Home » Archive for 2018

Heat, phase II

maintain for up to three minutes without stopping.

Bothersome as it is to us, it serves the obvious purpose of letting the tomcats know she is available. (And remember that the tomcats’ ears are much more sensitive than ours, which explains why toms sometimes travel a long distance to locate the amorous female.) While the howling is going on, the female is likely to roll on the ﬂoor, which, if a tom is in sight, is another sign that she is sexually receptive. In short, she is making a perfect spectacle of herself—and the tomcats love it.

The tame one

Hunters would take them blindfolded to the hunting site and release them when the prey was sighted. Aside from the domestic cat and the caracal, the cheetah is the only cat to be truly tamed by man. Incidentally, cheetahs, since they are spotted, were often referred to in the past as “hunting leopards,” and it was believed (wrongly) that they were hybrids of lions and leopards.

Panther, but really a leopard

black, and so are the spots, so the panther gives the overall appearance of being jet black. In fact, you can see the spots clearly at certain angles.

The big guy, Leo

lion is the only social cat, living in small groups called prides that are composed mostly of related females and one dominant male.

Distinctive and tamable

Persian lynx, is found over much of Asia and Africa, where it preys on gazelles, small deer and birds. No other cat quite resembles it, thanks to the long black tufts of hair on each ear. The beautiful reddish brown cat, somewhat larger than a fox, can be tamed, and in some regions it has been trained to hunt small antelopes and deer.

Tomcat “on hold”

Tomcats have a reputation for being promiscuous, but in fact an adult tom, unneutered, never has sex on his mind (unlike male humans). His entire reproductive system stays “on hold”—until, that is, he hears the inimitable caterwaul of a female cat in heat or picks up her scent (usually from her urine somewhere nearby). Either via the ear or nose, or both, suddenly Placid Tom turns into Randy Tom, and he won’t rest until he locates the source of the “heat signal.”

The crab-eater

Japanese island of Iriomote. The small cat hunts by night, stalking birds and small mammals, and it also ventures to the water’s edge to catch crabs.

High-altitude American

sea level. High altitude means cold nights, so this grayish cat has dense shaggy fur. The tail’s wide stripes make it look like a raccoon’s tail. It is only slightly larger than a house cat.

Little spotty

four feet long, and their close relative the margay (Felis wiedi) is a sort of mini-ocelot, only about two feet long, tail included. In other words, this beautiful spotted creature is only slightly larger than a house cat. It ranges from Mexico to Argentina, and it is still occasionally seen in southern Texas.

Pet otter?

house cats before Columbus arrived, there is some evidence that they had tamed a native cat called the jaguarundi. This long-bodied brown cat is still found from Arizona to Argentina. Its lanky body and otterlike head have led to its being called the “weasel cat” or “otter cat.” Pre-Columbus, the native peoples of South America tamed it and used it to kill rodents. Whether they really made a pet of it and doted on it the way Europeans and Asians doted on their house cats is not known.

Can Felis silvestris mate with Felis catus?

The answer is yes, but you probably would not like the results. This is especially true of cases where a European wildcat tom impregnated a domestic female. European wildcats fear and distrust humans, so any off-spring of a European wildcat will quickly manifest its wildness, either by ﬂeeing the human home or becoming so obnoxious that the humans will gladly set it free.

“Whole” cats

A male cat who has never been neutered is called “whole.” While we might debate the subject of whether an adult male human can be happy and psychologically sound while living a celibate life, there is no question that a “whole” tomcat faces a lot more challenges and hazards than a neutered tom. The simple fact is that an unneutered tomcat feels compelled to mate regularly, which usually involves a lot of rambling and ﬁghting with other tomcats. Most cat owners solve this in the obvious way: they neuter the cat.

The African wildcat

Felis silvestris lybica ranges over much of Africa but it has become rare. It is grayish-brown in color and has distinctive striping on the legs. Like the other silvestris wildcats, its eyes are yellow, never green. If reared in captivity, the African wildcat can become tame.

“Fixing,” “spaying,” “neutering”

A female pet is spayed, which means her ovaries and uterus are removed. (Interestingly, it comes from the old French word espeer, meaning “to cut with a sword.”) A male is neutered, or castrated. Either operation can be done as early as six months of age, and some vets will do it even earlier. The word ﬁx (not a technical term, and not one vets use) applies to either males or females. Cat owners seem much happier once a cat is ﬁxed.

The antiwitch anticat mandate

demons consorted in the form of black cats with human beings.

There’s no doubt that many of the so-called witches were innocent and there’s no doubt that some of them probably did believe they were worshipping Satan. But if there was any truly innocent party, it was certainly the many cats who were exterminated for no other reason than having black coats. (A curious footnote: Pope Gregory IX was a good friend of the gentle, animal-loving Francis of Assisi.)

The Spanish wildcat

Felis silvestris iberia, resembles the Scottish wildcat but its coat is darker. Like its Scottish cousin, it has a heavier build than most house cats. Its attractively striped coat led to its being hunted by fur trappers, a fate that has befallen many wildcats over the centuries.

Silvestris, still around

pet cats, but, as you will see, their capacity for being tamed varies greatly. Worth noting: all the silvestris wildcats possess larger brains than those of domestic cats.

Pet cremation

The cremation of humans used to be rare in America and Europe, but it is becoming more and more common. As it gains acceptance among humans, it is also becoming more common for pets. There are animal crematoriums, and some vets perform cremations.

