Keep your veterinarian's phone number handy — you will need it in the case of of a feline emergency.

By Tom Ewing

Late one afternoon a while back, a virtually comatose cat was rushed by its distraught owners into the emergency unit of the Cornell University Hospital for Animals (CUHA) in Ithaca, New York. The animal, a neutered two-year-old male, hadn’t eaten a bite of food or consumed a drop of water for the previous 24 hours. The night prior to his arrival at the hospital, the cat had spent nearly an hour straining in his litter box, apparently in considerable pain, but had neither urinated nor defecated. When his owners awoke the following morning to find the poor animal vomiting intermittently, they finally agreed that emergency care might be warranted. Lucky…

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