Why Pets Are Not Good Gifts

We see lots of Christmas puppies this time of year at the veterinary practice I work at. New pets seem to be popular gifts. But unless you know, with 100% certainty that the recipient of the pet wants and has the ability to care for the pet, it is probably a better idea to choose a different present. Last spring we visited the local animal shelter and were very saddened by the huge influx of rabbits and bunnies they shelter had to take in after Easter.

There are a lot of differences between giving a pet as a gift and giving something else. Pets as gifts are unusual in that they make a lot of demands on the gift recipient that other types of presents do not. To give a pet to someone is to give them something that will demand a great deal of their time and money in the months - or in the case of a cat or dog, or some other pets - years to come. That's placing some serious demands on the receiver of a gift.

New puppies and kittens can be especially expensive. They require a series of vaccinations that spans many weeks until they are 16 to 20 weeks old depending on where you live and the biggest health threats around your area. By the time these series are complete, including dewormings and other routine puppy and kitten preventative health measures, the person who receives the gift will likely spend several hundreds of dollars. Then there is spaying or neutering surgeries, that will again be in the hundreds of dollars for most new pets. Food, training classes, beds, litter pans, and scratching posts all add into what the new owner will have to pay for as well.

The cost to buy a puppy or a kitten as a gift to someone else is actually the smallest cost associated with owning that new pet.

Where and when I think giving a pet as a gift can work, are in cases such as when a family had decided that they are ready to have a pet, but the parents decide to time the arrival of the new pet (that they would be getting anyway) with a holiday or birthday. They knowingly are taking on all the additional expense and labor involved with getting a new pet onto themselves, not placing that burden onto someone else.

Tips for Keeping Your Pet Safe on Halloween

A lot of people worry about the dangers from Halloween tricksters, or other strangers, with more evil intentions, to their pets on Halloween night. Some shelters stop adopting out black cats, or all cats, for the month of October. From my research, I was not able to find any evidence that animal cruelty increases around Halloween. It seems that the people who intentionally hurt animals don't limit themselves to October to do so.

However, it seems that no one has ever really studied the issue in a serious way either, and lack of good evidence may be due more to a lack of any well done study. That's why many rescue organizations take a 'better safe than sorry' approach by setting limits on adopting out pets that may be at risk.

This Halloween danger to pets seem to get a lot of press, and a cause a lot of worry in the minds of many pet owners. However, there are many very real, and much more common Halloween hazards for cats and dogs that many owners never think about. I've written about many of the major Halloween hazards to cats and dogs in this article:

Pet Safety Tips on Halloween

Close the Door

Sometimes Complex behavior problems have simple solutions.
I don't know how many times I've heard someone, both clients and personal acquaintances say something like, “I can't keep Fido off my bed no matter what I do! I've tried everything.”

Everything? Really? I had a lot of problems with my cats urinating on my bed. The very first thing I 'tried' worked very well. I closed my bedroom door.

My cats are very smart. But they're short, and they don't have thumbs. Closed door = problem solved. I often wonder why more people don't come up with this on their own. I didn't like keeping my door closed in the beginning. It was annoying to remember to close it behind me all the time, but falling exhausted at night onto a wet, stinky pillow is a very effective reminder. Now I'm used to it.

Years ago, shortly after we'd adopted our cat Sheeba, she began urinating all over the house. I wasn't surprised because that's why we adopted her - to prevent her from being euthanasia by her previous owners for urinating all over their house. I was actually more surprised that we'd gotten about 4 good months out of where she faithfully used her litter box. Things changed when our other cat, Magic, began attacking her.

Out of frustration, I eventually closed her into our bedroom to keep the two cats apart. Her urination behavior came back under control away from Magic, but making her live in one little room filled me with enough guilt that I broke down and called an animal behavior specialist. The behaviorist was kind enough to talk with me a little on the phone, so I ended up never needing to actually go in and see her in person. I told her my dilemma – the cats don't get along, but I felt bad keeping Sheeba in a small space all the time.

She told me not to feel bad. Often, she said, what I had done is exactly what they would have recommended. Just getting the cats apart. The stress of the fighting, or from trying to hide and avoid the fighting, was very upsetting for Sheeba. While the separated living situation wasn't ideal, it probably made her feel much safer and more relaxed. The fact that she stopped urinating all over when she was away from Magic was probable proof that she was much happier in the bedroom than she'd been with the run of the house.

It was nice to hear that my solution was really a solution, and not just another problem, like I thought. Behavior problems are tricky because the emotions, and preconceived ideas of the pet owner can really get in the way, just like mine did. That's why it's good to talk with a veterinarian. If nothing else they have more experience in dealing with these problems and have an outside, objective point of view that really makes a big difference.

Why Canned Cat Food is the Best Choice for Diabetic Cats

On various pet health websites, and also in the veterinary hospital I work in, I've seen questions and debates about whether or not dry cat food causes diabetes in cats. To me this question is missing the point a bit.

Just like in people, there isn't necessarily any one or few things that cause diabetes. There are risk factors. Having a lot of risk factors increases your risk of developing diabetes, but doesn't mean that you will. Cats are the same. Dry food may be a risk factor, but plenty of cats live happily their whole life eating dry cat kibble. If they don't have any other risk factors to developing diabetes, then dry cat food alone probably isn't enough to push them over the edge.

The important question, in my mind, is how to best help cats who are diabetic right now. If we could predict these kinds of things beforehand, that would be wonderful, but we can't. Even with every risk factor to diabetes development present, many cats will remain healthy. Living bodies are still mysterious that way.

