian needs daily grooming or its coat mats; a hairless Sphynx needs regular bathing and skin care. Loving the look isn't the same as being ready for the upkeep.

Coat is the workload you sign up for

Of the four filters, coat is the one people misjudge, because it's the difference between a five-minute job and a daily one for the whole of the cat's life.

A short-coated cat largely manages itself. A long or semi-long coat can't: loose hair weaves into the fur instead of dropping out, and without near-daily combing it knots into pelts that pull on the skin and eventually need clipping off under sedation. That's not a grooming preference, it's a welfare obligation, and it comes with more hairballs too — staying ahead of the mats sets out what it involves.

The extremes of type carry their own upkeep. A hairless cat needs bathing because there's no coat to carry away skin oils, and it needs protecting from cold and from sun. A flat-faced cat may have weeping eyes to clean daily and, in the more extreme examples, breathing and dental problems that are structural rather than incidental. None of that means nobody should have them; it means knowing what you're taking on before you fall for a photograph.

Health caveats worth reading before you choose

Some breeds carry known inherited conditions, and a first-time owner is the least equipped to manage a chronic one.

Several of the popular pedigrees have screening programmes for exactly this reason — kidney and heart conditions among them — and a responsible breeder tests the parents and will show you the results instead of telling you the line is clear. Ask which tests apply to that breed, ask to see the certificates, and treat reluctance as the answer.

A moggy from a shelter sidesteps most of this by simple genetic variety, which is a real argument in its favour and not a consolation prize.

The cost, honestly

Cats are cheaper than dogs and not cheap.

The purchase price is the part people budget for and the part that matters least: a pedigree kitten costs a great deal more than a shelter cat, and the difference is dwarfed within a couple of years by food, litter, vaccinations, flea and worm treatment, and the annual check-up. Neutering is a one-off. Insurance is monthly and rises as the cat ages.

Then there's the bill nobody plans for. A blocked bladder, a road accident, a swallowed hair tie: any of them arrives without notice and costs more than a year of ordinary care. Insurance or a dedicated savings pot is the difference between a bad week and an impossible decision — what a pet really costs does the full arithmetic.

Indoors, outdoors, or something in between

This is the decision that shapes the rest, and it's worth making before the cat arrives rather than after it has formed an opinion.

An indoor cat is safer and generally lives longer, and in exchange you're responsible for everything the outdoors would have supplied: height to climb, places to scratch, windows to watch, and something to hunt, even if it's only food hidden around the room. An under-stimulated indoor cat is where a great many behaviour problems begin.

An outdoor cat entertains itself and meets traffic, other cats and a wider share of parasites. Between the two sit the workable compromises — a catio, a securely fenced garden, harness walks for a cat that takes to them, or simply keeping the cat in at night, which removes a good part of the risk on its own.

Whatever you choose, microchip the cat and keep the registration details current. It's the single thing most likely to get a lost cat home.

Adopt an adult if you're unsure

A kitten is a lovable unknown; an adult cat from a shelter comes with its temperament already on show, which takes much of the gamble out of a first cat. Ask the shelter which cats are relaxed and people-friendly, and you can match an easy character to an inexperienced home more reliably than any breed name allows.

Be aware of what a shelter can't show you, though: a cat in a pen is stressed, so a quiet one may be shut down instead of placid, and a hider often blooms within a week. Good staff will tell you which is which, and they'll also tell you what a cat needs — whether it can live with another cat, whether it has always gone outdoors, whether it's fine with children. Take that at face value and choose against your actual household, not against the cat you hoped for.

One cat or two

If nobody's home during the day, two cats are often kinder than one, and a bonded pair or two kittens raised together is much easier than introducing strangers later.

But two isn't automatically better: an adult cat that has always lived alone may genuinely prefer it, and adding a second badly is a common way to create spraying, hiding and litter-tray problems in a house that had none. If you do add one, the method is slow and on the resident cat's terms — introducing a new cat sets out the order that works.

The first fortnight

Set up one room before the cat arrives — food, water away from the food, a litter tray, somewhere high and somewhere dark to hide — and let it come out in its own time instead of being carried around to meet everyone.

Expect a day or three under the bed; that's coping, not unhappiness. Book a vet check in the first week, keep the food the same as it was and change it slowly afterwards, and get the litter tray right early, since a tray in the wrong place is the commonest self-inflicted problem there is. The litter tray article covers what goes wrong and why.

And give it longer than you think before you decide what kind of cat you've got. The animal that emerges in month two is usually more affectionate, more talkative and considerably more present than the one that spent week one behind the sofa. Almost nobody regrets having been patient.