Short Takes

More toxic objects in your home; vegetarian cats; catowners and strays

When to Evacuate Your Pets? Cat owners ordered to evacuate in advance of a potential disaster face some tough decisions: Where will the cat and I stay? (Red Cross shelters generally dont allow pets.) Do I care enough to stay behind with my cat? (An American Kennel Club survey, in the wake of 2005s Hurricane Katrina, found most pet owners planning to defy evacuation orders if they could not take their pets. Nearly two-thirds…

Why Cats Are Fat, and What to DoWhen a normally thin publication like Waltham Focus, an international journal for companion-animal veterinarians, stuffs an issue...

Low-Carb Diet May Help Control Feline DiabetesVeterinary researchers from Colorado State University and New Yorks Animal Medical Center, reporting in the Journal of Feline...

Why Do I Seem Angry About LUTS?LUTS - which stands for lower urinary tract signs - is no picnic for either cats or their...

FIP Breed Predisposition Defies ExplanationVeterinary researchers now know which six breeds of cats are more likely to get feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), the relatively...

Why We Prefer Cats: Reason #1An article in the journal Veterinary Research Communications, titled Nutritional Peculiarities and Diet Palatability in the Cat, brings up...

Why Feral Cats Come BackEven the best TNR (trap-neuter-return) programs for reducing feral cat populations ultimately falter because of human and feline nature, according...

Imidacloprid Zaps Fleas Fastest, But Other Products Work As WellIf the trademarked names for flea treatments sound like video games, try pronouncing the pharmacological terms for the chemicals in Revolution, Advantage and Frontline: Selamectin, Imidacloprid and Fipronil-(S)-Methoprene, respectively. Luckily, scientists didnt have to pronounce the words when they wrote in the journal Veterinary Therapeutics (Vol. 6, No. 3) about Comparative Speed of Kill of selamectin, imidacloprid and fipronil-(S)-methoprene Spot-On Formulations Against Fleas on Cats. …

Infection Catches Up with Kidney Transplants As the 20-year anniversary (1987) of the first feline kidney transplant approaches, researchers are getting the rest of the story. Infection is second only to rejection of the transplanted organ as the cause of death in cats that received new kidneys, according to a report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Vol. 227, No. 6). …

Are We Shortchanging Cats in Pain? Even at one of the top university-based clinics in the country, cats dont always get the pain medication they need. And when veterinarians do prescribe medications, the cats dont always end up receiving the right amounts. That is the finding of Tufts University researchers, who said they werent picking on the School of Veterinary Medicines clinic at Tufts. The same problem - insufficient pain medication for cats - probably exists at…

Are We Attached Yet?Twenty five years after a landmark study established stereotypes regarding the personalities of pet owners, those curious sociologists are at it...