Happy Pets

Unless you are about to become the proud owner of a Sphynx, which has no hair at all, if you buy nothing else in the way of grooming equipment, you should at least invest in a comb that has been specially designed for felines (not a human one) to help your cat to keep its coat tangle-free. Human-assisted grooming is vital for longhaired cats to prevent their coats from becoming so drastically matted that the only solution is a trip to the vet’s to have the solid clumps of fur shaved away. (more…)

The first thing to note is that a cat’s nutritional requirements will change throughout the course of its life. Their mother’s milk contains all of the nutrients that kittens need for the first month or two of their lives, after which, in the wild, they would be weaned on mice and other sources of fresh flesh. Your kitten should have been weaned before it moves in with you, but because its nose and stomach will probably have become accustomed to a particular diet, you will probably have to wean it off this gradually before switching to your preferred alternative full-time. (more…)

• Does the kitten look generally healthy and alert? If so, it has probably not contracted any life- endangering viruses or illnesses from its mother or environment.
• Any juvenile wobbliness aside, do the kitten’s legs appear to be functioning normally? If it seems lame, it may be suffering from a non-reversible birth defect, have a broken limb or be showing the first signs of a serious illness. (more…)

One would have to have a complete medical background to go into the history, nature and causes of all bird diseases. However, our purpose here is to advise you, the pet owner, of certain signs of illness and home remedies that may be used in their event.

Cleanliness is, of course, the prime requisite of a healthy bird. A good mite spray when needed, frequent baths and fresh, clean seed are of the utmost importance. (more…)

Unless you intend to breed from, or show, your cat, there is little that a pedigree feline can offer that a mongrel moggie can’t match. Just like people, every cat is a unique character, whether their lineage is uncertain or you can trace it back for many generations. Probably the only significant difference between purebreds like our Somali, Melchior, and crosspeds like his companion, Caspar, is that you can predict with reasonable accuracy how any kittens that a pedigree cat may have will look, especially if the other parent is of the some breed. And although it is often said that because moggies, unlike many pedigrees, aren’t inbred, their mixed gene pool makes them more resistant to disease and generally tougher, this claim hasn’t been scientifically substantiated (and in any case, many moggies are born into close-knit family groups). (more…)

Although a cat’s maintenance costs are relatively low, there are certain unavoidable expenses that cat-ownership will incur over the years. These include providing your feline with the minimum of two meals a day of a nutritious proprietary cat food; buying cat litter for anindoor cat; settling an annual veterinary bill for vaccinations; and funding any additional veterinary treatment that a cat may need as a result of an accident or illness. Investigate these costs by paying a visit to your local pet shop or supermarket and veterinary surgery, noting down prices and asking for information. (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…)

As well as controlling the essential functions of eating, drinking and breeding, in many respects the feline sense of smell can be said to be the engine that keeps cat society running smoothly, defining as it does the individual cat’s place within its feline (or feline—human) community, its relationship with other cats (or, in the case of a human household, surrogate cats) and the boundaries of its personal territory. (more…)

Whether it be an immobile peanut, a living victim or any other object that the cat considers worthy of more detailed exploration, the feline has an armoury of sensitive touch receptors at its clawtips - and not only there. You may have seen a curious cat tentatively patting an object –perhaps a new toy mouse — with its paw. Although it may look comical, the cat isn’t playing, but is instead conducting a serious investigation. After all, it doesn‘t yet know that this alien object is a toy — it doesn‘t show signs of life, but that doesn‘t mean that it won’t jump up and bite the cat on the nose. With caution being the watchword, the cat therefore extends a forepaw, keeping its vulnerable nose well away from the potential danger, and delicately touches the toy mouse. (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…)