How important is it to quarantine?

I am thinking about getting a adopting a kitten from a local animal shelter in about a month or so.

How important is it to quarantine from other pets? Someone suggested that I should do so, as sometime shelter kittens have resp. infections.

Is this common? Now, I'm so afraid my two dogs will catch something.

Any suggestions are welcome!

Take your new kitten to the vet immediately and if your vet gives the kitten a clean bill of health, then you will have no problems with introducing the new baby into your family.

Usually cats and dogs don't give each other illnesses (other then something like fleas). But you should separate them (1) till the new animal sees a vet, gets shots, and health clearances and (2) introduce them slowly.

You don't just bring the kitten home after the vet and put them in the middle of the room and expect things to be ok. Give the kitten their own room with food/water and litter pan and introduce them slowly.

I've always waited 2 weeks to intorduce a new pet. That is a way that both cat/kittens get used to each others *smell* and also time to see of the new cat/kitten has anything wrong with it. Unless a vet does testing on the cat/kitten they are no way of knowing if it has anything. Even though it may look fine one day the next it could be sick.
I just adopted 2 weeks ago a blue point siamese kitten. Even though the breeder said it was clean I still had it checked and tested and waited 2 week to introduce my Ragdoll cat Hershey to Leah ( my siamese). It went really well. Hershey when I first got Leah would growl at the bedroom door where Leah was. Now that he got use to her scent they are no problems.

Thanks for the suggestions. I live in a somewhat small one bedroom apartment, with a very small bathroom, but I'll have to make it work.

What are the chances that a shelter kitten will have some kind of illness? Now I'm really worried about that.

Being in a shelter I would say the odds are more than half. But that's my opinion. Ask the shelter if it has been tested, if it has they should have paper work on the testing. And just remember when you see a *free* kittens sign the odds are just the same in my opinion because if they let their cats roam then they are exposed to everything and chances are they never had a shot in their life, being they weren't spayed.

The place I am adopting from has all their kittens fixed and up to date on shots (how many depending on how old they are). Hopefully that'll be a good thing.