Some pet owners dislike the idea of burying their pets, whether it’s on their own property or in a pet cemetery. (And, in the case of apartment dwellers, burial on the premises is not even an option.) Cremation seems a good alternative to burial (or the even worse alternative of putting a beloved pet in the garbage). As with cremated humans, a cat’s ashes can be kept in an urn, buried or scattered.

“Cats,” but not really

animals go by “cat” names but aren’t related to cats at all. Skunks are sometimes called “polecats,” while in Europe the “polecat” is a creature related to the weasel, but neither “polecat” is a true cat. Civets and genets are animals related to the mongooses, and you will hear people speak of “genet cats” and “civet cats,” but neither is a cat belonging to the family Felidae.

Everywhere but Australia

island, and its isolation from other land masses has resulted in wildlife very unlike the other continents. You probably are aware that many of its mammals are marsupials, mammals that carry their young in pouches. Many of these animals, such as the kangaroos and koalas, are not carnivorous, but there are plenty of carnivorous marsupials. They ﬁll the ecological niche that on other continents is ﬁlled by cats. There were no true cats in Australia until the Europeans settled there, and the vicious marsupial “tiger cat” of eastern Australia is not a true cat.

Pet on board

pet inside the home. The goal is that, if you yourself are absent or injured, emergency workers can tell that there are pets inside who need attention.

Computer in your cat

idea of having microchips implanted in human beings so that each of us carries around identiﬁcation (and other sensitive information) on a tiny chip under our skins. It’s already being done to lots of pets, both by vets and animal shelters.

There is a charge, of course, but the injection of the microchip is almost painless, and there are no side effects (so far). The hope is that if your pet becomes lost and gets picked up by an animal shelter, the shelter can digitally “scan” the cat to retrieve your contact information.

The duduk perkara with both microchip implants and tattooing is, of course, that both are practically invisible to most observers. Your best bet for your pet, particularly one who spends a lot of time outdoors, is to have her ﬁtted with a microchip and make her wear a collar and ID tag.

Roaring and non-roaring

purr), while the Panthera cats do roar (but can’t purr). Needless to say, your pet belongs to the Felis genus. Aside from the roar-purr divide, however, the members of Felidae are amazingly alike in shape and overall behavior, and there’s no doubt that one of the great attractions of cats as pets is that they remind us so much of graceful and powerful lions, tigers and leopards.

The in-between phase

Europe around 12 million years ago. This species was smaller than Pseudaelurus though still larger than today’s house cat. Scientists assume that it had a fairly thick coat and the markings of a tabby cat.

Catcall

In days past, there were small whistlelike instruments that made a sound like a cat, and they were used at concerts, political gatherings and other events to express disapproval from the audience. Some people simply made the call with their mouths, and catcall came to refer to any kind of disapproving or disruptive sound at a public gathering.

The infamous saber-tooths

house cats, but in some way the ferocious saber-tooth cats are among the ancestors of today’s pets (or, at any rate, of cats in general). The sabertoothed tiger (Smilodon is the scientiﬁc name) lived in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America 35 million years ago. With its huge daggerlike teeth, it could bring down an elephant. Scientists think these cats’ combination of large body and small brain ensured they would not last forever. (An interesting tidbit: before the U.S. president Thomas Jefferson sent the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the American West, it was widely assumed that creatures like saber-toothed tigers still existed in the wilds of America.)

The carnivore ancestors

Presumably the dinosaurs died out around 65 million years ago (give or take a year), and the age of the mammals began. The earliest mammals were known as creodonts, and they apparently lived on ﬁsh and were small, not more than a foot tall at the shoulder. So far as we can tell, the creodonts were the distant ancestors of all the carnivores, including the cat ancestor Miacis.

Reunited, but not often

Animal shelters do more than take in strays and abandoned animals. They also are a place where frantic pet owners go when beloved pets disappear. Sadly, not too many pet-owner reunions take place in shelters.

Often the pet simply isn’t there, of course, but there are also cases where the pet is there but can’t be identiﬁed with absolute certainty. This is the reason that vets and animal control experts highly recommend having the pet tattooed or implanted with a microchip, not to mention wearing a collar with an ID tag.

Evil touch

Would you believe that your cat can get a rash on her mouth because of contact with a plastic food dish? It is rare, but not unknown. Human skin and cat skin are both subject to contact dermatitis, which happens when the skin comes into contact with a substance that causes a rash, usually with itching. The common culprits in human contact dermatitis are plants like poison ivy and poison oak.

Individual cats are sensitive to certain plants, and also to some household chemicals, and some cats can’t wear a collar because the leather or plastic makes their neck skin break out. And, as mentioned earlier, some cats break out in a rash because of their plastic food dishes. Also, as already noted in 239, ﬂea collars are a prime cause of contact dermatitis.

Litter box buffet

People who have both a cat and a dog in the home ﬁnd the habit to be an incentive to keep the litter box scooped out as often as possible.

Pot cats

Lots of people grow marijuana for medicinal purposes (wink, wink), and some growers have found that their cats chew the leaves and get the same sort of high that human beings get from smoking marijuana. (It doesn’t seem to increase their cats’ appetites, however.) Amusing as this might be to marijuana users (sharing a high with your pet), it is also potentially dangerous, as marijuana has been known to cause seizures, sometimes fatal ones, in cats.

