Care

With three shorthaired and five longhaired cats, Debbie Salerno, chairperson of the board for Maine Coon Cat Rescue in Hazlet, NJ, knows all about cat hair. "I find hair on the steps, on the carpeted cat tree, in the carpet in the hallway, wafting across the floor, and settled into the corners [of rooms] and around the bottom of the furniture," she relates. When hair is not cleaned up, it tends to travel with Salerno to work: "The hair gets all over the furniture and then sticks to me, and it winds up in my car and sometimes in my office if I dont get it off." Admittedly, for some cat owners, wayward hair is not a big issue. For other owners, however, it is. "Cleanliness is a high priority for me," explains Bobbie Williams of Beavercreek, OH. Williams, a volunteer for Maine Coon Rescue, will be hosting a wedding in her home soon and has the hair of four cats (two longhaired and two short-haired) to contend with for this event.

When you have the time, sit down and watch your cat go through her grooming ritual. First the paws, then the sides of the face, behind the ears, the chest. Its a fascinating process because almost all cats do it the same way. By the time you cat reaches adulthood, she will spend about 30 to 50 percent of her waking time grooming herself, explains Cynthia L. McManis, DVM, board-certified by the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners. Time will vary among species and individual cats. Longhaired cats will or should spend more time. Overweight cats may spend less time grooming themselves because its too difficult to reach some places. If your mischievous male gets himself into something messy, he will devote a significant amount of time to cleaning off a particular area.

You walk into the bathroom and find your cat sleeping contentedly in her litter box. (Luckily, you had just cleaned it.) Is this normal behavior? Should you get her out or let her stay? Your cats litter box can sometimes trigger unexpected behaviors from her. Some of these habits might seem weird or annoying to us, but they are, actually, perfectly normal to your cat. But there are other behaviors that are more dangerous and require your intervention. Here are the most "common" strange litter habits and what to do about them. It may not seem like the best place to play to you, but cats will often convert their litter box into a sandbox. Often this starts in kittenhood and continues into adulthood with an occasional playtime in the box. "Some cats like to sleep in their litter, even hide in it," says Stefanie Schwartz, DVM, a veterinary behaviorist with Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston who is board-certified by the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. "This is normal if the litter is clean - or even a bit soiled, but dry."

Every so often, your otherwise fastidious cat will do an alarming and somewhat disgusting thing. She’ll awake from a peaceful nap, rise up on her paws, retch convulsively for a moment or two, and spit up what may appear at first glance to be a damp clump. What the animal has disgorged — in the middle of your kitchen floor or, worse yet, in the middle of your prized Persian rug — is a trichobezoar, a wad of undigested hair that is commonly referred to as a hairball. Despite the term, disgorged hairballs are not usually round. They are often slender and cylindrical, shaped more like a cigar or sausage than a ball. According to Richard Goldstein, DVM, an associate professor of small animal medicine at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, a spit-up hairball’s elongated shape is imparted by the narrow food tube (esophagus) in which it develops or through which it passes on its journey from the cat’s stomach to the outside world. However, he notes, a hairball that is not disgorged and remains in the stomach will indeed be round — "like a sponge or a rolled-up sock," he says.

Within the past several years, a number of products have entered the cat litter market as "alternative" litters. The chief claim of many of these litters is that they are made from plant-based or recycled materials, as opposed to clay, the basis of "traditional" kitty litters. As with most products or groups of products, there are both advantages and disadvantages to using alternative cat litters. One advantage that makers of these specialty litters feel appeals to cat owners with environmental concerns is that alternative litters - because they are made of biodegradable substances - present less strain on landfills. Some brands are even marketed as being "compostable" and/or burnable.

One reason cats need baths is that they dont always groom themselves thoroughly. This is especially true of longhaired breeds that can develop matted fur. Another problem with longhaired cats, such as Persians, is that feces can get stuck in the long hair of the cats backside, making a terrible mess that the cat cannot, unfortunately, remove himself. The result is a smelly, dirty cat that simply needs a bath. Even shorthaired cats occasionally get themselves dirty, greasy or just plain smelly, especially if theyre obese and cant reach the parts that require cleaning. Aging cats sometimes stop grooming as frequently or thoroughly as they did when they were younger.

We can almost see the ads now: "Tests at a major university prove our product eliminates cats inappropriate elimination problems."And indeed, thats more or less what a study at the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine (as published in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery Vol. 9, No. 1) proved: ". . . use of Zero Odor litter box spray appears to decrease litter box odor and increases the attractiveness of litter box(es) to cats."

Lets face it: Sometimes we need to do something to one of our cats that the cat is just not going to like. No doubt we have her best interests in mind, but she is not likely to recognize that.

Let’s face it: Sometimes we need to do something to one of our cats that the cat is just not going to like. No doubt we have her best interests in mind, but she is not likely to recognize that.

If anyone ever told you that you had "cat breath," you might have a real reason to be insulted. Thats because cat breath can be rather unpleasant, which is something you already know if youve ever smelled bad breath on your own cat.

Catastrophic events can and do happen in all areas of the country. Floods, tornados, hurricanes, forest fires, mudslides and earthquakes are all examples of natural disasters that force people from their homes often with little time to prepare for departure.

It's one of the unpleasant aspects of living with cats, but there are ways to make the chore a bit more efficient.