Short Takes

The drug mirtazapine, used to treat depression in people, has a surprising side effect in pets: It can stimulate appetite and, in some cases, control nausea and vomiting, which are signs of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in cats.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning about pets’ exposure to a topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) drug after reports of deaths and illness in cats. Their owners had applied flurbiprofen cream or lotion to their own neck or feet to treat pain.

The Louisiana SPCA has found a novel solution to overpopulation at its New Orleans shelter. It sends dogs and cats to partner shelters miles away, where they can often be more quickly adopted. Its service is part of a small but growing trend in U.S. shelters and rescue organizations to save animals lives and find them forever homes.

Researchers have struggled for years to develop a nonsurgical way to sterilize dogs and cats. Now the Gary Michelson Found Animals Foundation has awarded a Harvard professor of bioengineering a $700,000 grant to develop a vaccine to sterilize animals by disrupting gonadotropin, a hormone that controls reproduction.

Updated guidelines on pain management from the American Animal Hospital Association and the American Association of Feline Practitioners are primarily intended for private practice veterinarians. The guidelines information-packed 18 pages cover the latest research and experts consensus on medications, but cat owners can find practical help, too. Examples: advice for the home environment and a new emphasis on complementary therapy.

Reports of dogs improving the social skills of children with autism have been widespread. A University of Missouri researcher, however, has found that any pet in the home can increase the childrens assertiveness, such as introducing themselves and asking for information. Gretchen Carlisle, a research fellow at the Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction at the College of Veterinary Medicine, studied 70 families with autistic children ages 8 to 18. About half of them had cats. Her findings: Younger children bonded more strongly to smaller dogs than large ones, but parents reported strong attachments between their children and other pets, such as cats, fish or rabbits. It serves as evidence that other types of pets could benefit children with autism, Carlisle says.One caution from behaviorist Katherine Houpt, VMD, Ph.D., at Cornell: Children may have difficulty distinguishing real from stuffed animals, especially small animals like cats. Be sure that the autistic child is gentle with the cat.

A new test for chronic kidney disease in cats has identified its onset an average of 17 months earlier than existing methods, according to a small study published in the Veterinary Journal. Researchers at Oregon State University and IDEXX Laboratory developed a biomarker - a substance indicating disease called SDMA - and used it in a controlled study of 32 older but otherwise healthy cats. When available commercially, a test based on the biomarker could alert cat owners and veterinarians to kidney disease through periodic checkups, researchers say.Chronic kidney disease is common in geriatric cats and often causes their death, says researcher Jean Hall, DVM, Ph.D., at Oregon State. Damage from it is irreversible, but this is an important advance, in that we should be able to identify the problem earlier and use special diets to slow the disease.

An international team of researchers has analyzed results of the cat genome - the complete mapping of DNA and genes - to arrive at a greater understanding of cats domestication.They compared the genomes of domestic and wild cats and found that areas of the domestic cat genome differed significantly from their wild counterparts, including genes involved in the reward centers of the brain and the development of neurons that produce dopamine, which helps control the brains pleasure centers. The researchers say that this suggests that the first wild cats bred for domestication were those responding to rewards such as food and stroking.

In little more than a decade, changes have taken place in veterinary medicine to help prevent cats developing malignant tumors at the site of certain vaccinations. However, 22,000 cats in the U.S. still develop injection site-associated sarcomas (ISAS) every year, and the tumors are often more aggressive and prone to recurrence than spontaneous ones.

If you want to understand how your cat can effortlessly leap on counters, you could study takeoff velocity (TOV) and hind-limb length. Or watch Alley, who made the 2015 Guinness World Records as the longest-jumping domestic cat. Her broad jump: six feet, with her TOV from a standstill.

Estimates are that osteoarthritis affects 90 percent of cats over the age of 12 years. Confirmation of the disease, however, can sometimes prove elusive. In the search for an accurate diagnosis, the Winn Feline Foundation has awarded a grant, funded by the animal health company Zoetis, to researchers at the University of Melbourne. Their goal is to develop a blood test biomarker - a molecule indicating an abnormal process - so the disease can be identified earlier.

Surgeons at the University of Georgia Veterinary Teaching Hospital have used a Siamese cat’s stem cells to improve acceptance of his kidney transplant. The recently announced surgery on 4-year-old Arthur, performed in May, is the hospital’s second successful kidney transplant using feline adult stem cells.