Health

When your cat suddenly becomes ill or injured, how do you determine if he needs to go to the veterinarian or emergency hospital - STAT? Its not always easy to tell. Hiding illness is a natural instinct for cats because of their evolution as both prey and predator. Theyre hard-wired to cloak weakness and may exhibit only subtle signs that theyre seriously sick.

A survey of more than 10,000 pet owners in 11 countries - 3,100 of them in the U.S. - has found that U.S. owners are the most passionate about their cats. In addition to the U.S., the renovation and design firm Houzz asked owners about pets in the home in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Germany, Australia and Japan. Veterinarians frequently prescribe therapeutic diets and daily medication for cats with chronic enteropathy, a condition characterized by excessive loss of plasma proteins into the gastrointestinal tract. However, the regimen can have side effects, and some owners have difficulty complying with it.

Seeing your once-graceful cat suddenly stumbling with his head tilted and eyes darting wildly can be frightening. These signs are associated with vestibular syndrome, a fairly common problem with a variety of causes and occasionally only temporary signs. Darting eye movements can be present at birth in blue-eyed color point breeds - those having a darker color on their tail, legs, ears and face, such as Siamese and Himalayan, but they are not related to vestibular syndrome. In the case of the syndrome, the eye movements are more likely due to an underlying condition such as infection, polyps, stroke, cancer, inflammation or drug toxicity, especially to certain antibiotics.

Q: My 11-year-old male domestic shorthaired cat has just been diagnosed with diabetes. I am feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of managing this condition and concerned for his well-being. Can you tell me a bit about this condition, his prognosis and how it can be managed?

The Food and Drug Administration has awarded Anil Thachil, BVsc, Ph.D., in the Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine a grant to investigate the quality of commercial raw meat diets for pets.

You may be hard-pressed to find scientific studies on this, but anecdotal evidence abounds at veterinary clinics: When owners learn their cat needs a dental cleaning, a lay term for periodontal treatment, most of them are alarmed - specifically about the risks of anesthesia. Some even delay treatment because of their concern.

If you want to compare the calories in treats to the daily calories that your cat requires, this chart can help. It also —...

I am the proud mother of a middle-aged cat who requires extraction of two molars because of resorptive lesions [a painful disease in which resorption destroys the teeth]. I am very concerned about the anesthesia required for this extraction, and I wanted to ask if you can provide some insight regarding how best to assure that he is treated safely during this procedure.

Hypertension in people can damage the heart, eyes, kidneys and brain. As dangerous as it is for us, hypertension - also known as high blood pressure - can cause equally serious problems for our cats, especially those 7 years of age and older. Yet its symptoms arent always evident, even to experts. The disease is insidious, meaning signs may come on slowly or not be that apparent. Its been called the silent killer for that very reason. Cats may be a little bit lethargic or may act strangely, but in most cases its not obvious, says cardiologist Bruce Kornreich, DVM, Ph.D., ACVIM, Associate Director of the Feline Health Center at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. The most important thing to keep in mind is target organ damage.

Veterinarians commonly diagnose hypertension with a Doppler system that detects blood flow acoustically. This method uses an inflatable cuff with a gauge that measures pressure within it, a stethoscope and a unit that uses Doppler signals to detect blood flow. The veterinarian or technician places the cuff around a limb, inflates it until blood blood flow in the limb is blocked and then gradually deflates the cuff until blood flow is detected once again. …

When your cat is happy, you are happy. When your cat has delicious chewy treats, he is usually pretty happy. But cat owners oft forget that their furry friends only need about 200 calories a day. At about 1.5 calories per piece, a single handful of Meow Mix is over 25 percent of your cat's daily intake.

Niagara County SPCA in upstate New York calls itself the little shelter that could. It has a small staff of 19, a surgical trailer for sterilizations and a big population problem. Despite working with rescue groups and community cat caretakers, Executive Director Amy Lewis told WGRZ-TV in Buffalo that the city has 60,000 stray and feral cats compared to 50,000 people. As long as theyre not spayed or neutered, the number of homeless cats will keep increasing, she says. A lot of people dont spay and neuter - theres not low-cost, accessible spay-neuter programs for them. We do have one at the shelter, but we dont have the resources to accommodate large numbers of animals. The no-kill shelter sterilizes 40 to 50 cats a week but needs an in-house surgical suite to do more. Its board hopes to expand the facility or build a new one.