Feline and Pet News

Many of us spend our days without giving much thought to what’s in the food we eat. Have you ever wondered what’s in your cat’s food? Do you know if your cat food is actually good for your cat?

Cats are, by nature, obligate carnivores – which means they require a diet rich in protein to flourish. They can eat some other things as well, such as sugars, but since they have short digestive tracts their systems aren’t quite suited to digesting vegetables and some grains, especially as a major part of their diet. Because of this, you might want to hold off on switching Kitty to a vegan diet.

What should your cat’s food contain? When you read the food label, the first ingredient listed should be protein. What you don’t want to see are a lot of by-products, which are basically those parts of animals and plants that are not eaten by humans. Additionally, you don’t want to see a lot of fillers. personally, i recommend a premium cat food such as from Life’s Abundance. For me, premium is simply the best way to go.

Fillers are normally made up of grain, some of which cats find hard to digest – such as corn. Some cat foods may contain as much as 50% grain as filler. Now, you can imagine what this will do your cat if he finds the food difficult to digest — that will be one unhappy cat. Giving your cat this type of food, depending on the cat, could result in some health issues, or in a cat that simply won’t eat.

When you do go shopping for food, also be sure to check the expiration date, as cat food, even though it’s dry and made with preservatives, doesn’t last forever. Additionally, once opened, even dry cat food will lose its freshness after several days, so be careful not to buy huge heaping bags of cat food without storing it properly in air tight containers after opening it.

It’s important to find cat food that meets your cat’s nutritional requirements, a cat food that is “balanced” and which contains Taurine, a nutritional element that cats’ bodies need but cannot product on their own.

Did you know that cats can get something called “Cat Flu”? It’s nothing anything they catch from people, so don’t worry about you passing your cold to your cat; rather it’s caused by a virus that only attacks cats, resulting in a totally miserable cat – a cat that won’t get up, walk around, or eat their cat food.

How did I find out about Cat Flu?
I happened to adopt two kittens from a shelter several months ago and brought them home with me to live with my other two older cats. Unfortunately, I did I know that my cute little kittens were harboring the makings of cat flu that would soon spread to my other healthy adult cats, wreaking havoc on my household for about ten days.

I noticed it suddenly – both older cats, seemed unusually lazy. Actually, I would characterize them as looking quite miserable. All in all, this was quite odd for them, especially their new lack of interest in their cat food. By the way, one thing that can help to stengthen their immune system to prevent this from happening in the first place is to obtain a good premium cat food like Life’s Abundance from Dr. Jane Bicks. A premium cat food can really help over the long haul and may save you vet’s bills down the line as well..

Now back to the story: The bigger male feline had it worse. Prior to this, he would lie in the middle of the kitchen floor, his front paws crossed in front on him casually, while his back legs were generally flat out behind him, making him look like a he was in the middle of a gigantic leap, but we soon noticed that when he got into that position, he could not get up. He struggled to get his back legs up underneath his body, and my husband and I grew extremely worried, as he only seemed to get worse. We took him to the vet, but the vet told us she didn’t know what was wrong.

Over the next few days, we noticed that while our older female cat was still quite miserable, she’d get up and eat cat food, and use the litter box while the male cat would just lie in one place for hours. My sister-in-law, a nurse who has cats herself, warned us that the cat needed to eat and drink or that his kidneys would fail.
It wasn’t until this strange illness had passed that we came across “cat flu” on the internet – the symptoms of which matched perfectly what our cats had gone through.

So words to the wise: if you adopt a pet from a shelter and bring it home to other pets, segregate it for at least two weeks to make sure any germs the new pet may be incubating are gone before it gets exposed to your current house pets. It may be a bit inconvenient, but it could save you a lot of unnecessary stress to both you AND your pets.

According to an article by esteemed writer Mary Bernard,
Free-roaming cats appear to be a bigger and bigger problem these days.
She stated in her article that “litter along the highway. Passerby are inured by their presence until their numbers become too many to ignore”
and that feline impounds have risen at the shelter over the previous 12 months.
She pointed out that a Feral cat simply means and unowned one and that the term could also be applied to wild animals as well.
It should also be noted that in certain cases, individuals may actually want these feral cats to be around to kill rats or whatever vermin are around at the time.
Lately there has been a sharp increase in veral cats and unfortunately,
many of these impounded creatures show various signs of disease.
On solution in many parts of the country to this problem is the Trap-Neuter-Release Program
or TNR. In this particular program the animals are trapped, vaccinated, sterilized and then returned to their range by individuals who will care for the whole group of them.
They manage the group via vet care, shots, and sometimes by pet adoption. Strays could also be removed from the group for public adoption through the shelter or
similiar groups if they are at least fairly sociable.
Nonetheless, no less of a source than the Audubon Society states that these programs do nocompletely deal with the problem. In fact, Similar statements may be found on the United States Fish and Wildlife Service site.
 This is because fed or not fed, these cats are superb hunters, and they wipe out protected species in parks from Coast to coast. This has led the National Park Service in partnership with Nature Conservancy to trap cats and remove food sources so as to to solve this problem.
Careful and lasting management is vital to any type of TNR program. When cat vet care becomes ignored (like updating shots, for example, then disease can run amok. One possible threat to public health which arose when a dead bat was found partially eaten by cats in a formerly managed colony.

The scourges of heat combined with humidity have brought with them a plethera of mosquitoes to Tulsa, oklahoma and it is not just humans who are fighting these aweful critters.

Cats, for instance, might face the dreaded heartworm after being bitten by mosquitos.

The signs to look for might not show for a few months or even years, as the sheer numbers of heartworms often accumulates rather gradually.

Like cats, dogs might show no early signs of heartworms, while severely infected animals might show signs which include a cough, low energy levels, lowered appetite and also weight loss.

Heartworms in dogs are eliminated by a drug known as adulticide, that is injected into a muscle in a sequence of treatments. However, there are no products are approved for the treatment of heartworms in cats in the US at this time, unfortunately.

The risk of reinfection during treatment is eliminated by using a heartworm preventive.

Heartworm medicine will kill the larvae in the bloodstream at this stage. If left untreated, the larvae molt and grow as they migrate through the tissues leading to the heart and lung vessels.
 After reaching the heart, the larvae grow to adults and cause damage to the heart and lung vessels by impeding blood fl ow. Heartworm adults are the size of spaghetti strands and give birth to live offspring.

According to the Fox news network in a story reported out of Maryland,
cats accounted for some 54% of all domesticated animals that were found with rabies in 2005, as compared with dogs
 at just 16%. This datacomes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and it flies in the face of the modern media perception of the foam mouthed, rabid canines
running around. Yet the facts are the facts.
Overall, the actual number of reported rabies cases in any particular animal species will usually vary substantially from year to year due to various natural cycles in movement as well as reproduction,
according to the experts on the subject.
In some areas of the country, racoons are the biggest source of rabies, interestingly enouph.
In 2005 Maryland, for example 242 out of 380 cases were attributed to this species. Of the thirty odd rabid domestic animals that year, 28 were cats, one was a canine and 1 was even a cow.
In uch of the eastern portion of America, racoons are the major culprit.
Overall, every state government states that the owners have to vaccinate their pets. A big issue here is that while feral cats often live amongst people, they very often lack the required shots.
This poses a substantial health risk. What exactly is this disease?
Rabies is a viral disease which travels through bodily fluids like saliva and then assaults the nervous system. It is fatal if it goes untreated.
This treatemnt is often dreaded since it consists of a series of painful shots.
You can sometimes tell by their behavior if an animal has the disease,
since ones which usually behave aggressively under normal circumstances become passive while they are suffering from it.