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Welcome to our Award Winning Cat Care Library. Select a topic from the menu or browse this week’s featured articles below.
At some point in every human-cat relationship, the day will come when the cat misbehaves. It’s a fact of pet life; sooner or later, your cat will do something that, to him, seems like normal cat behavior and to you seems like a nefarious feline offense.
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At Cat Fanciers’ Association cat shows, each cat is judged according to a common standard for its breed. Color and characteristics of the breed are the two principal designations that set champion cats apart.
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Inflammation of the external ear canal, also known as otitis externa, is one of the most common reasons for visits to the veterinarian.
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The winter months influence us in subtle ways. The relative lack of daylight and persistent cold have a way of dampening our activity level as well as our mood. Our pets are also influenced by the climate of deep winter-possibly mirroring our own changes. And, like us, they may start to feel restless and bored. It’s kitty cabin fever.
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Osteoarthritis is fairly common in older cats, whose joints eventually undergo the same degenerative process that ours do. This painful and progressive condition can result in a range of symptoms, the worst of which is chronic pain.
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"Meow!" As cat owners, we hear it every day, often many times a day. But what does it mean? Well according to Dr. Nicholas Nicastro, we understand its meaning more clearly than we might think. Nicastro wrote his PhD thesis in psychology at Cornell University on humans’ ability to understand the meows of cats.
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Longhaired cats develop mats in their fur – those clumps of dead hair that get stuck in the coat – more easily than shorthaired cats, but any cat can develop them. During humid weather the fur bunches up and mats much more readily and requires more grooming. Cats also mat more frequently in the armpits and other places where their body parts rub against one another.
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Cats are like people in some ways, and one of the characteristics we share is an individual difference in activity levels. When all factors are considered (general noise and activity level of the home and family, age and health of the cat, and so on), some cats are simply more active than others.
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Cats age at a different rate than people do, and although 12 years old may be young for a human, a 12-year-old cat is like a human of about approximately 64 years old – a senior citizen. Staying physically and mentally fit as the aging process takes place is crucial for all species, including your feline. So keep your cat’s mind in shape by finding new and different ways to challenge her mind in her twilight years.
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At heart, cats are still creatures of the wild. As such, they hide their pain, even when it’s a toothache. And as anyone who’s had a toothache knows, dental pain ranks pretty high on the scream-out-loud scale.
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It seems like just a short time ago that your best (feline) friend had a veterinary check-up, but today, once again, you’ve spotted that familiar reminder card in the mail. Another veterinary exam already? Here is a checklist of some of the ways you can help ensure your cat’s good health throughout the year:
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It’s the subject of far too many jokes, and most cat owners cringe when the vet says tabby will have to take a pill.
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Lets not forget that our cats aren’t human, they can’t write ‘This Is The Property of Simba’ or ‘Please do not touch’, like we do with our property. The cat has a more, well how can I put it, a more natural way of declaring his intent to own something, it’s a simple method, the cat backs up to a vertical surface, holds up its tail and sprays urine in several short bursts.
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Respiratory distress is a symptom of many conditions including infection, aspiration pneumonia, near drowning, shock, heat stroke, fluid in the chest cavity. Irregular or shallow breathing indicates serious illness. Unless you can immediately identify and treat the cause e.g. treat heat stroke, seek veterinary advice immediately.
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This is generalized infection i.e. the kitten’s system is filled with harmful bacteria. It may have picked up these bacteria in the womb, during birth or after birth through a skin lesion or umbilical cord.
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The common term for collapse resulting from circulatory failure. The heart is unable to supply all the tissues in the body with adequate blood keep them oxygenated. Without adequate oxygen, those tissues cannot function normally.
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Intestinal parasites (roundworms, tapeworms) are common in kittens unless the mother was wormed before pregnancy began. With abandoned kittens it is impossible to know whether the mother was wormed or not. Feral kittens almost always harbor worms.
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At approx 3 days old, kittens gain the ability to vomit on a full stomach. Vomiting is a general sign associated with many different gastrointestinal (stomach and gut) problems.
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One of my cats is large, white and fluffy and is called Sheep. Well actually, she’s called Cindy but mostly she gets called Sheep. Not that this makes any difference to Cindy who doesn’t answer to either name unless food is involved. My friend Kate came to visit us one weekend and saw a large, fluffy white thing on the back lawn. "Ooh look – sheep!" said Kate. Kate was 39 years old at the time, but in her defence she’s the daughter of a sheep farmer and automatically identifies all fluffy white things seen against a backdrop of grass as sheep.
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This can occur before birth due to placenta problems. It also occurs in weak kittens e.g. runts or where the litter is too large for the mother to feed them all adequately. The runt is the first to suffer if there is a more general problem with lack of maternal milk supply.
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