After her husband died from a heart attack before Christmas, Margaret Baker wanted some company – so she applied to adopt Lilly, a Bengal cat in a Feline Care animal shelter. However, when the charity discovered that Mrs. Baker lived on Abbey Estate in Thetford, Norfolk, they denied her application, on the grounds that she lived in too rough an area! Mrs. Baker explained, “They phoned and said due to my postcode I couldn’t have Lilly…I put the phone down and just burst into tears”.

Mrs. Baker’s daughter, Angela Rourke, calls it “discrimination”, but manager of the charity shelter, Molly Cutmore, feels otherwise; “We’ve heard reports of people training their dogs to attack cats and there have been cruelty cases on the estate…We don’t want to stop people who want one having a cat, but can’t re-home them if we think something will happen.”

Although we cat the Cat Health blog have great sympathy with Mrs. Baker, we’re on the side of the charity this time. As much as some people may want to own cats, it is the safety of the cat that is of paramount importance and cat welfare charities cannot be expected to give cats to people who live in areas that have been deemed unsafe. Owning a cat is not a right, it’s a privilege – some areas simply aren’t suitable and that’s too bad.

A man in Canada spends three hours a night making rounds of the city, looking after feral cats – and has done so for the last five years! He covers a 25-block area of Edmonton, stopping to feed up to 75 cats! Not only does this take up a large part of his day, it costs over $600 every month to buy supplies, which he finds himself when he hasn’t enough donors!

Of course, monthly supplies are only one of the expenditures for Dennis Benzer; since feral cats have no cat insurance, Benzer spends thousands looking after their wellbeing, including having them sprayed or neutered. When asked why he does it, Benzer explains “Nobody wants to take in a feral cat” and he’s right; the likely fate for most these cats is being put down at the city pound, if they don’t perish on the street.

“All the shelters are already overrun with cats” he claims; a sad but universal truth at the moment. Perhaps if there were more people like Dennis, our world would be a better place for cats… Of course, it might also cause a massive surge in the population of feral cats, which nobody really wants. Nevertheless, it’s an uplifting story!

The world’s most expensive cat, the Ashera has a price tag of £12,000. British businessman Simon Brodie breeds these cats from the wild African serval, the Asian leopard cat and a type of domestic cat. With striking leopard-like fur, these cats can grow up to 1 meter tall and weigh up to 30 pounds.

I wonder what the cat insurance would be on the Ashera??

Image: SWNS

Nobody should take on a cat without fully intending to look after it – no matter what the price. Sadly, with the price of pet health care ever rising, more cats and being put up for adoption and less owners say they are willing to pay up for emergency surgery and expensive treatment. Given the current economic climate, it’s understandable that people aren’t keen to see their finances thrown out of whack by a big vet bill, but surely this is all part of the responsibility of having a pet?

Either way, having to choose between the health of your pet and the stability of your bank account is something not cat owner wants to do. When it comes to life-saving surgery, a bill of hundreds if not thousands of pounds could be on the agenda – which 85% of cat owners said they wouldn’t pay if they exceeded £1500. By contrast, cat insurance that covers you pet for up to £1500 can be found from as little as £4.88 per month! At just over £1 per week, protecting your cat and your bank account doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

Hello and welcome to the cat health bulletin!  I – catexpert - have been a lover of all things feline since infancy and hope to share my accumulated knowledge and passion for cats with the rest of you.

When I was just a toddler, my family had three cats; Wacky and Sammy (the parents) and a kitten called Teeny who I grew up with and who sparked my passion for everything cat-related!  As luck would have it, I lived very close to London zoo and, before long, big cats were another huge part of my life.  This feline passion of mine reached an high just after my 18th birthday, when I was given the opportuniy to spend six months in Zambia, in a Lion rehabilitation centre where I helped a dediated team get injured Lions back into the wild, without taming them.

As soon as I returned I signed up for veterinary science at Nottingham University and spent a few happy years learing as much as possible about my favourite subject.  Since then, I have worked closely with the RSPCA and Cat Protection, caring for and rehousing cats across the UK, as well as offering cat insurance advice to owners.  Hopefully this collection of information and insights about different breeds of cat will help you readers care for your cats too.