Creatures of habit

humans are, and it shouldn’t surprise us that animals are. Certainly cats are, and while they like occasional changes in diet, they deﬁnitely do not like changes in their litter boxes. Many a cat owner has discovered that a change in cat litter often results in the cat not using the box at all. Some cats eventually adjust to the change, but others don’t, and sometimes the most sensible choice is to return to whatever you were using before.

Keeping the lawn (and cat) green

As noted in the last entry, any toxic substance that your cat walks through is dangerous, since the cat will lick herself and her fur in the process of grooming. If your cat plays outdoors, she will pick up any pesticides and other chemicals you spray on your lawn, and those useful lawn chemicals can end up inside your cat. They aren’t often fatal, but you need to monitor your cat’s activity in a freshly sprayed lawn, particularly since lawn chemicals are “in the air” for a time, leading to possible respiratory ailments.

Cleaning themselves to death

rodent populations. These poisons are meant to stick to the feet and fur of rodents, eventually causing death. Regrettably, if a cat walks through an area that has been treated by tracking powders, she may ingest the poison from grooming her feet and fur.

You need to be aware of this if you hire a professional exterminator. Of course, you can’t decide what types of rodent controls your neighbors use, which gives you a good reason to be on friendly terms with your neighbors so you can keep yourself aware of any potential hazards to your pet.

The “no-perfume” zone

people complaining that coworkers wear too much perfume and cologne, and some companies have instituted “no-perfume” policies. Your cat is basically a no-perfume animal, and the ﬂowery, spicy scents that we ﬁnd so attractive have no appeal at all to cats. More importantly, they don’t like cleaning products that are heavily perfumed, and if their litter boxes are cleaned with such products, the cat might stop using the box. In short, if you hope to keep the litter box as odorless as possible, trying to make it smell “pretty” will only defeat your purpose.

Killing the rat-killers

It’s sad but ironic: over the years, cats have died from eating rodents that had eaten rodent bait. That is, humans set out bait to poison rats and mice, and the bait ended up poisoning nature’s original rodent killers. This fortunately doesn’t happen too often today, since older rodent poisons, such as strych-nine compounds, are seldom used any more.

The godsend: baking soda products

products no homeowner should be without—and no cat owner. Soda absorbs and neutralizes the chemicals present in cat urine, so you can’t go wrong by sprinkling a thin layer of soda in the litter box, then pouring the litter on top of it.

Arm & Hammer, Tidy Cat and several other companies now sell boxes of “cat box deodorizers,” which are basically made of baking soda and some chemicals. Any of these work ﬁne at keeping odors down. If you choose to use regular baking soda, keep in mind that you can buy it in large boxes, not just the small “kitchen size.”

Are all bowls the same?

food and water bowls are made of hard plastic, and your cat probably shows no ill effects. Some of the more persnickety cat fanciers claim that plastic bowls are wrong for cats: plastic cracks and erodes over time, and bacteria grow in the tiny crevices. Older plastic can become rough enough to irritate the cat’s skin.

And no matter how often a plastic bowl is cleaned, it can harbor odors. Ceramic is not a good option either, since some ceramic ware contains lead, which is poisonous (over a long period, anyway). So, say some of the experts, the only really safe choices are bowls of glass or stainless steel.

The dryer scenario

warm from a previous load, and the cat sees the door open and decides the dryer would be a warm and cozy place for a nap.

In comes the next load, on goes the dryer and the cat is taken for a spin. In most cases, the owner will quickly get an earful of noise to let him know the cat is in the dryer. Usually no harm is done (after all, the cat is surrounded by clothing), but in some cases cats have died from suffocation.

Acidify that smell!

If you think the smell of cat urine is offensive (and it assuredly is), then you know that your cat’s ultra-sensitive nose doesn’t like it either. If her litter box isn’t cleaned out regularly, a cat will do the obvious thing and start urinating somewhere else.

Scoopable litters have made tending to litter boxes less of a chore, but you still have to wash out the whole pan thoroughly from time to time. When cleaning it, keep in mind that urine is basically alkaline. So is ammonia, so if you clean the box with ammonia or an ammonia-based cleaner, you will only increase the urine smell. Use something acidic like vinegar or lemon juice, which neutralizes the urine smell.

The anti-scoopable data

digestive system. Every advance has its downside, and probably in the future there will be a “new and improved” litter that poses fewer health risks for cats.

Getting a buzz off electricity

It looks dangerous, and sometimes it is: a cat gnawing on an electrical cord. Apparently the cat gets an actual buzz from doing this and may be able to chew entirely through a cord without harming herself. But the risk of severe shock is always there, plus she can burn her mouth or nose in the process. A cat who has experienced electrical shock may have difﬁculty breathing, her gums may appear blue and she may stare glassily. A vet is needed in this situation. If your cat is a chronic cord-chewer, try the squirt-gun method or the brand-name spray No.

The worst kind of cat death

Though the poet Thomas Gray wrote a famous poem on the drowning of a pet cat , cats rarely do drown because they can swim when they have to. If they fall into a pool or large tub that they can’t climb out of, then of course swimming won’t save them.

A cat who has “gone down for the third time” but is still alive can be aided by being held up by the hind legs, which will help get most of the water out of the lungs. Naturally the nearly drowned cat needs a vet’s attention as soon as possible. While drowning is unlikely to happen to your cat or any other, it would seem to be the most horrible kind of death, given cats’ notorious aversion to water.

