INTERNATIONAL CATS BIRTHDAY - March 1st
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NEWS AND VIEWS
Review of US survey data over the last 20 years, found that people who had owned cats at some point in their lives tended to have a lower risk of dying from heart attacks! ‘NAVC Clinician’s Brief Sept 2009’ p 5
The GPS locator for pets! Microchips only work via a database - If lost, your cat has to be picked up by a person and taken to a vet, local council or the RSPCA to get the microchip scanned. Then you have to rely on the database being up to date (both you and the database people have to be working on it!). This PawTracker - finds your cat for you! And yes, it is in Australia! www.pawtracker.com.au
Free Call 1300 255 990
CATS AS CONSERVATIONISTS
Cats Conserve Water: as everyone knows, cats are very good at concentrating their urine. This means that the because their kidneys evolved in a desert environment, every drop of water counts. Feline kidneys are fabulous at extracting water from the waste products that get filtered through them, and at ‘throwing out’ toxic substances left over from digestion and metabolism. Hence they are internally ‘recycling’ water constantly. Since muscle (meat protein) is their starting point (cats are strict carnivores - no vegetarians among them), cats throw out a lot more potassium than we do. Their kidneys are so efficient, that even if they become diabetics, in the early stages they do not drink extra water, so essentially they end up peeing out pure sugar (now THAT’S a picture!). Rather like Koalas, a cat hunting for a living rarely has to drink water - mice (and rats, rabbits and us!) are 80% water, at least their muscle and blood is - and there is not much fat on a mouse!
Lean muscle tissue contains about 75% water by weight. Blood contains almost 70% water, body fat contains 10% water and bone has 22% water. Skin also contains much water.Per Netter’s Atlas of Human Physiology quoted in Wikipedia.
Other species are considerably more profligate with their water usage - including all of us humans who drink tea, beer or soft drinks. One Green Point for the Cats there!
Cats are the Ultimate Energy Conservationists - and they do it by sleeping! Yes, studies have shown that cats (and other small strict carnivores like ferrets) expend a lot of energy capturing their prey, and they have to do it alone. It can take 3 attempts to catch a mouse, and cats need 10 mice per day. Cats also need to groom themselves, find a mate, feed young and all sorts of energy expending activities. Therefore, they use sleep (with its lower metabolic requirements) to conserve energy. Another Green Point. They do dream - of hunting mice of course!
And everyone knows - Cats are Solar Powered! So next time you see your cats snoozing in the sun - just think of them as Conserving Energy AND getting a solar-power recharge!
YOU THOUGHT YOUR CAT WAS BIG
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The three friends were only cubs at the time at barely two months old. They had been kept as status symbol pets by the drug barons.
‘To our knowledge, this is the only place where you’ll find this combination of animals together.’
Living with the Noah’s Ark zoo’s founders for the past eight years, Shere Khan, Baloo and Leo have now moved to a purpose-built habitat.
‘Baloo and Shere Khan are very close,’ says Diane.
‘That is because they rise early, and as Leo is a lion, he likes to spend most of the day sleeping. It is wonderful and magical to see a giant American Black Bear put his arm around a Bengal and then to see the tiger nuzzle up to the bear like a domestic cat’
‘They eat, sleep and play together,’ said Jama.
‘As they treat each other as siblings they will lie on top of each other for heat and simply for affection.
It’s when you forget that these fellows are wild animals that you get yourself in trouble. The clubhouse had to be very sturdy for the guys, because they all sleep in it together,’
She added: ‘We had to include a creek, because the tiger and the bear both like to be in water.’
KITTY
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At Chatswood Cat Central, we rather admire the feline ingenuity, but now we and Dr Kim Kendall Cat Vet are going to give the game away, so humans can attempt to get the upper hand again.
Here’s how it works. If you want to get any other being (human or animal) to repeat a particular behaviour, you will have to give them an indication that you have noticed the activity, and then either increase the chances of them doing it again by rewarding them, or decrease the chances of a repeat performance by punishing them. Words do not need to come into it. Food and claws will do.
So, your cat notices that when you go to the fridge or cat food cupboard, sometimes food appears in their bowl. Excellent.
