Spotted Cat Designs

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.

Pet Care Trust U.K.

Pet Health Council U.K.

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!

I was looking for information on the Japanese Meneki Neko (lucky cat). For those who do not know what I am talking about, see “What is Mankei Neko?” Cats are important in Japanese culture. There are quite a few phrases that relate to cats. Nyanda Park in Chiba allows paying visitors to be with the resident cats. Here is a flyer about this Park in Japanese (warning: the automatic English translation is terrible).

Our friend “Neko” lives in Tokyo. She and other Neko Obasans (literally, “cat mothers”) foster and neuter stray or abandoned cats that live in a small beautiful bicycle “pocket” park. They provide food, water and medicine. Most of these cats have no other home. See her blog about her cats, some of whom followed her home to be adopted.