The second litter revolution

Cat litter, made it easier to own a cat. Around the late 1970s, a new type of litter made it even easier. This was the “scoopable” type, made of clay containing sodium bentonite. This new litter clumped when moistened, so cat owners (using perforated “scoops” that are now standard equipment for most owners) could easily scoop out the clumps of urine-saturated litter, leaving behind dry litter. It requires changing much less often than the old clay litter and is also less dusty.

How the agile are fallen!

Everything has to be given a fancy name and an acronym these days, so try this one on: high-rise syndrome, or HRS. In laymen’s terms, HRS involves cats being injured or killed by falling from windows or balconies. As more pet owners move to high-rise apartment buildings, the number of cat deaths rises.

Given how surefooted cats are, it amazes people that cats could ever slip and fall. In many cases HRS is the result of a cat snoozing on a rail, then waking and falling before knowing what was happening. Actually, the most surprising news is not that they fall, but that they often survive. (Remember: nine lives.)

Cats have fallen from as high as eighteen stories and survived. Yes, they do almost always land on their feet, and the legs absorb most of the impact and are often injured—but a fractured leg is better than death. It goes without saying that no cat owner wants a beloved pet to die from a fall, so it makes sense for urban “cliff-dwellers” to keep a close eye on open windows and balcony doors.

The litter revolution

world forever. Before his product existed, part of cat owners’ daily ritual was putting out the cat for the night. Few owners were willing to bother with boxes ﬁlled with sand or soil, and since most cats don’t like to be walked, apartment dwellers weren’t keen on cats. (After all, if they had a cat, where would the cat “go”?) Cat litter changed everything: You could have a cat without having a yard and without having to worry about what might happen to your cat outside every night. In short, cat litter made it inevitable that more people would be able to own cats.

The nervous human’s friend

The tranquilizing drug Valium (generic name diazepam) has been around for years, and many a nervous, stressed-out person is thankful for it. It is widely used by veterinarians to treat cats—not for nervousness but for aggression. It is effective with most overly aggressive cats, though in a few cases it actually seems to make the cat more aggressive. Note: do not try to administer your own Valium to your cat. The dosages for cats are different than dosages for humans, and this matter needs to be handled by a vet.

Chasing those stinging things

A cat is as fascinated by a bee or wasp in ﬂight as by any other small, moving object and may swat at the insect and get stung in the process. While a healthy cat isn’t likely to die from such a sting (though it is possible), the owner should try to locate the stinger and remove it using ﬁngernails or tweezers.

A paste made of water and baking soda can help relieve both the pain and the swelling. Some cats, like some humans, are allergic to insect stings, and this will be evident if the swelling from the sting doesn’t go away soon. As with allergic reactions in humans, this immediately requires medical attention.

The anorexic cat

people—teenage girls in particular—starve themselves, leading to serious health problems because they fear being overweight and looking unattractive. Cats, needless to say, have no concern about looking slim and sexy, but cats can experience anorexia, though exactly why is not known.

It seems more common among cats placed in kennels or in hospitals. The cats simply refuse to eat, and sometimes it is necessary to insert a feeding tube into their stomachs. Curiously, the tranquilizer Valium, used to treat aggression in some cats, is also used at times to stimulate appetite.

If it’s hotter than me ...

glands, but they don’t function exactly like human sweat glands; plus, a cat can’t (or won’t) do all the things humans do to cool down, such as bathe in water or remove clothing.

In fact, it’s very easy for a cat to have a heat stroke, which can be fatal. A sensitive cat owner wants to avoid situations like a parked car with the windows rolled up, any concrete area without shade or any conﬁned area in direct sunlight. Short-nosed cats, including Persians, seem to be the most at risk for heat stroke.

Slimming down the chub

One obvious solution to slim down a fat cat: feed her less. It’s best to do this gradually instead of dramatically. A sudden “starvation diet” can lead to serious health problems. Not only should the cat be fed less but the diet ought to be altered to include less fat and more protein.

And, as with humans, proper diet ought to be coupled with proper exercise. Obese cats, like obese humans, typically don’t exercise, which can be partly blamed on their owners, who may enjoy a placid lap cat but who ought to realize that every cat does require play and exercise.

Forgetting you in their pain

Owners who have had to deal with an injured cat are often bewildered, because the cat seems to lash out viciously, as if she didn’t know her owner. The cat hasn’t forgotten, but the pain temporarily overrides her memory. A cat in severe pain—after being struck by a car, for example—is “no man’s friend” and thus requires careful handling, since she doesn’t understand you are trying to save her life.

Cats can’t really be muzzled, so you have to take your chances with the teeth until you can get her to a vet. It’s wise to wrap the cat in a large towel or blanket, and wear thick gloves if you have them. The good news about an injured cat is that once the syok is past, she will be friendly again and apparently will have no memory of having bitten or scratched her bewildered owner.

Forcing the pill

You’ve probably heard this before: a dog can be fooled into taking a pill mixed with food, but a cat cannot. It’s true, which means you have to take an active role in the medicating if your cat has to take a medicine in pill form.

It isn’t fun (for either you or the cat), and it requires you to force open the cat’s mouth, push the pill far to the back of the throat and then hold the head back until the pill has gone down. It has to be done quickly, otherwise the cat coughs up the pill and you begin all over again. It helps the process the next time around if you end each session with some stroking and soft words.

