Cats & Cat Health

Cat Grooming – Keep Your Cat Looking Great

Cats do not like to be dirty. Most cats spend a good part of their day licking their paws and face. Whether this is for cleaning purposes or is simply pleasurable to the cat is hard to say but whatever the cat’s motivation it does keep them clean. But cat’s can’t get rid of all their loose hair and if you don’t want it all over your furnishings you need to groom him regularly.

Grooming isn’t just for cleanliness though. Without brushing, a lot of this hair will be swallowed. Since hair is not digestible, it often forms hairballs in the cat’s stomach and will either be coughed up, maybe on your carpet, or it will cause a blockage in his intestinal tract. In addition, its an opportunity to check for fleas and ticks.

If you start when your cat is a kitten, gently brushing him every day, he may grow up to think grooming is a nice as stroking. Not always though! I started brushing Alfie when he was a kitten and he didn’t like it then and doesn’t like it now. I think some cats have more sensitive skin and the brushing is uncomfortable for them. You can buy a grooming glove or a soft rubber cat brush like the one pictured here, which is much gentler for them. (Its called the Kong Cat Zoom Groom.)

My cat will tolerate this for a while but even this makes him growl if I get too vigorous! My solution is to do a little bit every day instead of all of it once a week.

Gently brush or comb over your cat or kitten’s coat, following the grain of the fur from his neck to his tail. If he begins to grow irritable, stop grooming him and play with him for a few minutes until he is relaxed. Don’t try to brush his face or paws, it isn’t necessary and most cats will object to it.

If you have a long haired cat whose coat has become matted, you may need to have him shaved. Shaving a cat is a skilled job and most cats need to be sedated during the procedure, so this is a job for your veterinarian.

While you are brushing your cat’s coat, be sure you take the time to check out his eyes and ears. His eyes should be clear and bright, without matter in their corners. His ears should be clean and pink. Excess dirt in a cat’s ears can be a sign of ear mites. These mites can cause deafness and think how miserable he would be if he lost his acute sense of hearing. Be sure to take him to the veterinarian if you suspect mites.

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Alfie has had ringworm. I don’t know where it came from but most likely one of the mice or rats he catches on his evening prowls. It started with a crusty patch that I noticed when I was stroking him. A little while later I found he had lost some fur and developed a red inflamed looking area in the same area. As I am an ex nurse I was pretty sure I that this was ringworm. To be sure I did some research online and found a very useful article here: Feline Ringworm

Looking at the images I could see that he had the type of ringworm that cats catch from mice and rats. He is a great rodent catcher so now I know where he caught his ringworm.

We had some antifungal ointment, Lamasil, so I began to rub it into his bald patch twice a day. I also applied some antiseptic cream because it looked inflamed which means it was infected. He didn’t mind this at all and I felt that he knew we were helping him. I guess its what a kitten’s mum would do so as I am his adopted mum he was OK with it. I must add that he is a cat that isn’t normally OK about being touched at all unless he initiates it!

Within about 3 days it was looking much better,the inflammation had gone and the area looked as if was healing well. I continued treatment for another few days to make sure no more fungus was lurking. I am keeping and eye on it now just to make sure we got it all and it isn’t growing back.

I read another article about cat ringworm it which told me this:

You will also need to clean the rest of the home thoroughly to ensure there are no ringworm spores present. You will need to wipe down all areas that your cat has been near with a cleaning solution, as well as washing all bedding and cleaning the carpets. Your vacuum cleaner will need to be cleaned out as well. Keep your cat indoors and away from other animals until the ringworm has cleared.

Well I am sorry but that sounds like a marathon Spring clean to me and I am really not equal to it! Would anyone go to all this trouble for an easily cured fungus? The spores if any, that may be around your home will die without a host so don’t worry about them.

You do need to check other animals and wash their bedding. If you have children check their skin to ensure they haven’t caught it from the cat. That is probably all you need to do, unless you are keen on extra housework!