So without further delay, here's all the information I tracked down in my research about why diabetic cats should eat canned cat food:
Why Diabetic Cats Should Only Be Fed Canned Cat Food

Office Chairs: Selecting a Pet Proof Chair, Or Pet-Proofing the Chair You Have

This is my cat on one of our destroyed office chairs. Through a lot of trial and error, I've learned what makes a great pet-proof office chair. When Associated Content asked for an article on the subject of selecting a pet-proof office chair, I knew I had some useful tips to offer. I've been down this road more than once with my own *cough* sweet and loving *cough* cats.
Click here to read the full article.
If you have your own tip, I'd love to hear it. I know there's more than one (or tow) ways to pet-proof a chair! Please share your pet-proofing tip here, or in the AC article comment section.

Training a Cat Not to Scratch or Bite

Most people recognize the importance of training when they bring home a new puppy, but few give the same consideration to a kitten. Somewhere along the way, cats managed to start the rumor that they are untrainable, so we would leave them alone. Yet I challenge you to watch a lion tamer at work for a few minutes, and then tell me that your little tabby is more difficult to train.
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Kitty Cat Dance

One of my guilty pleasures is this Youtube video, the Kitty Cat Dance.
A friend showed it to me because her preschooler liked it. It makes my baby squeal and kick with happiness.
Warning: the song can get stuck in your head (especially if your children make you watch it eight times in a row!)



Cat. I'm a kitty cat, and I dance, dance, dance. . .

Adopting a Stray

While few things sound simpler than the "He followed me home" method of acquiring a pet, sometimes it isn't so simple to take in a stray.

For tips on adopting a stray pet, and pitfalls to avoid, click here to read more

Feline Hyperthyroidism - the most common hormonal disorder in cats

One of my own cats was diagnosed with feline hyperthyroidism at the young age of 7 years old. We tried the oral Tapazole medication (he didn't tolerate it well) and decided to have him treated with radioactive iodine.

This subject is one that is near and dear to my heart. I've spoken with many veterinarians, and specialists about it as we treated our cat. I wanted to share all I learned with others who have similar difficult decisions to make.

Read more here

Why Calico Cats are Female - It's Not Just Genetics

Photo by Andras Ostrom

Calico and Tortoiseshell cats are generally always female. Why? It actually isn't so much an issue of genes as much as development. Cats, just like humans get one set of chromosomes from their mother and one set from their father. Of the chromosomes that determine sex, females have two X chromosomes, one from each parent, and males have one X (from mom) and one Y (from dad) chromosome. In females, only one of the X chromosomes is actually used, and the other is deactivated at some early stage of development. However, some cell division had already occurred when this deactivation happens, which X chromosome will be deactivated is random. Some cells may shut off one X and other cells may shut off the other, and any cells that are descended from those cells would share the same active X.

Coat color is linked to the sex chromosome, and so if each X has a different color gene on it, the result is patches of different colors. Since males have only one X chromosome, there is no deactivation, and no calico or tortoiseshell patterns develop. Now there is always an exception, right? A genetic abnormality in males can result in a calico pattern. If a male were born with an extra X chromosome, so instead of having only an X and Y, they have XXY, there is the potential for the same coat patterning to occur. An extra chromosome can result in other problems, however, and these rare cats are usually sterile as well. A similar condition occurs in humans, sometimes referred to as Klinefelter syndrome.

Apparently the presence of the 'white' coat gene increases the chance of larger patches of color, explaining why calicos (with white) tend to have large patches, and tortoiseshell's (no white) tend to have small patches. However, how this occurs is not well understood at this time. The exact timing of when the extra X chromosome is deactivated varies somewhat, and since which X gets deactivated is random, trying to breed specifically for a calico is difficult. Breeding an orange cat to a black one can increase the odds, but there are still many uncontrollable variables that come into play.



The very first cat to be successfully cloned was a calico cat, named Rainbow. A surrogate cat, a tabby, carried the cloned kitten. The cloning actually provides a great example. The kitten, named CC for 'carbon copy' does not share her mother's coat patterns. She does have all the same colors, but his patterning is very different. This makes sense because we know that the patterning is developmental, not just genetic. As a side note, the later reports I found about CC as she became an adult say that her personality and behavior is also different than Rainbow's. Behavior is also strongly influenced by environment and development. So if you fantasize about cloning a beloved pet when they pass, keep in mind, you'd still end up with a different animal.

Cat Scratch Fever

I've worked in veterinary medicine for 10 years. I've been scratched more times than I care to count, and I'd never seen a case of cat scratch fever (or cat scratch disease as it's now called) before. Then two of our nurses came down with this very painful condition at the same time.

Read More. . .

Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV)

I've seen so many people confused about what FIV is. Even worse, I think people don't really understand what a positive FIV test means.
So I wrote this article to help explain things.

FIV isn't necessarily a death sentence. A positive FIV test in a cat can possibly mean a few different things (although the most likely thing is that the cat is infected with FIV, there are other possibilities) If your cat has tested positive for FIV, please consider what the test can actually tell you. Your cat may still be able to live a full life.

Letting Cat's Outside Safely

We recently made the very difficult decision to start letting out cats go outdoors. As a veterinary nurse, I've seen first hand what can happen to cats out in the big world, so I began to research, looking for a way to make the transition as safe as possible for them.

I found the Cat Fence-In system.

Review of the Cat Fence-In System

Signs and treatments of hyperthyroidism in cats

Feline hyperthyroidism is very common in cats. While most people consider hyperthyroidism to be a disease of older cats, my own cat was diagnosed at the age of 7, and a cat can develop this endocrine disorder even earlier. Not all veterinarians are great at explaining this condition to pet owners.

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