Posts Tagged ‘cat health’

There are two main kinds of arthritis that affects cats; traumatic arthritis and osteoarthritis. The first is arthritis brought on by an injury that weakens the joints or bones, causing inflammation. Although it doesn’t always last very long, traumatic arthritis can be exceptionally painful and may even require surgery if it is brought on by a break, fracture or dislocation. Because it is impossible to predict when an accident it going to happen, or when your cat might get into a fight, it is highly advisable to invest in pet insurance, just in case.

Osteoarthritis normally occurs with old age or repeated injuries to the same area; as the joints get old and stop working as well as they used to, they become inflamed while new bone continues to grow around the joints. Osteoarthritis tends to get worse over time and can be severely painful, especially for overweight cats. Pain relief is absolutely necessary to allow cats with osteoarthritis to live a comfortable life, so please speak to your vet if you have concerns. Although the constant medication can be expensive, some comprehensive pet insurance policies will pay for it.

It may seem like deliberate destruction but, for a cat, scratching things is a natural act, designed not only to keep their claws in shape, but to mark their territory as well. However, as happy as you may be to have your lounge used as territorial grounds, I’d wager you’d rather not have your sofa shredded in the process, right? Claw damage is covered by cat insurance; cat damage isn’t necessarily covered by contents insurance!

For this reason, scratching posts were invented, to allow owners to redirect their pet’s scratching tendencies. They come in a range of shapes and sizes not only to appeal to our sense of aesthetic variation, but also because different cats scratch in different ways. Some cats stretch out their whole body when they scratch, making a tall and sturdy scratching post the ideal choice. Other cats only really scratch with their shoulder muscles and will be perfectly content with a smaller post.

Whatever kind of scratching post you provide for your cat, it is wise not to buy a carpet-covered post. The reason is simple; having bought a post to train your cat not to scratch the furniture, you don’t want to inadvertently train it to scratch your carpet instead! The best idea is to buy multiple scratching posts and put them around the house, in the rooms in which you spend the most time.

When it comes to our cat’s diets, all cat owners should be aware of the high levels of salt in human food.  Of course we all want to treat our little feline companions from time to time, but the deli counter at the supermarket simply isn’t the right place to buy your treats!  We humans already eat too much salt; it’s in almost all of our food!  If a cat consumes too much salt, by being fed human food for example, it can cause all kinds of nasty problems – urinary tract infections expecially!  If you want to treat your cat and insist on doing it with human food, consider organic meat shops instead.

Do try to get food without grain and always avoid milk.  Despite the fact that cats and milk seem to go hand in hand, dairy products aren’t good for them and they’ll put on a lot of weight pretty fast!  I this respect cats are like humans; they might foods that are bad for them!

Otherwise, don’t treat your cat’s diet like you would a human – be specific with your treats!  For the real cat-lover, I can highly recommend Paws, Applause or Thrive Cat Treats – especially the freeze-dried chicken and prawns!  My cats can’t get enough of them!

Of course, when humans and cats live side by side, sometimes things do go a bit wrong with their diet- they do have  a knack of getting into the rubbish don’t they?  For this reason, I always advise cat owners to get pet insurance; it means you can whisk them off to the vet at the first sign of trouble, without worrying about the charges!

If you’re going to get a long-haired cat, make sure you’re prepared to do some work!

If may only take 15 minutes a day, but I know from experience that even a quarter of an hour can be hard to find. However, regular and thorough grooming is essential to maintaining your cat’s well-being, so you should always try to find time to do it properly. Although there are many brushes on the market, most cats are quite sensitive to being grooming and you should take care to get a brush that won’t be uncomfortable. Invest in the right brush and your cat may, like mine, come to prefer being groomed to being stroked! My advice would be to look for bristles with rounded, plastic covers – they are the most comfortable in my experience. Although you’ll need a needled brush to get all the knots out, a thick bristly brush works wonders to bring out the shine in a coat!

When it comes to the grooming, make sure you spend enough time to do it properly. Lift up their legs to make sure you brush the areas where most knots occur, including the bottom and tail. However, do be aware that tails are exceptionally sensitive – so take care!

If your cat has any kind of stomach upset, pay particular attention to the fur around their bottom – it can become very tangled. Of course, if you detect any symptoms worse than loose stools, don’t hesitate to take your cat to the vet. I highly advice having pet insurance for this reason; you can take your cat in for a check up any time you want, without having to worry about the cost.

To have a long-haired cat is to have a beautiful cat; put in the effort and you’ll see the benefits!

Even less safe than alcohol for cats, is chocolate. Shocking, isn’t it? It contains a substance called theobromine; which raises their heart rate and makes them urinate more often – causing hyperactivity, an irregular heart beat and thirst. Before too many hours have elapsed it can also cause to vomiting and diarrhoea; eventually even leading to heart attacks before the day is done.

The most dangerous kinds of chocolate to give you cat are those containing high amounts of cocoa; cooking chocolate, gourmet chocolate and cocoa powder. Milk chocolate is the least dangerous type of chocolate to give your cat, but is still dangerous to their health. Chocolate may be a treat for you, but there are a huge range of cat-treats available that your pet will like a lot more! Give you pet and your cat insurance a real treat next time and put some effort into finding a truly delicious treat.

We may turn to alcohol in good times and bad, but it’s very unsafe to give to your cat.

