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Lessons Learned from a Sick Cat
After losing his dinner a few nights ago, our younger cat began acting strangely – for him. Instead of sitting on the windowsill, mewing to be taken out or played with, he spent all day huddled with the older cat by the heating vent. He wouldn’t touch his food, either.
As I’ve learned through my writing, any behavioral change means a cat should be checked by a vet, so we took him to the animal hospital. I learned a few things in the process:
1. You can’t tell a cat’s body temperature by touch. Ours didn’t feel hot, but the vet’s thermometer...
Feline Depression and Stress
Cats can become depressed, as you might suspect if yours has ever stopped playing or grooming, but it’s a different illness from human depression.
Dr. Bonnie Beaver of the Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences at Texas A&M University says depression – “a decreased response to the environment” – in cats is common in association with medical conditions, not strictly as a mental condition. Dr. Lorie Huston, a vet and writer, says, “Feline depression is probably more aptly termed feline stress and/or
anxiety.”
The most common cause is fever. Pain, and sometimes the loss of a human or animal companion, also can...
Pets Are Good for You
Everyone who reads this blog probably feels that pets, though they can be a lot of work and responsibility, make our lives better in the long run. But it probably doesn’t occur to us that they can be good for our physical and mental health – in measurable ways. (Hey, we’re the ones who brush them, take them to the vet, and make sure they get their meds – not the other way around.)
The National Institute of Health recently started looking into this:
“The general belief is that there are health benefits to owning pets, both in terms of...
“The general belief is that there are health benefits to owning pets, both in terms of...