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Well I am back home again in New Zealand from England and what a journey that is! Whenever I go there I vow never to do that trip again until I can afford to travel Business class! It is 13,000 miles to the UK from here and that meant several long plane journeys:

First a 2 hour domestic flight and then a 26 hour flight to Heathrow with a 2 hour stop in Hong Kong. Its not very comfortable in a plane for 26 hours and you also end up with jet lag that lasts for a week or more.

When I got home from England after 3 weeks away Alfie, my cat, made it known that he did not appreciate my long absence. He came to me and purred then turned tail and grumbled for a while! The following day he had got over his irritation and spent a lot of time purring and making up for lost stroking. It wasn’t as if he was left alone in a cattery, he was at home with my husband the whole time.

I hate to put him in a cattery as he really doesn’t settle in there. They always tell me he was grouchy with them.

So what am I going to do next year when my husband retires and we want to travel more? It is really bothering me. Any ideas folks?

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Also just posted a really funny cat video. Its big cats, tigers, being teased by a cheeky monkey. This monkey is really getting a thrill out of taking a risk. Must be a young male! To see the video go to the cat videos tab at the top of the page.

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Ever struggled to give your cat his/her medication? Cats are pretty good at spitting it right back out again aren’t they? Well I have found a site that will show you exactly how to tackle this. They also have heaps of other advice and help for cat owners. The video is from The Battersea Rescue Centre in London.

Video on giving pills or liquid medication to your cat:

How To Give Your Cat Medication

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I haven’t written here for a while because I have been away with little access to a computer. I travelled from New Zealand to England and was on one flight from Auckland to Heathrow for 26 hours. Add to that 2 hours domestic flight plus a 5 hour airport wait before the big one. How horrible is that?

I did this to be with my daughter who has just had her first baby and my first grandchild. It is lovely to be here with her and of course the baby, called Mia, is adorable. I have now after 5 days just about got over my jet lag. So not much to say about cats today. My daughter hasn’t got one yet, she wants to have one when Mia is a bit older.

I do miss my cat Alfie but I don’t think he misses me. He is snuggling up to my husband, who he usually ignores, instead! Oh well I am glad he is ok but I miss those purrs and head butts, stroking his silky fur when he cuddles up to me at night and his greeting when he comes in from the garden. It is so hard to leave a cat when you can’t even explain to them that you are coming back.

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Did you know that cats like to nibble on their food and if left to their own devices will have little meals throughout the day? Most people including me are used to feeding their cats two meals a day. But results of feeding studies show that given the choice cats will eat up to 20 times during a 24 hour period. It has been suggested that since a mouse, a cat’s natural prey, gives about 10% of a cat’s energy needs this would require them to catch and eat several times a day.

I have found that since feeding Alfie a raw food diet to which I add a vitamin supplement, he needs fewer meals a day. I think this must be because he is getting the right nutrients which keeps him satisfied with a smaller amount of food. He doesn’t eat it all at once and does like to have a little nibble several times a day. I still put it out twice a day though  and leave him to do the rationing of it.

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I was loaned a book during the Christmas break called “The Cat Whisperer or The Secret of How to Talk to Your Cat” by Claire Bessant. If you haven’t read it you should, you can pick it up at Amazon.com for less than $10 . Its full of stuff I didn’t know about my favorite animal, the cat.

For exampe do you know how to approach a cat that doesn’t know you? She says cats should not be touched or spoken to at close quarters immediately. You should let the cat come to you rather than going to it, because the cat needs to know you are safe. If you stand away from it and speak to it it will come to you. If it doesn’t it is a shy cat and you should let it be.

No wonder Alfie bolts when my friends arrive. They all bend down and try to make friends too fast!

She also tells you how to interpret cat body language and cat vocalization and how to understand the way your cat communicates via sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste. This makes it much easier to learn how to train your cat.

Another new one on me was that cats can’t hear low pitched voices easily. That’s why when you call your cat you should use a higher pitch. I think it might also be why cats often ignore men. With their low voices cats can’t really hear men very well.

One idea you can put to immediate use is how to tell your cat what it must not do, such as scratching your furniture or carpet. I always shout at my cat, but according to Bessant I should hiss. Cats understand a hiss but are simply scared by a shout. This is also why, unlike horses, they hate you blowing in their faces, it feels like a hiss.

