Even if your new feline is going to be an outdoor cat, you’ll still need to buy a litter tray for it to use while it settles into your household, when you should keep it house-bound until you are certain that knows where home is. Once you have given it permission to roam, your cat will regard your garden as a giant litter tray, but there will nevertheless be occasions when you’ll have to resurrect the real thing: (more…)
Indeed, you can tell a lot by looking at a cat’s tail and ears: if its tail is vertical and its ears are pricked, the cat is feeling confident, and if the tip of its erect tail is kinked, it’s offering you a tentative greeting. When a cat turns its back on you and quivers its tail, it’s sending an unreserved, ‘Please acknowledge me’ plea that may well hark back to a kittenhood invitation to its mother to clean its nether regions. If a cat is becoming annoyed, however, it often indicates its frustration by swishing its tail from side to side and drawing back its ears, and if it becomes really irate, it will lash its tail as fast as it can and flatten its ears completely. (more…)
Its hearing is the first sense that alerts the cat to potential prey when it is out hunting and, due to its genetic inheritance, the sounds that are most likely to signal the proximity of rodents, its favourite meal, are the ones to which it is the most attuned. And because rodents utter high- pitched squeaks, the upper frequencies of the sound range are those that the cat’s ears are especially adept at detecting, exceeding both dogs and humans in their sensitivity. Indeed, when you think that our detection of acoustic vibrations rises to around 20,000 hertz, and a cat’s to 50,000, we must be deaf to a cacophony of interesting sounds. (more…)
As we have seen, in the final stages of the hunt the cat uses its claws to pin down its prey and its teeth to administer the killing bite. In non-aggressive mode, the cat’s claws are retracted - or, more properly, sheathed - into the tips of its toe bones (the phalanges), both to prevent them from injuring itself or its friends and to preserve the sharpness of their points for, as every successful hunter or warrior knows, if you look after your weapons, when it comes to the crunch they’ll look after you. (more…)
As well as offering considerable advantages, the cat’s body does, however, have its drawbacks, the inevitable consequence of the compromises that nature was forced to make when designing Fells catus. Because the wildcat was — and remains — an opportunistic predator that could not rely on a regular supply of food, for example, the stomach that its descendants have inherited takes up a disproportionately large amount of room at the expense of its heart and lungs. (more…)
Despite such Far Eastern reservations, about the cat’s exact intentions towards humanity, it is considered wise to hedge one’s bets and to treat cats with respect, as in Persia (Iran), where black cats are said to be jinns (spirits that assume feline form) or hemzads (individuals’ guardian ‘angels’). The world over, the cat’s mysterious, far-seeing eyes are considered to reveal its clairvoyant powers, as well as its agility and cunning ingenuity, just some of the characteristics for which it is respected as a totemic animal by many African and Native American peoples. (more…)
The domestic cat, Felis catus or Felts domesticus, can trace its lineage back 50 million years, to the Miacis from which the Dinictis, Machairodus and eventually today’s cat family, the Felidae (which comprises Acinonyx, cheetahs; Panthera, big cats; and Felis, small cats), evolved. And although the specific ancestry of the domestic cat has been veiled by the mists of time, and further clouded by the interbreeding of various species of wildcat the world over, genetic analysis indicates that most European domestic cats are descended from the African wildcat, Felis sylvestris lybica. (more…)
Wheezing is noisy breathing (respiration) and may be accompanied by increased effort during breathing, noticeable by exaggerated movements of the abdomen or chest, and perhaps more rapid breathing than normal. True wheezing is often caused by allergic conditions, especially the quite common condition of feline ASTHMA, but most owners would be unable to differentiate this from similar breathing noises caused by other conditions such as PNEUMONIA. (more…)
Vaccination is the process of preventing disease in animals or people by exposing them to the same disease in a ’safe’ form. This controlled exposure allows the immune system to learn to recognise the disease so that if encountered in its real, dangerous form in the future, a rapid immune response can be mounted before serious effects of the disease are seen. (more…)
Part of the secret of having a well-trained puppy is the ability on your part to think ahead. You won’t be able to take him for a walk outside until he’s completed his injections, at about fourteen to sixteen weeks. This is far too late to introduce your puppy to a collar and lead and the outside world. The socialization of your puppy at an early age is essential if you require a well-adjusted adult dog. I discovered this, to my cost, with Bracken, my first puppy. I never thought of taking him out on to the streets until he was sixteen weeks old. At home, he was perfectly behaved and afraid of nothing and walked well in the garden on a collar and lead. You can imagine my surprise at our first day’s outing. The moment we stepped out of the gate, Bracken flattened himself to the pavement with terror at the sound and sights of traffic. (more…)
