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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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