Oh yes, here’s the direct link (it’s a PDF file).

And since wet food is 75% water, it costs a lot more per ounce of real nutrition, so the same rationale goes here: unless they need wet food for a specific reason, dry will do fine. What with the recession and all, it makes sense to save money on regular purchases (like food) to serve as a cushion in case of unexpected medical bills, or whatever.

Of course, none of this means you shouldn’t buy cans of salmon or fancy treats for your dear cats. Just use them as treats, not everyday meals!

We are also supplementing with more canned food, especially for our diabetic cat Panther. The canned foods we chose are higher protein, fewer carbohydrates, thus straining his metabolism less.
When you are shopping be sure to check the expiration dates before you buy any pet food or treats.

To read the ingredients on some canned food bring your magnifying glasses (only half joking) — until someone pointed it out — I did not see that Wellness brand foods contains small amounts of garlic which damage the red blood cells of cats and dogs. The label print is tiny!

Be sure that taurine is in the cat food you buy, until it was intentionally added to cat foods, cats were having heart problems from a lack of taurine. The Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research’s article explains this better than I can.

The article “Cats Are Different“by T. J. Dunn, Jr. DVM subtitled “Find Out How A Cat’s Nutritional Needs Are Different From A Dog” is a terrific layman’s level explanation of our pet’s nutritional needs. Read and learn!

Lastly, I found this article and thought you might find it interesting, too: Pet Food Storage Tips, Part One: Dry Food

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.

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!

Cool Freebie Links Pet Page

There is a lot of information overlap between each of these sites, so I try to keep a record of the offers I have already taken advantage of.

Cool Savings requires you to “become a member”. Personally, I don’t often do this as it has led to spam in the past. If you try them out, let me know.

Some sites with preschool age crafts:

Pre-school cat related lesson plan

Cat theme nursery rhymes, printable paper crafts, puzzles, mazes and word searches

Some sites with crafts for more than one age group:

Cat theme party favor

Free craft projects and patterns

Gifts to make for your cat

Listing of places for free crochet, knitting or sewing cat beds, toys, coats

Teen and adult level instructions for making cat usable beds, tents, toys and for drawing cats

For scrappy scrapbookers a few themes all built around the Karen Foster Designs Themed Kits:

Purrfectly Playful
Kitty Layout
The Cats Meow
Cat Nap Layout
Little Tiger Layout

Or try Diecuts with a View: Cat Theme Scrapbook Kit in a stack 8”X8” Pad) for something completely different

I bead, sew, embroider, needlepoint, macramé, decorate cakes, bake, cook and write. I use my bread machine to make a sweet bread dough that I then shape into a cat face. Bake and decorate with a chocolate kiss smile and frosting eyes and licorice whiskers. Yummy! Next time I make one I’ll put a picture up. Did I mention I have a creative streak?

Here are some more interesting books for multi-media crafty cat lovers:

Sassy Cats: Purr-fect Craft Projects interesting ideas

Cat Crafts (Kids Can Do It) Elementary school age cat theme crafts

Pet Crafts: 28 Great Toys, Gifts and Accessories for Your Favorite Dog or Cat some are child friendly. Toys or useful gifts for for your furry friend, or gifts of a feline theme.

A Year of Cats…in Hats: Crafts to Make You Smile a little cutesy, but interesting and fun

Cat Purr-sonalities in Cross Stitch I prefer needlepoint and embroidery, but the patterns in here are nice

For woodworkers and carpenters you can buy inexpensive plans for making cat trees from Cat Furniture Plans.

Or try these two patterns:

Scardy Cats Paper Woodworking Full Sized Plans Great for Halloween!

Cat’s Meow Scrollsaw Plaque Woodworking Plan a multi-depth pattern of jigsaw like cat silhouettes

For Quilters:

Two by the same author, I really like her realistic cats

Cats in Quilts: 14 Purrfect Projects

Kitty Capers: 15 Quilt Projects with Purrsonality

Also take a look at The Cat’s Meow: Purr-fect Quilts for Cat Lovers, 10th Anniversary Special Edition for lots of great ideas!

Cats On Quilts is quite different from some of the static feline representations in quilting. These cats are shown being cats!

If you register (free) at Crayola.com, you can access their crafting ideas with cat themes. There were 51 such projects as of today.

National Geographic has a free printable animal coloring book, a kitty condo you can build together, and a very basic plant cat grass starting from seed, although I would get either cat grass or catnip seed from a pet store. Here is one type of kit you can buy, with all the components you need to get started.
This kit is a bit smaller.

National Wildlife Federation’s Kid Zone has projects like Kitty Pancakes (yummy!), a dual purpose hummingbird feeder (feed the hummingbirds and provide cat entertainment). You can sign up for a free parent email newsletter with activities and information, too.

Enature.com has fun quizzes to inspire learning about nature.

Enchanted Learning has cat-inspired crafts for young children.

On another note if you want to create and purchase high quality greeting cards from your photos, try Laughing Rhino.

Notice I am NOT including online games from these sites. I prefer hands-on creativity myself. National Wildlife Federation and National Geographic have such games.

Some places to find grocery coupons or other good deals are:

Grocery Coupon Guide

Slick Deals go to Forums, then click on Hot Deals or Freebies. You can select offers from the last day or longer, use some pre-programmed subject searches (like pets) in the boxes on the lower left of the page. This place is huge, so focus!

Free Sample Forager click on Pets, Cats, Dogs or Horses for specific offers

Price Grabber.com search under Home and Garden, using keyword pets (or something even more specific)

Pet product coupons and deals from specific online vendors Petco, Petsmart, PetFoodDirect and PetCareRx at edealsetc.com

Amazon.com I search under Kitchen and Housewares or Health and Personal Care; Amazon is a good place for comparative product reviews.

Cafe Press for cat and other pet related stickers