Chubby castrati

male opera singers of centuries ago who had been castrated (voluntarily) before puberty so they would retain a sweet soprano voice all their lives. Alas, one other effect of prepuberty castration was that the castrati tended to be extremely obese (which, as far as their singing was concerned, was not a bad thing).

It appears that neutered tomcats are, in general, more prone to obesity than are unneutered toms. In fact, a neutered tom could eat the same amount as an unneutered one and gain weight, while the unneutered tom might lose. Not every neutered tomcat becomes obese, but as a neutered pet ages, his weight should be monitored.

The Black Death—not dead yet

Europe in the Middle Ages, is still around and still caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Then as now, the germ is carried by ﬂea-bearing rodents, and cats can get the germ by eating infected rodents or by being bitten by ﬂeas that have bitten infected rodents. While the infection is no longer common, it is serious business when a cat or any animal is infected with the plague. Cats can transmit the disease to humans through scratches or bites.

The rib test

We have all seen stray cats who looked pitiful with their ribs protruding, and our instinct is to bring them home and fatten them up. In a cat of normal health and weight, the ribs would not be visible to the eye, but you could deﬁnitely feel them if you rub the cat’s torso or pick up the cat.

The sign that the cat is obese is when you use the touch test and can barely feel the ribs underneath. You’ve got a fat cat on your hands, and while the cat (unlike its human owner) doesn’t care how she looks, too much body fat can lead to health problems.

The sweet sickness

Greece and Rome spoke of the “sweet sickness,” a disease we know as diabetes. It occurs not only among humans but cats as well, generally cats eight years of age or older. A diabetic cat tends to be overweight for a while, then, as the disease progresses, becomes emaciated.

It can be treated, just as human diabetes can, but doing so places demands on the owners, including giving insulin injections once or twice daily, frequently testing glucose levels and monitoring the diet extremely carefully.

Shutting down the immune system

Yes, cats do get a form of AIDS. It’s caused by the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), and it’s closely related to the human AIDS virus. As in humans with AIDS, the cat’s immune system no longer functions properly, making her vulnerable to all sorts of infections and complications that would normally not be a problem. It can be detected by a test, but as with human AIDS, it is not curable (yet) and no vaccine is available. How it is spread among cats is not fully understood.

The pill obsession

pet owners impose this obsession onto their animal companions, assuming the pet just can’t get by without some sort of pill or liquid supplement.

While the intention is good, most commercial foods are already well supplied with vitamins and minerals. In the case of some vitamins, such as A and D, there is even a danger of overdosing to the point of toxicity. In a word, be conscious of nutrition (your own, and your pet’s) but don’t go overboard.

Nonwhites of the eyes

eyes will become yellow. If the cat is jaundiced, it is probably experiencing various other symptoms of liver disease, such as vomiting, diarrhea and loss of appetite. A vet’s attention is needed.

Do cats like booze?

dog. The truth is that both cats and dogs show a lot more good sense than humans about intoxicating beverages. And besides, could a cat ﬁnd anything more intoxicating—and less harmful—than catnip?

Just say no (to aspirin)

We humans are accustomed to popping an aspirin (or some other over-the-counter pain reliever) for various aches and pains, and some cat owners foolishly give these human medications to their pets. In fact, some of these medications can be given to cats, but it isn’t wise to do so without consulting a vet.

Human dosages and cat dosages are (to state the obvious) very different, plus a cat metabolizes medications at different rates than humans do. Practically every vet has had to treat a cat for aspirin poisoning. The upshot: “Just say no” to administering human medicines to a cat.

The string disease

“String enteritis” sounds silly when described, but it is a very serious condition. A cat playing with a thread or string happens to swallow it. If the entire string passes into the stomach, no problem, but sometimes the end of the string gets caught around the base of the tongue.

This inevitably leads to severe digestive problems—vomiting, diarrhea and other problems—resulting from the cat’s intestinal tract trying in vain to pass the string. A vet should be seen, and the owner should deﬁnitely not try to pull out the string through the cat’s mouth.

No veggies, thank you

The various mammals belonging to the order Carnivora are meat eaters, but most of them will eat fruits, vegetables and other plant matter. (And, oddly, pandas are classiﬁed as carnivores, yet they live almost exclusively on bamboo.) That is, carnivores are not exclusively meat eaters—except for cats, that is. All cats must have animal protein and fat to survive, and though house cats might munch on cooked rice at times, cats as a group are truly “meat-only” animals.

Feline seizures

A cat with rabies is viciously, dangerously mad, but only slightly less frightening is a cat with feline epilepsy, also called rolling-skin syndrome and neurodermatitis. An affected cat may bite at her own back or tail. She may experience hallucinations that cause her to run around frantically, sometimes attacking objects or even her owner. Seizures similar to those of human epilepsy may last for several minutes. The good news for cat owners: the syndrome can be treated successfully with drugs.

Are they really finicky over food?

First, Lang’s Law of Feeding Cats: if your cat is really really hungry, she will eat whatever canned or dry food you put in front of her. This has (for me) proven to be the most effective way of dealing with a “ﬁnicky” cat. Hunger overrides ﬁnickiness every time. (It’s true for finicky humans, also.)

Some cats, of course, are not ﬁnicky at all (lucky owners!), while some are extremely fussy, leading their owners to try one brand of cat food after another, usually buying on the assumption that the more expensive brand is more likely to please the cat. This isn’t necessarily true, but manufacturers have made a killing from the idea that cats are ﬁnicky, as evident in the success of Morris and the glossiness of the Fancy Feast food ads.

