Health

Would you be able to provide at-home care for your cat? Heres what to consider.

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.

The yowls of a cat in heat are unmistakable. When a female cat needs to mate, you should expect incessant crying, strange posturing and constant attempts to escape outdoors to waiting males. The best thing you can do about your cat in heat is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Its a smart idea to have her neutered before her first heat cycle. However, sometimes thats not possible. So if youve never experienced a cat going into heat, heres what you should know. The fertile period of your cats reproductive cycle is called estrus, more commonly referred to as "being in heat." Sexual maturity starts when a female (the queen) is quite young - about six months old. In some cases, it can be as young as four months. Early estrus can often catch uninformed human companions by surprise when they find out their kitten is having kittens. "Shorthair cats typically come into heat sooner than longhair cats," says Jane E. Brunt, DVM, of The Cat Hospital at Towson in Baltimore, MD. And indoor cats may come into heat a little later.

Like their human counterparts, feline lungs are bag-shaped, elastic organs, two in number, located on either side of the heart and occupying most of the space in the chest cavity. They are virtually identical in structure to human lungs as well, functioning in the same manner and fulfilling the same fundamental purposes - removing carbon dioxide from the bloodstream and keeping the blood constantly supplied with life-sustaining oxygen. The lungs perform their vital functions by means of two processes - ventilation and perfusion - explains Richard Goldstein, DVM, an associate professor of small animal medicine at Cornell Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine.

Your cat Pinky has enjoyed good health for most of the eight years shes spent in your home. Lately, however, shes been undergoing some worrisome changes. Shes eating and drinking much more than she used to; shes recently begun to develop a potbelly; and shes become uncharacteristically lethargic. While such changes could be attributable at least in part to her advancing age, they are also signs that Pinky could be afflicted with a disorder called hyperadrenocorticism, otherwise known as Cushings disease. According to Deb Zoran, DVM, PhD, an associate professor of medicine at Texas A&M Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine and Biological Sciences, this condition is extremely rare in cats - far less frequently diagnosed than it is in dogs. Nevertheless, cat owners should be aware of Cushings disease, its causes, the clinical signs associated with it and the treatment options available.

Dear Elizabeth, I am an elderly cat owner. Im old and so is my girl, Pearl. Over the years, we have gotten used to many changes in visits to our veterinarian. For example, Pearls "yearly shot" is no longer annual, and screening lab work is an expected part of her exam. These changes have been explained to me and I accept them, but there is one thing I just cant get used to. Years ago our vet would take a few minutes on the exam table to clean Pearls teeth. Pearl didnt like it much, but the vet was able to take care of her teeth without anesthesia right in the office. Now, that office procedure just isnt offered; instead our vet is recommending anesthesia for dental cleaning. Pearl has visible tartar on her teeth, but why cant my vet just clean them in the exam room?

Cats eyes, like those of humans and many other animals, are complex arrangements of delicate structural components that operate harmoniously in a normal, healthy animal to enable keen vision. Unfortunately, things sometimes go wrong with one or more of these components as a result of disease, aging, traumatic injury or genetically acquired defects. Cataracts can seriously impair a cats vision and even cause blindness. Compared to the frequency of its occurrence in humans and dogs, this ocular disorder is rarely seen in cats, says Thomas Kern, DVM, associate professor of ophthalmology at Cornell Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine. Nevertheless, all cat owners should know the physical and behavioral signs of this disorder and the special needs of a visually impaired feline.

If statistics help you make difficult decisions, there are plenty of numbers in a Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Vol. 231, No. 1) article, "Determining the optimal age for gonadectomy of dogs and cats." First the researchers compared benefits and risks of the surgeries. For example, spayed female cats incur an immediate 2.6 percent risk of surgical complications, [IMGCAP(1)]as well as a high risk of obesity, and less than a one percent risk of either FLUTD (feline lower urinary tract disease) or diabetes mellitus - all later in life. None of spayings possible outcomes causes what the researchers termed "substantial morbidity." That is, surgical complications from the spaying (called ovariohysterectomy or OHE) are hardly ever life-threatening.

Despite their relatively small size, your cats kidneys play a huge role in many life-sustaining processes.These two bean-shaped little organs - situated just behind the cats rib cage, one on either side of its spine - filter waste from the blood. In doing so, they also help control blood pressure and regulate the amount and chemical consistency of fluid in the bloodstream. In addition, they produce a variety of vitally needed hormones and enzymes and contribute to the production of red blood cells. Since about 25 percent of the blood that enters your cats circulatory system with each heartbeat travels directly to the kidneys, their well-being is essential to your cats health. Unfortunately, feline kidneys are vulnerable to a wide range of serious disorders. Indeed, kidney (renal) disease is a major cause severe illness and death in cats, especially after the age of seven years.

Cats whose breed developed in frigid areas of the world are likely to tolerate cold weather better than cats whose origins can be traced to more temperate regions. But even the fattest, furriest Maine coon will have only a slight edge over a trim, thin-coated Siamese when it comes to prolonged exposure to the biting winds, ice, snow and sleet that come with winter. Indeed, any cat that is left outside for extended periods of time when the temperature is below freezing-not to mention any poor creature that happens to tumble into an ice-cold pond-will be at risk for a potentially deadly drop in body temperature. The chances that this condition-called hypothermia-will prove fatal depends largely upon the animals age, overall physical condition and ability to regulate its body temperature, says Dr. Gretchen Schoeffler, chief of emergency and critical care services at the Cornell University Hospital for Animals.

Veterinary science is finally taking a serious look at arthritis in cats, as reported in "Evaluation of Client-Specific Outcome Measures and Activity Monitoring to Measure Pain Relief in Cats with Osteoarthritis" (Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Vol. 21, No. 3). Between 25 and 30 percent of older dogs suffer the pain and immobility of osteoarthritis. But veterinary medicine has neither an estimate of the occurrence in cats nor an approved means of pain relief. So researchers at the University of North Carolinas veterinary school asked 13 owners of older cats (between 10 and 19 years) to participate in an experiment. The cats were given complete exams, including X-rays of their legs, hips, paws and spines. To the owners surprise, virtually every cat in the study had several joints where osteoarthritis could be causing pain or restricting movement.

Three or four decades ago, few cat owners or veterinary practitioners in the U.S. knew anything whatsoever about acupuncture, the centuries-old Chinese system of health care that aims to treat physical disorders and their accompanying pain by inserting needles into specific points on a patients body. Today, thousands of veterinarians throughout the nation routinely practice acupuncture in their clinics, and countless cats are benefiting from it. "Im certainly an acupuncture advocate," says Andrea Looney, DVM, a lecturer in anesthesiology at the Cornell University Hospital for Animals. "I use it in treating between 10 percent and 20 percent of the patients that I see - not only cats, but dogs, horses and other animals as well." Dr. Looney stresses that she relies on acupuncture as a complementary technique, always using it in conjunction with the standard practices of Western veterinary medicine. "The fact that more veterinarians are skeptical and refuse to practice it," she says, "is a sad situation."