Spotted Cat Designs

One of our readers gently reminded us that we haven’t written about Auri, our newest kitten, since we first got her way back in October. So here I am to correct this serious oversight.

Auri is such a joy to have around. Really, she’s so adorable and happy that every once in awhile I check her belly to see if maybe there’s a battery compartment in there!

When we first got her from the Folsom Carl’s Jr. (no, she wasn’t in a bun, she was begging outside) she was all fire and brimstone, hissing and growling at all our other cats — even Charger, who back then was easily five times her size! But a good dose of our patented Unconditional Love eventually solved that problem, and now she mostly just annoys Aurum for some reason.

Auri is still a kitten, although she’s grown quite quickly, and she can always be counted on to flip her little toy wolf in the air, or fly down the hall in pursuit of a laser dot. She is quite an expert at sleeping, and when sleeping next to one of us will stretch out, turn into a little black-and-white ball, or assume any other reasonable shape in order to stay asleep and stay next to us while we toss and turn.

Having grown to kittenhood on the kindness of Carl’s Jr. patrons, she is also one of the first to the feeding bowls, which is no doubt part of how she has grown so quickly! Here she is in her current sundae best, looking delectable enough to kiss and kiss and kiss some more:

She is a sweetness.

Not for the squeamish, this video was taken of a somewhat difficult birthing process. From the You Tube description:

“One of the common excuses for allowing a pet cat to give birth is “I want my children to experience the miracle of birth.” This woman has done exactly that, and videotaped the occasion for the world to see. In all fairness, she may be a foster to this cat, or it could have shown up at her door, as pregnant strays often do.

If you want your own children to witness the miracle of birth, please get your female cat spayed, and have your children watch this video instead. It would be best to preview it first, though. I found myself holding my breath for fear the last kitten wasn’t going to make it.“

Much of these two lists I adapted from several adoption center and humane society web sites.

The Low Cost Spay and Neuter web site allows you to search their database for places in the US, Canada and Europe that provide this important service.

Ten important reasons you ought not to breed your cat (or dog)

1. This is not a good way to teach your children about life. If you want them to see live births, try fish such as guppies, mollies or platys. Cat births usually occur at night and in secluded places and the mother will be hostile to intruders (this means YOU!) If you still want them to see mammalian birth, the video above, or others sponsored by National Geographic or Animal Planet should suffice.
2. Females in estrus (heat) are noisy, irritable and her cries and pheromone scent will attract males from all over to your home, where they will give chorus and may even fight. We got Glory shortly after she had been neutered. Upon arrival in our home, she began to sing her songs and soon after we had the local feral toms crooning noisily outside our home at all hours. When we bought her great granddaughter (a newly retired queen), Aurum, she went into heat before we could get her spayed and the tension around here from all our neutered males was amazing and annoying, too. One neutered male cat even started spraying urine which he had never done before!
3. Pregnancy is much like that for humans: balanced diet, vitamins, mood swings, potential dangers, expenses and all.
4. Not all females make good mothers. Ask any cat shelter volunteer.
5. You will be bottle feeding every two hours 24/7, and massaging their stomachs and wiping their rear ends to make them urinate and defaecate after every feeding for weeks if the mom rejects them — just like a human baby, they will be totally helpless and dependent on you.
6. You will be potty training them, too.
7. Unneutered males are more likely to spray urine around your home.
8. Cats (and dogs) are more likely to develop a host of medical conditions if they are not spayed or neutered– see #3 and #4 below.
9. Keeping a cat intact will not make him or her more kitten-like. So you don’t need kittens to have playful cats. I have seen incredibly playful 14 year old cats!
10. You may not be able to find good homes for the kittens or puppies — that is why so many get dropped off in boxes at shelters and pet stores, or abandoned in empty lots, or chained to a post in the rain, or thrown in bag and tossed off a walkway bridge, or a hundred other worse stories I could tell you.

