Health

TIPS FOR OUR FELINES ON TURKEY DAY

The Best Overall Plan for Turkey Day:  Do not feed cats from the Thanksgiving Day spread.  Keep your cat secured in a place where they can escape the hubbub of meal prep and guests coming in and out.

Do not leave food on the kitchen counter while dinner is served and being ingested.

Plants and flowers:  All parts of a Lily are toxic to cats and can be fatal to your cat.  Watch all centerpieces.

Onions, garlic & some spices:  No, toxic

The number of lives allotted a feline varies from culture to culture and from country to country.  In Arab and Turkish proverbs, a cat has only 7 lives. In Russia and America, a cat has 9 lives. Why not more, why not less?  Some say that 9 is a lucky or holy number because it is the "Trinity of Trinities."  With a cat's uncanny ability to land on its feet and survive against all odds, this particular number was attached to our furry felines.  

A microchip is NOT a GPS tracking device nor is it operated by batteries or any other power source. It is like the barcodes on items at the grocery store. When a scanner passes over the implanted chip, the chip is activated and the scanner 'reads' the chip. The vet registers the numbers on the chip and the info is provided to the owner. It is the owner's responsibility to keep the microchip's registry current (addresses and phone numbers).  See the Mews 'n News article "To Microchip or Not to Microchip" posted on 10/15/15 for further details.

A cat tree as defined by Wikipedia is an artificial structure for a cat to play, exercise and relax on…or in.  The Cat Authors use their trees for playing (chasing) and sleeping. They frequently compete for the top platform.  Cat trees are also referred to as cat tree houses, cat condos, kitty condos or cat stands.

Feline Innovations, founded in 2015, has created the 'QuickSnap Cat Scratcher' to make scratching easier for cats.  LINK:  The QuickSnap™ Replaceable Cat Scratcher on KickStarter Retail price: $59.99  Launch price is $25.  Hurry to get yours!!

An old tale explains the origin of the Scottish Fold’s unusual, folded ears.  It was said that the howling of the winds across the moors and the wailing of the bagpipes caused these cats to fold down their ears, shutting out the cold and the wailing music.

Let’s focus on making this a safe and sane Independence Day for our cats.  The Cat Authors are indoor cats only except when I take them on a ride in their secure pet stroller. 

Have you ever moved a piece of furniture in your house and noticed your cat’s reaction?  They will stop, look at it, walk over to it, walk around it, sniff it, rub against it and maybe jump on it.  Or how about bringing groceries or anything new into the house?  Like most cats, the Cat Authors’ curiosity takes over.  Like possessed critters, their curiosity pulls them towards the object.  Sometimes they approach slowly, cautiously, an inch off the floor and other times they race, seemingly fearless and wanting to be the first to ‘find out’ what it is and what it isn’t.

We all know those jokes about us ‘hoomans’ giving our cats a pill as in the above cartoon.  Some cats are actually easy to pill.  But a few go on red alert!!!  They know what’s coming – and so do we.

This week is Disaster Preparedness Week. The above picture shows Sophee investigating the American Red Cross Emergency Kit. The most important thing in disaster preparedness is:  HAVE A PLAN!  Planning should include all of the 'what ifs' such as where you will be when a disaster hits.  Will you be at home, at work, on the road or in another state? The options are considerable.  At the time of the Northridge quake and the fire in 2008 that forced an evacuation, I was at home.  These events predated the Cat Authors.