Lifestyle

Compared to humans, feline eyesight offers advantages and disadvantages

Cats are super easy to train by using shaping. Shaping is a training technique where you build up to the desired behavior by rewarding steps in the right direction. To teach shaking hands, for example, you might first put your hand under her paw so she touches it. Give her a special treat, like a tiny piece of chicken, for the touch. Repeat, offering your hand and moving it closer to her to see if and when shell touch it.

With dramatic advancements in feline veterinary care, our beloved cats are living longer and healthier lives. A cat who lives to be 20 years old is the approximate equivalent of a 96-year-old person. Unfortunately, all cats eventually show signs of aging.

The first fungal infection that comes to mind when we think of cats is ringworm. As you likely know, it doesnt involve a worm, but rather the fungus Microsporum canis. This is a skin infection that often has round, ring-like lesions. It is not life-threatening, although it does require exquisite hygiene and weeks of topical and/or oral medication to cure.

As cats are obligate carnivores, a raw meat-based diet sounds like the perfect option. Unfortunately, that natural diet also comes with some all-natural risks, including parasites and bacteria, such as Salmonella.

All too often, a sick older cat is brought to the veterinarian only to be diagnosed with late-stage kidney failure. Chronic kidney failure is one of the most prevalent illnesses in geriatric cats, but early detection and treatment greatly improves the prognosis for these cats. Unfortunately, cats tend to stay quiet when theyre ill and not all owners are aware of the initial subtle symptoms. Kidney disease can develop for months or years before it is detected.

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Move over, clay. Youre boring. PetAge, a pet-industry business journal, reports that kitty litter options are changing rapidly in 2018. From litters that claim to stop ammonia buildup to diagnostic litters that monitor cat health to neon-colored litter to gel-based litter to reduce tracking, we can choose almost any attribute, assuming were willing to pay more for, well, litter.

My 10-year-old Ragdoll loves paper, especially newspaper and cheap paperbacks. Shes been eating paper since I brought her home at 4 months of age from the breeder.

A study published in the November 2017 Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine looked at cats admitted to a teaching hospital with gastrointestinal signs and low blood cobalamin (vitamin B12) levels. Twenty cats completed the study.

The Telegraph, a United Kingdom publication, reports that Great Britains cats are great for public relations and diplomacy and keeping keeping the mouse problem down in public buildings. We have wooed many world leaders with the Foreign Offices (cat) Palmerston, says the report, and he and the four other government cats, including Number 10s Larry, keep Downing Streets mouse problem down. Now, other countries are getting in on the cat action, with the French government announcing it has brought in two cats to sort out their rat problem.

A new treatment called microbrachytherapy, which is used to treat inoperable feline oral squamous cell carcinomas, may be gaining momentum, according to a recent study published in Veterinary and Comparative Oncology.