helping cats live happy, healthy lives
High blood pressure in cats can have a sudden impact even when their owners thought they were fit and healthy. It is shocking and upsetting, when your cat goes from “well” to “very poorly” in the space of a few hours. To learn how to reduce the chances of a dramatic deterioration, read on. Imagine your senior cat that is sprightly as a kitten: She’s so well for her …
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How do you tell the difference between a cat that is having a relaxing snooze and one that is sleeping because she’s sick? How do you know when it's time to visit the vet? When a cat isn't feeling well or is ill, instinctively she lies low. This is to avoid bringing attention to her infirmity because in the wild, to alert a predator to weakness makes her vulnerable. All …
There are few things guaranteed to worry a cat guardian more, than when the vet casually mentions, “Do you know your cat has a heart murmur?” A thousand thoughts (none of them good) fly through your mind at once. Numb from worry, the only coherent words you can string together are, “Is it serious?” An Awkward Question Actually, as a vet the “Is it serious?” question …
Imagine it’s the school holidays, but you have to work. You leave the kids home alone. . . but the TV’s broken, they’re too young to read, and you’ve locked most of their toys away. When you come home would you expect them to be perched like little angels on the sofa, hands folded in their laps, without a hair out of place? No! Of course not. You’d be lucky if the …
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How much do you know about feline panleukopenia - the disease against which you vaccinate your cat? You probably have an understanding that these diseases are “bad” and that vaccination is recommended. Even so, it’s easy to become complacent. After all, you have an indoor cat who doesn’t meet other felines, so the risk of infection is low. Right? Well kind of, but the …
Kids have a lot to learn about the world around them. Unfortunately, during this exploratory phase, it’s not unusual for collateral damage to happen such as sandwiches posted into the DVD player, teddy swimming in the toilet. . . you get the picture. But when the object under investigation happens to be a cat, someone (two or four-legged) could get hurt. It’s a child’s …
At school, were you always the last kid left standing in line when sports teams were chosen? For some people, this lack of sporting ability as a child means we are familiar with the feeling of being invisible. And this is sad. But not as sad as being the last cat at the rescue shelter, the unadoptable cat that no-one shows any interest in, the cat who is passed …
Continue Reading about Why Some Cats are Invisible: Which Cats Have the Lowest Adoption Rates?
Are you familiar with the expression: “Taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut”? Essentially this means using over-the-top effort to achieve a simple end. A great example of this is declawing cats. OK, so what we want to achieve is the sofa not being shredded, but is surgically amputating one-third of each toe a proportionate way to achieve this? We think not! Keep in …
Does your cat lick you? Being licked by your cat is a bitter-sweet experience. On the one paw, it’s nice to think the cat loves you, but on the other it’s uncomfortable. . . to say the least! Indeed, there’s a deal of difference between the sandpaper roughness of a cat’s tongue and the velvet smoothness of her coat. Ironic then that it’s her tongue that keeps the coat silky, …
How does your timid cat feel about house guests? Cats are creatures of habit; after all it takes dedication to squeeze all those cat naps into the day. Even a confident, sociable cat may be less than thrilled by the arrival of guests coming to stay. But if that cat is timid or anxious, the inconvenience of visitors is akin to having their world turned upside down. Think …
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