Six excellent reasons why you should spay or neuter your cat (or dog)

1. It’s a lot cheaper than pregnancy and the 4 months of care after birth — there are many low cost clinics offered by shelters, vets and adoption groups We paid only $60 for Agile to be neutered, and this also included 3 nights at the shelter, his first vaccinations, rabies shot and deworming.
2. Spaying or neutering will teach your children that each life is precious — a very important lesson in this day and age.
3. Spaying before a female’s first heat (estrus) will prevent uterine or ovarian cancer and greatly reduce the possibility of breast cancer. She doesn’t need an estrus cycle to become full grown either!
4. Neutered males will not develop testicular cancer and the chances of prostate disease is decreased.
5. Fat cats happen because of too much food and not enough exercise, not from being neutered or spayed.
6. Spaying or neutering will make your cat (or dog) less likely to run away or get into fights with other cats that require trips to your vet for stitches and antibiotics.

Some random useful information:

Perdue Veterinary School lists plants that are toxic to animals, and especially pets. Click on each link for the plant photo, description, symptoms, first aid and more.

See my basic article called How NOT to Poison Your Cat for some general ideas on cat proofing — hint: it is a a lot like toddler-proofing your home — and for the same reasons!

One of our cats was chewing on an electrical cord. Not good. It turns out her gums were bothering her. Nipped in the bud so to speak. More intensive at home dental care was begun.

With the holidays coming:

Keep wrapping paper, ribbon, scissors and tape away from cats. Clean up any bits leftover from wrapping gifts. Your cat may try to eat some of it!

No traditional holiday plants are safe for cats!!!
If you can reach the plant, so can your cat.

If you use a wood or pellet stove as many of our neighbors do, protect your cats from getting burned paws or singed fur.

Some Possibilities:

• Keep your cats out of the room the stove is in
• Don’t use your the stove
• Clicker train your cats to avoid the area
• Buy tall fireplace safe un-tippable three wall barriers to keep your cats at least 2 feet from the stove

None of these is actually foolproof, except not using the stove. Jennifur was taught to avoid the wood stove. Two winters ago, after one of her more exuberant mad dashes around the family room, we smelled singed fur. Haven’t used our wood stove since.

For some reason, a lot of our friends like cats, too. So I was recently browsing for gift ideas and thought I would share a few of the more unusual cat-related books I found.

The Sneeze-Free Cat Owner: Allergy Management & Breed Selection for the Allergic Cat Lover

100 Cats Who Changed Civilization: History’s Most Influential Felines

101 Best Businesses for Pet Lovers

Angel Cats: Divine Messengers of Comfort

The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats

There are numerous advantages to having an automatic feeder

• less anxious or annoyed cats (and dogs)
• regulated portioned feeding can help prevent or reverse obesity (versus free feeding out of a bowl)
• feeding times can be specified with some models
• your cat can be fed without you being there — good for short trips away from home or long days at work

A few disadvantages:

• you have to keep it very clean
• prevent ants or other insects from inhabiting the feeder
• set the times correctly
• with most models it dispenses only enough to be feeding one or two pets
• each model presents varying degrees of difficulty being programmed — some are less intuitive than others

Notable for techies in Korea and Japan: Korean mobile operator SK Telecom has created a way to feed your pet using their cell phone feature. I wonder when someone will bring capability to the US…

Then there is the futuristic looking coffee maker sized automated and programmable Perfect PetFeeder is available in the US — for about $499.00US

Or the gravity fed elevated wheeled food or watering stations by Critter Cooler. For about $95.00US.

Having said all that, here are a few less costly models I have seen that you might want to consider:

Petmate’s Bistro Electronic Portion Control automatic feeder

Synchronic’s Lentek PD06G 6 Day Automatic Feeder

Radio Systems’ Petsafe PF5-11 5-Meal Electronic Pet Feeder

Blitz’ 11899 25lb Automatic Feeder

Plus there are a large number of gravity fed kibble feeders by Petmate that you can find in almost any pet store.

For any of these feeders look at:

• the sturdiness of the construction
• warranty
• ease of cleaning
• ease of emptying and refilling
• food capacity
• will it hold and dispense the type of food your cat likes to eat
• anticipate a trial period for any new feeder
• be sure the construction does not allow an industrious cat from pawing out additional kibble, or breaking the mechanism!
• if you return the feeder, let the seller (and manufacturer!) know what went wrong — the pet food industry is a billion dollar market — the best way to bring about change is to provide consumer feedback!

Go to BeyondFleas.com!