Charity with caution

Cat owners are generally charitable toward all cats, but there are situations where this can lead to trouble. One situation that is potentially dangerous to humans is a cat who appears to be choking. It could be choking on a bone or other object, but choking can also be a symptom of rabies, and touching a cat with rabies is asking for trouble. If you don’t know the cat, then you don’t know if it’s been vaccinated for rabies. Your best bet is to call an animal control center quickly.

The rabies race

dogs. With less fear of rabid cats (and perhaps less community concern for cats in general), cases of rabid dogs declined while cases of rabid cats increased, so that by 1981 there were more rabid cats than rabid dogs in the United States.

All the rabid cats were, of course, unvaccinated. Simply put, cat owners are less likely to have their pets vaccinated than dog owners are, even if their local laws require it. This is risky, especially for the owners of unneutered toms, who are prone to wander looking for females, and thus may come into contact with rabid wild animals. Unless there is a shift in cat owners’ perceptions of the dangers of rabies, cats will continue to be the winners (and ultimately the losers) in the rabies race.

Dog food, yes, but not regularly

food. Probably one incentive to do this is that dog food is generally cheaper than cat food. While it won’t hurt the cat to eat dog food now and then, making a regular diet of it is bad news. Remember that cats are carnivores while dogs are omnivores, and their foods are formulated accordingly. Dog food, even the canned variety, usually has a fair amount of cereal in it—ﬁne for dogs, who need plant matter in the diet, but not adequate nutrition for your meat-loving cat.

Ten days of madness

rabies, you won’t soon forget it. Rabies, sometimes called hydrophobia, is a swift-moving disease of the nervous system. Normally it is transmitted when an affected animal bites another animal, passing on the disease through the saliva into the wound.

A cat with rabies is “wired,” extremely vicious and has seemingly swifter movements than a normal cat. After a cat shows signs of rabies, death occurs within ten days, but be aware that the cat is truly dangerous during this time. Needless to say, the disease’s seriousness is why every pet should be vaccinated.

Smelly and “light”

smell and taste both become less acute. Many older adults lose their appetite because they just don’t derive as much pleasure from the taste of food any more, and this is also true for older cats. For this reason cat food manufacturers produce foods especially for “senior cats,” foods with intensiﬁed smell and taste to appeal to the older pets.

The ﬂip side of aging is that some cats eat enough but exercise little, resulting in obesity, so the manufacturers now offer “light” cat foods that promise all the nutritional value with fewer calories. (A more sensible alternative: simply feed the older cat less if the cat shows signs of getting chubby.)

Stoned cats

Cats share with humans the tendency to get kidney and bladder stones—uroliths is the technical term and they are not pleasant. Male cats are more prone to them (ditto for male humans), and they seem to be more common in cats who are fed an exclusively dry food diet. The overall condition of stones forming in the urinary tract is called feline urological syndrome (FUL).

A cat whose urinary tract is blocked by a large stone can be in intense pain, and no wonder, since it needs to urinate but can’t because of the stone blocking the path. A vet’s aid is definitely called for, and quickly. Once the stone is removed or passed, the cat’s diet has to be altered and medication given to prevent more stones from forming.

Taking the cat’s pulse

It is fairly easy to take your cat’s pulse, as long as you remember that the wrist isn’t the right spot. The best pulse spot on the cat is the femoral artery, which you can feel on the inside of the thigh. The normal heart rate for a cat is anywhere from 120 to 240 beats per minute while at rest. (Yes, that is faster than the human heart, which is about 72 beats per minute. A small animal’s heart beats faster than a larger animal’s heart.)

Airtight only

good news, but the bad news is that those supplements can literally evaporate into the air. For that reason, unused food ought to be tightly sealed, preferably in an airtight container.

The plastic lids now commonly used to seal canned cat food work well (plus, putting an open can in the refrigerator slows the breakdown of vitamins). People do get careless with dry food, leaving the bag wide open or perhaps just rolling up the end. It’s better to fasten the end with a clothespin or, even better, dump the whole bag into an airtight plastic or glass container.

The great high-jumpers, fleas

eggs nearly anywhere, including in carpeting and air ducts, and they reproduce very fast.

Their bloodsucking can cause health problems (such as anemia), but their bites also cause allergic reactions in many cats and humans, leading to skin problems and other conditions. Happily, we have come a long way in ﬂea treatment, and whereas in the past we relied on powders, sprays and ﬂea collars, newer treatments (Advantage flea control, for example, which is rubbed into a cat’s skin) are highly effective.

The old food switcheroo

creatures of habit (as are humans), and yet they need variety in their diet, so owners are sometimes in the awkward position of having to change the cat’s diet only to ﬁnding that the cat rejects the new food. One solution is to introduce the new food into the diet gradually by mixing a small amount in with the old food. Over a period of several days, change the proportion so that eventually the cat is eating only the new food. (Even better, you may be a lucky cat owner like the author, whose cat appears willing to eat whatever is put in front of her.)

Those lousy lice

lice chomp on skin tissue and are contagious via contact, speciﬁcally by passing from one host’s hair to another host’s hair. The nasty little insects are itchy and irritating but basically harmless, and they can be easily gotten rid of with special medicinal shampoos. If you or your cat has ever had lice, be sure to wash all your bedding thoroughly.