Then your cat has a go at drawing your attention to the fridge or the cat food cupboard. First they walk around, but then they make a noise. They watch to see what gets you out of your chair – a yowl is what it takes. And then, silly you, you give them food to keep them quiet. Oh no! You have just rewarded the yowling, not the silence! Your cat can keep you hopping up and down all night with this method. They can also wake you up whenever they feel like it.
Once your cat has trained you, ignoring the yowl is really hard. Because now your cat thinks you have lost your mind and forgotten your training! For every time that you answer the yowl (by responding, or worse still by filling the food dish), you have to ignore the yowl 10 times at least, in order to try to get the cat to understand that the yowling technique will not work any more. Fortunately, you can speed-up this process by diverting the cat to another activity. So now when they yowl, they get a game (often, especially with young cats, all they want is your attention anyway and the game is the best fun). Most cats are not marathon players, and after a quick bat or two at a rope, they’ll go back to bed without any extra food. At Cat Central, we talk to many, many distraught owners who are being driven mad by their cat’s training success. Just remember: how do they get tigers to jump through hoops of fire? By giving them food when they get to the other side!
Now think of the things your cat will not let you do. Clip claws, give pills, comb them. How did they train you to stop doing those things? A growl, a hiss, a hook with a claw. They have punished you for doing something they did not like, and did not want you to do again. The problem is, no one has managed to train a cat through punishment – they just get fiercer. You have to give them something they want – like a delicious food treat – in exchange for their permission to take a bit of liberty with their personal space. You have to be careful with the timing here – otherwise you will be giving them the treat for behaving badly! If you do then you can kiss your chances of a successful nail clip or comb out goodbye!
So next time you plan to jump to your kitty’s command, just remember, it is you who has just been trained by an expert!
KITTY DAY SPA HAS BECOME VERY POPULAR - AND NOT JUST FOR LONG-HAIRED CATS!
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Groom School is BACK! As seen in the NST.
Jo has agreed to do another Groom School demonstration on Sunday February 28th 2010!
Jo will be covering topics such as:
Taming the Inner Lion -
how to handle Your Feline Dictator,
Clawdicures -
nail trimming Techniques and Equipment
Preventing Matts -
grooming techniques, equipment and benefits (less hair around the home!)
FLEA CONTROL, General Hair Hygiene, and Health and Safety (for you and your cat)!
PHONE 9417 6613 to book your place!
HOW CAN MY CAT HAVE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE? SHE IS SO RELAXED ALL OF THE TIME!
It is only fairly recently that vets have been able to measure feline Blood Pressure (BP). Cat’s arteries are small, and the blood flow through them is not audible with a stethoscope (like humans), so measuring feline BP had to wait for the development of Doppler Crystal Probes to be invented. These identify the movement of the arterial walls and convert it to sound, so NOW we can ‘hear’ when blood flow resumes in the artery after the paediatric inflating cuff is released. Hence BP can be identified.
Until recently, we thought that cat BP only rose to dangerous levels once their kidneys were already damaged. However, it appears there is a subset of cats who get high BP BEFORE the kidney damage. Since management of BP is one of the best ways to prolong kidney function, then managing it before any damage is discernible should mean we have cats’ kidneys lasting a very long time. Excellent news!
Finding out if your cat has hypertension is now pretty easy with a routine Blood Pressure measurement, especially if your cat is over the age of 8 years or has renal insufficiency - kidney damage. However, sometimes the first clue is due to the effects of high BP on other systems - cats can develop heart murmurs, retinas (in the eye) can detach so the cat goes blind. Or cats can have strokes or fits from high BP. Eventually, untreated, there will be enough damage to the kidneys that they will lose function. So treatment is important.
Here is the BUT: treatment requires once or even twice daily medication for your cat - for as long as it lives. Hypertension (high BP) does not go away. It is worse to treat BP intermittently rather than not at all, so starting on medication is a big commitment. There are a number of approaches - if your cat has hypertension, she will, of course, require her own customised plan! There are tablets - which need to be divided to 1/8 or 1/4 (Amlodipine / Norvasc (T)), or the same drug can be made into an ointment and rubbed inside the ear (transdermal cream). Or you can ignore the problem until there is a clinical issue, and then treat the hypertension. Some cats don’t want to ever be treated, or the financial burden can be high. It is possible just to treat the kidney issues with change of diet once the damage is done, and still extend the useful life of kidneys.