They cover everything you could possible want to know including:

• Identifying if your cat or dog actually has fleas
• How to use each of the over the counter or prescription medications
• How to control and exterminate fleas inside and outside your home — using professionals or as a DIYer
• Life cycle of the flea
• How to treat flea bites
• Natural remedies for controlling fleas
• “Bombing” (fumigating) your home for insects and spiders

So stop scratching — and visit BeyondFleas.com!

I found the No Kill Advocacy Center as I usually find such things, by browsing the Internet. OK, I feel a visit to my soap box coming up….

Their online “tour” of shelters is a chilling reminder of how publicly funded shelters can be deceiving us into thinking they are killing adoptable pets to make room for others. Yes, irresponsible members of the public who do not spay/neuter are part of the problem. But so is the attitude of county officials, jaded shelter workers, and the unwillingness of the many to change the rules for the few.

The challenge as the No Kill Advocacy sees it:

“…From entrenched bureaucrats who are content with the status quo, to uncaring shelter directors hostile to calls for reform; from agencies mired in the failed philosophies of the past to those who have internalized a culture of defeatism—the roadblocks to No Kill are substantial, but not insurmountable. We have a choice. We can fully, completely and without reservation embrace No Kill as our future. Or we can continue to legitimize the two-prong strategy of failure: adopt a few and kill the rest. It is a choice which history has thrown upon us. And a challenge that the No Kill Advocacy Center is ready to take on. The No Kill Advocacy Center is the nation’s first organization dedicated solely to the promotion of a No Kill nation. And it is the only national animal welfare agency that is staffed by people who have actually worked in and created a No Kill community.
The power to change the status quo is in our hands.“
If you want to become proactive in your community they offer numerous free .pdf files detailing every step to take to help change the status quo. They have a free enewsletter and listserv signup. They accept donations and offer a paying membership which includes a magazine.
Just to show you how detailed and well thought out their program is, with the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society, they created a “matrix” of injuries, illnesses and other conditions (like being an adult cat or dog versus a kitten or puppy, or having fleas) for shelters to use in order to determine adoptability of the pet. The ultimate goal being to stop the killing.

They have information for educators, students, shelter advocates, dog owners whose dog faces a “dangerous dog” hearing, grants, and how to start your own no kill shelter.

Go forth, learn and become proactive!

I was in the family room to see what my younger son was watching on TV this Saturday morning. The usual run of commercials showed up. One was pleasantly surprising: a veterinary hospital play set! I remember the LEGO zoo and farm play sets we bought when the boys were younger. Not much else was available, except for stuffed animals of varying quality.

I was intrigued. We like toys that stimulate the imagination and allow for role playing, while teaching our children to think. So I went on a short hunt for other pet-related play sets and toys. These toys can also be used to stimulate family discussions about nurturing, being responsible for a pet’s life, etc. Or just for fun.

Fisher Price has Sonya Lee and Her Pet Salon and Chutes and Ladders with a pet twist: Rescue Hero’s Pet Rescue

FurReal Friends: Jungle Cat (Leopard Cub) or the tamer Calico or Marmalade

Gund My Little Kitty Playset

A few of Hasbro’s Pet Shop play set and add-ons:
Littlest Pet Shop Little Lovin’ Pet Playhouse
Cat & Dog
Persian Cat with Carrier

Even the venerable toy icon Barbie has Barbie Pet Doctor Kit with Cat

Then there are these imagination prompting play sets, too:
Deluxe Complete Little Kitten Care Set for Children

Learning Resources: Pretend and Play Animal Hospital

Parents’ Animal Hospital
Step2′s Village Veterinarian Accessory Set

While not the easiest to navigate, Pets Welcome.com is a great place to visit. They present detailed information on pet friendly Hotels and Motels in the U.S. and Canada, describing their site as having over 25,000 pet friendly hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, ski resorts, campgrounds, and beaches listed.

Search under Country, then by state or province, then by city. Many hotels/motels charge fees for pets ranging from $10 to $100 (not exactly pet-friendly). Some say dogs only, or that no pet must be left alone, or crated only. Once you find a hotel you like, you can click through for more information. Pets Welcome says they even have negotiated rates with some of these places.

I am amazed at how many hotel/motel chains accept pets these days!

They also list pet sitters and lots of other useful information for those who won’t leave home without their furry friends.

Enjoy exploring…and vacationing!

Pet Care Trust U.K.

Pet Health Council U.K.