What with the war on drugs, it’s easy to forget that alcohol is as much of a drug as any other – more so than cannabis so say. The fact that it is legal is not to do with it being safer for us to consume, but more because it’s too dangerous for us no ban it! With regards to cats, let us never forget that alcohol is “poisonous”; human beings have been consuming it in some form or another since prehistoric times and have literally evolved to handle it better than animals. Cats, on the other hand, have not. Their livers help handle the vast amounts of protein they require; not to detoxify substances like alcohol.

Repeated consumption of alcohol will cause liver damage, gastrointestinal irritation and breathing difficulties, as well as potentially comas and death. Granted this is also true in human beings, but we’re a lot bigger than cats and have evolution on our side! It may seem like a funny idea at the time, but don’t give alcohol to your cat; it’ll hurt your pet and your cat insurance policy.

Cleaning your cat’s ears is essential in ensuring he doesn’t get ear infections that can cause horrendous damage if left untreated.  For the sake of your cat’s health and your pet insurance, it is well worth cleaning your cat’s ears regularly.  In this post I provide a simple guide to how to clean your cat’s ears thoroughly.  You will need cotton balls and ear cleaning fluid, though some owners prefer to use olive oil instead.  You can also clean with the addition of cotton swabs, as I shall explain later.

Firstly, place the olive oil or ear cleaning fluid container in some warm water to heat it to body temperature.  Then, with the cat lying down on a flat surface, fill the ear canal with the fluid – this should only take a few drops!  With the fluid in the ear canal, massage the base of the ear for about 30 seconds to work the fluid around and release the debris.  Some owners suggest leaving the cat alone for a while now, to allow him to shake his head around, further dislodge dirt and move the fluid to the outer ear – this stage is entirely up to you.  Lastly, using a cotton ball, wipe out the loose debris and excess fluid to thoroughly clean the ear and move on to the other.

Cotton swabs can be used to further clean the ear, as they are very useful for cleaning out the earflap and visible part of the ear canal.  However, please note that cleaning further down the ear canal is more likely to push debris further down than remove it.  It is highly advisable NOT to clean any further down the ear canal than you can see.

Despite the abundance of cases of ear mites, lice and fleas taking up residence on our cats; the most common parasite seen in adult cats is actually the tapeworm, which attaches itself to the wall of the intestine by hooks and suckers on its head! 

The body of a tapeworm is made up of quarter-inch long segments, each of which contains eggs.  Over the course of the tapeworm’s life, these segments break off and are passed out of the anus in the faeces for other organisms to pick up.  These organisms are normally lice and fleas which, having picked up the tapeworm segment, are commonly ingested by another animal – continuing the tapeworm’s life in a new intestine.  Hence, if your cat has a tapeworm, the chances are that it has lice or fleas as well!

Tapeworms are easily treated by either a deworming pill or injection.  Signs that your cat has tapeworms include dry segments found in the hair around the anus or in the bedding.  On rare occasions or when they are present in large numbers, tapeworms can cause weight loss and debilitation in cats, though a more reliable sign may be “scooting” – where the cat drags his behind across the ground to soothe anal irritation.  This sign is far more common in dogs that cats, however.   

Luckily tapeworms aren’t that bad for you cat’s health so don’t worry yourself too much about seeking out the signs.

Although ear infection of the outer ear (otitis externa) is very common in cats, the disease can also spread deeper down the ear canal if not treated quickly enough.  Otitis externa is has a range of causes and treatments, but will normally have no more serious an affect than discomfort and trauma to the ear from scratching.

Inflammation of the middle ear (otitis media) however, can actually require surgery to put right – although treatment normally involve antibiotics or antifungals.  Symptoms include shaking or tilting or the head as well as a loss of balance in some cases.  Should the infection reach the inner ear (otitis interna), then your cat is in real trouble as these infections can result in permanent damage or even death!  The signs of otitis interna are un-missable and include vomiting, hearing loss and loss of coordination.  For this reason it is imperative that ear diseases are diagnosed and treated as soon as possible, as many cats are put down when the treatment is too expensive for owners without pet insurance.

There are many causes of ear disease and hence many treatments.  In this post I explain a few of the causes and their appropriate treatments.

Bacteria and Yeast:

There are many different kinds of bacteria and yeast that can cause ear infections and hence the ear has evolved to have excellent defences against them.  However, variations in the ear environment – caused by moisture, for example – can provide a breeding ground for bacteria and yeast, allowing them to multiply and overcome the ear’s natural defences.

Regular ear cleaning helps combat both bacterial and yeast infections, though normally a course of antibiotics or antifungals will be required as well, to prevent the infection spreading deeper in the ear.

Allergies:

Allergies change the ear environment, increasing the chances of bacteria and yeast infections.  However, simply treating the infection is not enough in cases when the problem is cause by allergies in the first place.  Allergy testing is recommended to discern the best treatment.

Normal treatment of allergies in cats involves regular ear cleaning combined with antihistamines and fatty acid supplements.

Parasites:

Ear mites are a very common cause of ear problems in cats that can be detected by debris of a dark, crumbly material in the ear.  If a cat is hypersensitive to mites, the itching caused by the parasite can be so intense that the cat may actually damage their ear by scratching so much! 

Once again, regular ear cleaning is recommended, though this time a mediation will be required to kill the mites.  

As should be obvious from the above information; it is essential to keep your cat’s ears clean!