indoorcats

I do believe that CatWatch readers are the most kind-hearted souls on earth! Thank you for wanting to help these little creatures. Its very common for female cats to bring home prey. Mother cats will first bring home dead animals to their young kittens, teaching them to eat prey animals. When the kittens are a bit older, the moms will bring home wounded animals, and will show the youngsters how to kill. Its possible that Marley is attempting to teach you how to hunt. The best thing that you can do when presented with an injured wild animal is to call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator for advice and assistance. Many well-meaning people are especially tempted to keep baby animals and care for them at home. Keeping wild animals - except to transport them to a wildlife rehabilitator - is against state and federal laws for lots of reasons. Many wild animals, even tiny babies, can transmit diseases to humans or other pets. Diseases, parasites or injuries may be difficult to detect and to treat, and each species requires specialized care.

Brooke Remy of Boston, MA, was delighted to watch her cat Puddles play with a long, pink ribbon she had just taken off a gift box. He twirled around and around and rolled over on the floor. Brooke tired before Puddles did, and left the room for about five minutes. When she returned, the ribbon was gone - except for about two inches sticking out of Puddless mouth. He was coughing and drooling. Running over to him, Brooke began slowly pulling the ribbon out of his mouth, watching in terror and amazement as she removed eight inches of wet pink ribbon from his throat. Puddles was lucky that Brooke had returned in time. If he had swallowed the ribbon without Brookes quick intervention, he could have suffered very serious, even life-threatening, damage to his intestinal tract.

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.

Its a sad fact of life that cats dont live nearly long enough for the humans who love them. While cloning Couscous isnt an option, I would encourage you to take lots of photos and videos of Couscous, so that these images can bring you comfort when shes no longer a part of your physical world. Take them now; dont delay, because you never know what tomorrow will bring. Afterwards, maybe you would like to do something to help other cats, in honor of Couscous. A donation to an organization aiding cats is a traditional way to honor the memory of a beloved cat (the Cornell Feline Health Center is very grateful for the many memorial gifts it receives). You could also volunteer with a local shelter or rescue group, socializing cats or taking photos of adoptable pets to put on a Web site or poster. Dropping off supplies at a shelter can make you feel like you have a direct connection to cats in need. Finally, please consider sharing your home and your heart with another cat. For sure, he or she wont be a clone of Couscous, but this unique individual will surely bring joy to your home as you discover exactly what makes him or her so special.

If you asked Mother Nature, "What is the most athletic animal in the world?" She would most likely answer "the cat." If in doubt, watch your feline in perfect, graceful flight up the kitchen table to the inside of a cupboard - without touching a thing. Your cats agility and sense of balance is one of her most outstanding features. Heres how it works - and how it can go awry. Biologists say that cats havent changed for the past ten million years. "The big cats, such as lions, tigers and jaguars, and the small cats are almost identical in their agility and flexibility," explains Mark Lotz, panther biologist with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. "If you watch cats hunt - large or small - they all possess the same skills of pouncing, stalking low to the ground and launching off at top speed to chase their prey."

Thinking about going on a leisurely week-long auto trip? Good for you! Thinking about taking your cat along for the ride? Youd better think twice about that, advises Julia Albright, MA, DVM, a resident of animal behavior at Cornell Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine. Theres a good chance, she maintains, that your pet would just as soon stay at home while you and the rest of your family pull out of the driveway. "You might really want to take your cat along," says Dr. Albright, "and thats totally understandable. But I would recommend that you leave the animal at home unless it has already shown that it likes to travel and wont get stressed out by the experience -and I havent met very many of those cats. In general, cats dont do very well with change, and traveling for hours on end in the back seat of a car would certainly come under the heading of change." For owners who cant bear the idea of putting their cats in a kennel for a week or so or leaving them at home in the care of a neighbor or professional pet sitter, Dr. Albright has some words of advice.