Cat in the Poe house

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) gave the world some enchanting poetry and some truly chilling horror stories, none more memorable than “The Black Cat.” The tale is narrated by a man who is clearly going insane, as he proves by cutting out the eye of his beloved cat, Pluto. He also murders his wife and bricks up her body inside a wall, assuming no one will ever ﬁnd her.

But (sorry to give away the ending of the story!) the murder is revealed when the man and the police investigating his wife’s disappearance hear screams from behind the wall that turn out to be the pitiful cries of Pluto, who was also bricked up in the wall.

Paying for a lot of water

house.

Owners faced with a ﬁnicky cat usually ﬁnd they can easily solve the duduk perkara with canned food. While there is nothing wrong with canned foods (though they vary in nutritional quality), be aware of this: about three-quarters of canned cat food is water. It costs more than dry foods and, pound for pound, you’re getting less real food and more water.

Sandburg and fog

The beloved American poet Carl Sandburg wrote one of the world’s most famous cat poems—though it really isn’t about cats. It is “Fog,” published in 1916, and brief enough to quote here: “The fog comes / on little cat feet. / It sits looking / over harbor and city / on silent haunches / and then moves on.” People who have never heard the name Carl Sandburg have certainly heard of fog coming “on little cat feet.”

What’s in that dry stuff anyway?

You can’t take meat or ﬁsh or chicken and magically transform it into tiny bits of dry cat food ... or can you? The animal protein found in dry cat foods gets there in the form of meal—beef meal, ﬁsh meal, chicken meal. Soybean meal, also high in protein, is a common ingredient (but so is cereal, which cats in their natural state would have no interest in).

Many manufacturers add vitamins and minerals to the mix, and as a ﬁnal stage in the process, the bits of dry food may be sprayed with a coating of concentrated meat extract, enhancing the nutrition value as well as giving an appealing smell and taste. In short, dry food is meatier than you might have thought.

The good news about ticks

country can spot a “full” (blood-gorged) tick right away, appearing as a big brown lump hanging somewhere on a pet.

Some not-too-bright pet owners rush their pets to the vet, puzzled about this mysterious “growth,” which could be easily removed just by pulling it off. However, when a tick is pulled off an animal, it sometimes leaves its mouthparts behind, which can lead to infections. The old camp counselors’ trick: strike a match, blow it out and apply the hot end to the rear of the tick, which will fall off in a few seconds.

For the woodsy cat

The author, a former camp counselor, is very familiar with chiggers, also called harvest mites. They are common in woodsy areas, and they burrow into human skin and cause serious itching.

Rodents get chiggers and so do cats, especially cats who roam in the woods and ﬁelds. They are not dangerous, and the itch eventually goes away. The best thing about chiggers is that, unlike other mites, they can’t be passed from one host to another.

That satisfying crunching sound

If you’ve ever heard a cat chowing down on dry food, you would assume they are enjoying it, and with good reason, because the crunchy quality of dry food is similar to the crunch they would ﬁnd in the bones of birds and mice. While an entirely dryfood diet has its drawbacks, dry food not only provides the “crunch factor,” but also does a better job than canned food of cleansing tartar from the teeth and gums.

Mangy mites

You may know that mange is a skin disease, but did you know it’s caused by mites? Mites are not insects, but are tiny members of the Arachnida class—spiders and their relatives. Some mites are easily seen; others are barely visible to the naked eye.

Female mites lay their eggs in the skin, and the mites that hatch feed on the skin cells. The resulting skin condition is generally called mange, and the symptoms are hair loss, redness, scaling and itching. It is irritating but not dangerous, and the worst thing about the condition is that mites can be transferred from cats to humans, and vice versa.

Dry, but not really

If you place dry cat food on a paper towel and leave it there a while, you’ll ﬁnd later that the paper towel has absorbed moisture. “Dry” food is never as dry as we think. In fact, it contains up to 12 percent moisture, some of which is fat put on as a coating to improve the taste. (Remember, a cat loves and needs fat.

The bad news about dry food is that it is still lower in moisture than a cat’s natural foods (mice, birds and other small animals), and cats who are fed dry food constantly are susceptible to feline urological syndrome. The obvious solution: vary dry food with other foods and keep plenty of water available.

Endo- and ecto-

creatures are harmless; some are extremely harmful. And some are just irritating.

One thing is certain for the cat owner: no matter how healthy your cat may be, and no matter how much tender loving care you supply, you will at some point have to give some attention to the various tiny critters that live on or in your cat.

No, they aren’t drunk

head.

In more severe cases the cat’s balance may be so off that she will lie down and roll around. The syndrome resembles tipsiness—or drunkenness way beyond the tipsy stage. Not only is the cause unknown, but there is no known treatment. Most cats seem to spontaneously recover after a short time.

The water-urine connection

One reason that cat urine has such a powerful odor is that it is highly concentrated—a lot of waste matter in a relatively tiny amount of water. The urine of humans or dogs is, by comparison, much more watery.

Since cats lose less water through urination, they require less than humans do, and they can go much longer without water than a human or a dog can. But like all living things, cats do require water. In fact, a cat’s body is about 70 percent water, which is true of you as well. Stating the obvious, the drier the food your cat eats, the more water is required.

Egyptian mau

sound cats made, just as if today we were to refer to cats as “meows.” There exists today a breed called the Egyptian mau, which may be (but probably isn’t) a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptians’ pets.