So in summary: each cat is different, high blood pressure (now we can measure it and cats are living long enough to develop it!) is quite common. Information is worth having, whether treatment is elected or not.
So next time you see Dr Kim - ask whether your cat needs a BP check. It may keep your cat with you, and enjoying a high quality of life, for a much longer time! or book now 0400 756 331.
Great Website, with all the right information : http://www.pets.ca/encyclopedia/hypertension_cats.htm
THE EYES HAVE IT
Cat Fact or Fiction: Cats are Colour Blind. Well, true and false. You see, people have been trying for years to see if cats can distinguish red and blue (we know they see yellow and green). The answers were a bit confusing and conflicting. Now that we can measure the wavelength detected by the individual cones (coloured light-sensitive cells in the cat's eyes) in the retina, we know cats CAN differentiate blue and red, so they CAN see colours - they just don't care! How Catty!
Cats see better than we do in the dark: True of course, but not because their eyes 'emit light' as was once thought. Cats are as blind as us in complete darkness. However, because of their ears, whiskers, smell and 'who knows what else' senses, they can find their way around very well. Blind cats will jump onto tables, even those blind from birth.
Cats are Blind as Bats (as in myopic - cannot see far away): True. Cats have 20 / 75 vision - which means that what is clear for us at 75 feet, is not in focus for a cat till 20 feet away. All fine if you are looking for small moving mice in the half dark. However, Dr Kim thinks it leads to the often fatal tendency to 'play chicken' with cars. Since a cat cannot focus till 20 feet away, and judging the speed of a moving object need serial focussing, cats wait till the car is close enough to judge their sprint across the road. since they are fast, it usually works. However, if the cat is distracted or chased (by another cat or a dog etc), then they get it wrong and there is no room for mistakes. Proof is that 1 in 3 kittens who go outside in Sydney do not make it to their first birthday, and another 1 in 3 do not make it to their second birthday. Sad, but true, and a GREAT REASON to keep 2 kittens (and a scratching post) as INDOOR ONLY CATS.
DR. KIM'S ACTIVITIES
Dr Kim and husband John are off to Sumatra to check on the Elephants there.
Cat Central donated a significant amount of money to filling in some old wells in the Way Kambas area that were trapping and killing baby elephants, tigers and rhinos. There are not enough to spare, so the program is worthwhile. Thank you for all of you supporting CCC - much more than just a cattery!
Dr Kim is also going to another Veterinary Forensics Conference in Orlando - learning to identify deliberate mistreatment of animals is the first step to stopping it. Not every broken bone is from a car accident. The RSPCA is holding a seminar in Canberra 23/2/10 - one of the topics is on managing stray and feral cats. Dr Kim wants to hear both sides of the cat story! And once again, Dr Kim is presenting a paper at the prestigious College Science Week in July, discussing the problems of feline cystitis.
WHEN IS DR. KIM AVAILABLE?
Dr Kim is available by appointment only. Cats who are booked for operations or grooming, as well as cats coming for consultations need to go to the ‘new’ premises. Dr Kim Kendall Cat Vet is 50 metres down the road from the Cat Central premises, at 131 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood (2 doors up from the Snow Shop).
Dr Kim will fit you in as best possible within the following general timetable Bear in mind she works every weekend, and till 8pm on Mondays and Fridays. So it is a five day week - Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. If you have an emergency, you can just turn up during the opening hours, but much better to phone first.
FRIDAY from 8am - 10am - drop off your cat for Operations (surgeries)
Friday consulting (by appointment) 8am - 8pm
SATURDAY consulting (by appointment) 9am - 4pm
SUNDAY consulting (by appointment) 12noon - 4pm
MONDAY from 8am - 10am - drop off your cat for Operations (surgeries) and Grooms with Jo Marsden-Grey Monday consulting (by appointment) 8am - 8pm
TUESDAY consulting 10am to 6pm (sometimes later)
WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY and PUBLIC HOLIDAYS - RARELY AVAILABLE but phone 0400 756 331 anyway - if Dr Kim is in the area she will usually come and see your cat. Otherwise, the receptionist will advise you.