Mary Jones has been living in New York City with her housemate Alice for the past ten years. Mary and Alice are actually about the same age. Both want to stay together for as long as they can take care of each other. But Mary is an 80-year-old widow and Alice is an 11-year-old domestic shorthair. Marys eyes arent as good as they used to be, and her arthritis bothers her when she bends over. So she worries how she will keep on cleaning Alices litter box and carrying the heavy bag of cat food up the stairs. And she wonders what will happen to Alice if her beloved companion outlives her. Weve heard a lot over the past several years about how older people benefit both emotionally and physically from living with pets. The problem is this: As people get older, they often experience disabilities which may prevent them for fully caring for the pets they love. What can older people do?

You have to get up at 6:00 a.m. during the week. But you dont even have to set your alarm, because your cat comes in and licks your fingers or jumps up and purrs on your chest just before the wake-up hour. Thats a pretty nice way to wake up, actually - unless it happens to be Saturday morning and you were planning on sleeping in. But weekday or weekend, your old-faithful feline is there just the same, licking your fingers and purring on your chest just before 6:00 a.m. How do cats do it? Do they really sense what hour it is, or is it something else? Alas, this is one of the many enduring mysteries about cats, says Larry Myers, DVM, PhD, of the Auburn University School of Veterinary Medicine in Alabama. "Some of what appears to be cats telling time is entrainment. Its routine reinforced. Cats very quickly become aware of when human family members wake up, eat, go out and come home," says Dr. Myers, whose 18-year-old female cat wakes him at 6:00 a.m. daily for breakfast (hers, not his).

Several years ago, my cat and I moved in with my grandmother, relieving some financial stress for me and allowing my grandmother to remain independent as her health declined. Her house was filled with beautiful antique furniture, and because I didnt think I had any other option, I had my cat declawed. She has adjusted to life without all ten of her third phalanges, but I wish that I had been better informed about other techniques available to discourage destructive scratching behavior. Not only are there easily implemented techniques that can help redirect the scratching instinct, but there are also fabrics and furniture designs that have little "cat appeal." "Regularly trimming nails is very helpful for limiting damage to furniture, " says ELise Christensen, DVM, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist at NYC Veterinary Specialists in Manhattan. In addition to keeping your cats nails trimmed, it is important to establish approved scratching areas within your home. Dr. Christensen suggests initially using catnip and/or treats to attract your cat to approved scratching areas, and to be sure to reward desired behavior: "If you see the cat using the scratching post, reward with verbal praise, scratching or treats." (And remember that rewards are in the eye of the cat - not the human!)

If you think its just a matter of introducing two cats, letting nature take its course and then playing with their cute kittens, cat breeding isnt for you. So says Alice Ferris, a 15-year veteran breeder of Persian and Himalayan cats and owner of Lilac Farms Custom Cattery in Hartford, Connecticut. "Being a responsible breeder has many facets," says Ferris. "It takes a lot of dedication, research, time and money to raise healthy kittens. A breeder must desire to learn the medical side of felines, because 80 percent of breeding cats involves feline health care."

I have had whiskers all my life, but I really took them for granted until recently, when I heard a lecture by first-year veterinary student Tradel Harris on this very subject! You see, I was a special guest at Feline Follies, a show organized and run by Cornells veterinary students to raise money for a local shelter and to celebrate….cats! I didnt think it would be fair to our guest felines who were brought in by community members and students if I competed in the judging, so I spent my time enjoying the fun and informative booths set up by the students and listening to a few presentations.

Dear Elizabeth, What is MRSA? My doctor says that a wound on my hand has an MRSA infection. Could my cat, Streets, have given it to me? He is an indoor cat and seems healthy, but could he be a carrier Wow! This calico had to ask for help with your questions! Although I have picked up quite a lot in my role as Official Spokes-cat for the Cornell Feline Health Center, MRSA was new to me. Before giving you all the information I got, Ill give you the short answer to your questions: MRSA colonization and infection can occur in cats, and transmission across species is possible. Therefore, it is POSSIBLE that your MRSA came from your cat. However, chances are MUCH greater that you were exposed to the bacteria somewhere in the community. In fact, most experts would worry that you could be a source of infection for Streets! Heres the whole story.