Ask Dr K

Q: Our kitty recently died of a “massive bacterial or fungal” infection. We can understand bacterial, but what is a fungal infection? How do cats...

Q: I have recently adopted a 6-year-old female cat that was rescued from an outside location (garbage dump) here in Florida. She has been...

Q: We have an overweight male Siamese (22 pounds) who recently went to the veterinarian to have his teeth cleaned. On retrieving him, we...

My 12- or 13-year-old rescue cat has gone from vocalizing normally to practically mute in about two to three weeks. He makes meowing motions...

Q My husband and I breed Abyssinians, and we were told by another breeder that we should be checking our cats for immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA), as she owns a relative that tested positive. We don’t know anything about IMHA. Could you enlighten us?

Q I live in southern Pennsylvania, and I have two domestic indoor/outdoor shorthaired cats, one 3-year-old male and one 7-year-old female. I have never given them heartworm preventive because I thought that cats do not get heartworm, but a friend recently told me that this is not true. Do I need to be worried about my kitties getting heartworm, and should they be on preventive medicine for this?

Q. Why does my cat have such bad breath? The vet anesthetized her for a dental cleaning and found that her teeth really didn’t need it. (She didn’t let the vet look in her mouth at her checkup.) She has had two teeth removed, but apparently the remaining teeth are in great shape, so what else might be causing the foul breath?

Q We have two Maine Coons and a Pixie Bob, all longhaired cats. A friend told me that they do not cause allergies in humans, as shorthaired cats do. People will not come to our home because they say they are allergic to cats. But a few people who have come not knowing that we have cats do not seem to have a reaction. I would greatly appreciate some discussion from you.

A major concern for cat loversQ. I just had to euthanize my 10-year-old kitty, Luna, after she developed a fibrosarcoma following a rabies vaccination....

Dear Friends, Nothing brings home the seriousness of a medical condition like the frightening prospect of having the condition yourself, and I’d like to...

A Tabby’s Destructive Grooming Leads to Extensive Bald Spots

We have two young male domestic shorthaired cats we love dearly, and we are always trying to find ways to make them happy and keep them occupied. We recently brought some catnip home, thinking that this would be a great way for them (and us) to have fun. One of the cats goes crazy for the stuff, while the other seems completely unimpressed. Is this normal?