Serious protein

kitten food are correct: kittens do have different dietary needs than adult cats. Speciﬁcally, a kitten needs one and a half times the protein required by a mature cat. And cats in general have high protein requirements. Proportionate to their body weight, cats require three or four times the amount of protein that humans require. (Humans are omnivores and take in a large amount of plant food, but cats, are almost exclusively carnivores.)

Cats and silos

Egyptian wildcats.

So naturally the Egyptians appreciated the rodent-eating predators. We really have no idea at what point the rodent killers were adopted as pets, but we can thank the Egyptians for knowing a good thing when they saw it. In terms of the human race at large, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The deaf gene

It’s truth, not legend: Many white cats are deaf, particularly white cats with blue eyes. This is caused by genetics, and if there is a way to prevent it, no one has found it yet.

Since cats have such sensitive hearing, it is sad to think of one going through life without being able to hear, but in fact there are plenty of perfectly contented deaf cats in the world, though their owners need to be a little extra watchful for them.

The protein palette

Cats’ protein requirements are high, and so their need for variety is high also, because no one source of protein—red meat, poultry, ﬁsh—provides just the right amounts of all the amino acids that a cat needs. Humans can get into a diet rut, and, thanks to their owners, cats can too, so owners need to be conscious of varying their cats’ diet, selecting an assortment of canned and dried foods that make use of protein from various sources.

Even cats get glaucoma

eyes are not usually affected, and a cat, like a human, can make it through life with only one eye.

The duduk perkara with cat glaucoma is that the blind eye bulges very unattractively. Some owners opt for surgery, which involves removing the blind eye and ﬁtting the socket with a silicone false eye.

Bring on the fat!

As noted above, cats in the wild wouldn’t take in carbohydrates in the form of starches and sugars. They would instead derive most of their energy from fat, which they have a great need for. In fact, adult cats require a diet that is about 10 percent fat to stay healthy, and kittens require even more.

So many adults now are obsessing over eliminating fat from their diet that they foolishly try to impose their own diet regimens on their pets, and this is not a good thing. Too little fat can lead to weight loss, susceptibility to infection, slow healing of wounds and other problems. Another point to remember: cats can only metabolize animal fat; they cannot metabolize the fat in vegetable oils.

Don’t say “zits”

Acne does occur in cats, and fairly often, but it doesn’t take quite the same form as in humans. Feline acne takes the form of blackheads on the chin and the lower lip. There can also be redness, swelling and itching involved.

Humans with acne have always been advised to keep their faces clean, and the advice applies to cats too, though it is hard to imagine any cat not keeping her chin clean. Vets have noticed that it seems more common among cats who sleep on hard surfaces or on dirt than among those who sleep on soft surfaces. Get ready for the treatment: benzoyl peroxide, which is commonly used to treat acne in humans.

“Stud tail”

sound somewhat sexy, but the condition itself certainly isn’t. Cats possess a preen gland, a sebaceous gland at the base of the tail. If the gland becomes hyperactive, it can lead to blackheads, waxy debris, and painful boils.

It is technically called tail gland hyperplasia, and the common name, “stud tail,” stems from it being most common among sexually active male cats, even though it does occur among neutered males and among females.

Skip the carbs

Humans require (and like!) carbohydrates in the form of sugars and starches, but cats have no such requirement. This is worth noting when you buy cat food, because canned foods are made of about 10 percent carbohydrates, and dry foods are about 40 percent carbohydrates.

The carbohydrates don’t do any harm, of course, and your cat can metabolize them easily. But in its natural state as a hunter in the woods and ﬁelds, a cat wouldn’t take in starches or sugars at all. Also, keep in mind that an excess of carbohydrates will have the same effect on your cat as on you: obesity.

Patch baldness

common in breeds that are normally thin haired in that part of the body, such as the Siamese.

The vague category of semistrays

One of the old Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons was about a cat with several owners. There are indeed such cats around, unusually unneutered ones, who are not quite strays but not quite attached to a single house, either.

In most cases they have been strays for several years, and while they like the food and affection that humans provide, they never quite cease to hear the “call of the wild,” so they wander away, either hunting or on the sexual prowl, sometimes returning to “home base,” sometimes not. These cats seldom experience enough human interaction to become truly “tame” in the real sense—unless, of course, you have them neutered. It’s amazing how many semistrays (or even a few ferals) have settled down after neutering.

Why not just say “baldness”?

The technical term for baldness is alopecia, and cats are subject to a form of it, though a very different form than the human male-pattern baldness. Feline endocrine alopecia is probably hormone related (as is male-pattern baldness), but the areas where the hair thins are the posterior, underside of the tail, belly and inside of the thighs.

The remaining hairs can be easily pulled out, but the areas are never completely smooth. No pain is involved, but it does make the cat look less attractive. Some cases respond to hormone treatments. (There is no “Hair Club for Cats,” as far as we know.)

The gum test

pink gums, and if the gums are pale, that may be a sign of severe problems, such as anemia or internal bleeding. One condition that does not need to be a concern is the presence of black spots on the gums. These would be strange in a human mouth, but they are perfectly normal for many cats.

Purina’s nonprofit

The Ralston Purina company (now called Nestlé Purina PetCare) is noted as a maker of pet food, but the company also established a nonproﬁt kegiatan called Pets for People. Managed by local humane societies, Pets for People works to provide free pets to people over age sixty. To no one’s surprise, Pets for People and the many programs like it report that most of the recipients of pets report that the quality of their lives has improved considerably after taking a pet into their homes.

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts: