Three Lesser Known Cat Publications

We have all seen Cat Fancy, Kittens and Cats and others, in supermarkets, bookstores and pet stores. While browsing the Internet, I found some less well marketed publications.

Animal Wellness Magazine focus on natural foods, holistic treatments, homeopathy for cats and other pets. They have both paid print and digital subscriptions.

A fantastic newsletter called CatWatch is put out by the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. No ads so it is not cheap at $20.00US a year. The well written articles are authored by veterinarians. They cover every conceivable health and behavioral issue, dietary problems and solutions, feline anatomy and much more.

Yankee Magazine’s: Practical Pet Solutions for Dogs and Cats and Others is a well organized book comprised of both anecdotal and expert information about pets and pet care. The advice is from a selected group of veterinarians, pet trainers and breeders as well as their readers. I often find reading Yankee Magazine’s books both informative and fun.

Online Places To Shop for Cats (and Other Pets, Too!)

We not only have cats, we have reptiles and fish at our home. Since I work full time, time for shopping and especially for browsing is limited. My solution, like so many others is to surf the Internet. A lot of these places have email newsletters that I have signed up for, so I know about sales and special offers.

Some of my favorite commercial web sites for pet products are:

Amazon.com this is a direct link to Home and Garden, keyword cats

California Veterinary Supply over the counter remedies, treats, can also order with a prescription

Drs Foster and Smith

Collections inexpensive, but of varying quality, too. Worth looking at.

Improvements

Petsmart

Only Natural Pet Store
A lot of good information and products. Warning: they carry Wellness which has GARLIC that is unsafe for cats and dogs. Garlic adversely affects red blood cell production.

Steps for Pets they donate money to shelters for each item your buy

See my previous post about Shopping While Helping Cats.

Possible Toxic Pet Toys at Walmart??!! Cat Health Alert

Lisa Wade McCormick of ConsumerAffairs.com wrote an article about Walmart’s public rebuttal to the ExperTox Analytical Laboratory analysis of toxins they found in certain cat and dog toys carried by Walmart. In the article she writes:

ConsumerAffairs.com hired ExperTox to test four Chinese-made pet toys — two for dogs and two for cats — for heavy metals and other toxins. Two of those toys — a latex one for dogs that looks like a green monster and a cloth catnip one — revealed what the lab’s toxicologist called high levels of the toxic metals lead, chromium, and cadmium.”

This lengthy article has detailed information from both ExperTox and Walmart, as well as other independent sources. Definitely worth reading — then you decide which path to follow.

Free Cat Health Brochures and Information

I can cruise the net with the best of them :-) Anecdotal stories are often interesting. However, when it comes to caring for our precious family members — that includes my sons as well as our cats :-) I prefer to get my medical advice and information from those whose jobs involve staying at the forefront of medical knowledge.

Cornell University Veterinary School’s Feline Health Center has quite a few free online brochures related to various health and behavioral concerns. You can read them as an article or download as a .pdf file. Where appropriate they cross reference their own videos. From the link above, you can also access a glossary of feline medical terms, articles from their newsletter CatWatch.

At this writing there are 8 articles about general health issues ranging from what to do if your cat is “going outside the box” to dealing with aggression. There are four brochures about feline infectious diseases including zoonotic (transferable to humans) disease. And there are six about specific feline health diseases.

The American Veterinary Medical Association has lots of feline health brochures in English and Spanish; printable .pdf files and online readable files. Veterinary clinics can order mix and match packages of 50 brochures to give to clients. They also have a huge number of .pdf files concerned with disaster preparedness, mostly for veterinary practices and state organizations, however there are a few that are of use to pet owners such as Saving the Family (including pets!).

Go and see for yourself!

More Great Feline Health Videos

I had previously written about some videos that showed cats having asthma attacks. I have found some more useful videos that I thought important to share with you.

These How To Health Videos are from the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine Feline Health Center web site. These videos are:

  • Caring for your Diabetic Cat
  • Giving Your Cat a Pill or Capsule
  • Giving Your Cat Liquid Medication
  • Trimming Your Cat’s Claws
  • Taking Your Cat’s Temperature
  • Brushing Your Cat’s Teeth