I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it.

The Cat Whisperer

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Here in New Zealand, where it is summertime, we had a beautiful Christmas Day. We opened our presents outside and Alfie sat and watched us.

I hope you all had  a lovely Christmas. Our best wishes to you for a sucessful and happy 2008 (with no cat-astrophes!)

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I keep on reading about the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) going on about how cats must be imprisoned to protect birds. I have mentioned this before but having read an article on the topic recently I will do so again.

Keeping cats inside to save birds isn’t necessarily going to work. Sounds like it would work, but have they done any studies on it? Well here in little old New Zealand they have. Here is the most recent finding on this topic. This is taken from the New Zealand Herald 12 December edition.

“Department of Conservation efforts to wipe out cats on Little Barrier Island to protect the Cook’s petrel backfired as rats became an even more deadly threat.

Efforts to rid the island of feral cats in 1980 failed to reverse the decline in numbers of the native Cook’s petrel, says Matt Rayner, a PhD student at the University of Auckland’s School of Biological Sciences.

While 32 per cent of breeding burrows fledged a chick when both cats and rats were preying on the petrels, only 9 per cent produced chicks after cats were removed from their breeding areas, he said in research published yesterday in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The cats were suppressing the rat numbers, so the removal of the cats allowed rat numbers to increase, and as rat numbers increased … they [hunted] petrels more heavily,” said Mr Rayner.

Cook’s petrels used to be found everywhere in New Zealand, but they disappeared from the mainland in the 19th century through human impact on their habitat.”

So you see it isn’t always as cut and dried as it would appear. This is not the only time this has been observed. If you get rid of cats you must get rid of the prey the cats keep down if that prey is itself a danger to wild life. Taking one without the other is a big mistake.

Or, here’s an idea…let’s populate with colonies of feral cats, all those habitats that have birds plus rats but no cats!!!

On that note did you know that cats were persecuted in the Middle Ages due their association with witches. It has been said that if there had been more cats around the Plague would not have gained ground and killed so many thousands of people. The Plague was carried by the fleas on rats.

Clea Simon made some helpful suggestions on her blog but she does advocate keeping the cat indoors. I don’t but then I don’t live in the USA and we don’t have any coyotes in our suburbs thank heavens!

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Story by Maude Standis

A little known Chicago law makes it illegal to own outdoor cats. I was unaware of this until the other day when I opened my front door and a cop spied my mean street cat prancing up the stairs for his breakfast.

“Miss?” the cop asked. “Is that you cat?” At first I ignored this city’s civil servant dressed in her crisp blue costume of authority and started to talk to my roommate who was locking her bike to the neighbor’s fence.

The cop, not liking my disdain for her ticketing powers informed me that it was illegal, yes illegal, to own an outdoor cat in Chicago. And that she had the authority to drag me down to court, impound my cat and ticket me for up to $500. I scooped up my cat and placed him inside. Not wanting to mess with this poor woman’s obvious ego issues, I didn’t object to the ridiculousness of such a law, rather I politely asked, why outdoor cats would ever be illegal?

“Because the neighbors don’t like them, and they pee on lawns making them smell bad, and they eat birds, and other small critters.”

She then told me she was going to let me off this time, but that I better keep my cat locked up, because she would be back to check up on me and then resumed issuing tickets to cars without permits.

Thinking that this lady was just obsessive enough to be back, I figured I should check out the law. Turns out, she was right. It is illegal to have outdoor cats in Chicago. But while she could impound my outdoor cat, she had not right to ticket me or take me to court.

The law dictates that a stray animal, such as my grey and white darling, on public property or upon private premises of any person other than the owner shall be immediately impounded by an animal control officer. A representative from the City Clerk said that they were not sure when exactly this became the law, but that he believed that it happened when Chicago’s municipal was rewritten in the 1950s.

So for the last 60 odd years all of these cats promenading up and down the sidewalk, climbing fences, striking down finches and returning to our homes have been illegal.

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