Cat Talk

As a cat owner I have noticed over the years that cats frequently try to steal my water any time I leave a fresh glass unattended and yet they ignore the water placed out for them in a drinking bowl. Different cats have different techniques for water theft, but there seem to be two main approaches, either they stick their entire head into the glass and lap away or worse they stick a paw in and just pull the glass over spilling the contents all over the place. The reason for this is fairly obvious, just like us; they prefer fresh water to water that has been lying around for any length of time.

If your cat eats wet food then they will be getting a fair amount of moisture from that but they still need a source of fresh drinking water. If your cat is on a dry cat food diet then fresh water is absolutely essential. Other factors such as the heat and amount of exercise they get will also have an impact on how much water they need. A lack of water can lead to health problems for your pet so this is something you need to provide. Dehydration is bad for any animal and cats can develop bladder infections and kidney problems if they aren’t getting enough to drink.

Water bowls frequently get dirty and can become a breeding ground for bacteria. Since they sit next to the food bowls if your cat is a messy eater they will also often end up with bits of food and stray hairs floating in them. You need to change the water as frequently as possible and ensure that you disinfect the bowl regularly.

You may notice that cats will often try to drink from the tap when it is running. They seem to have a preference for running water however you can’t really leave your taps running all day long. One solution is to invest in a cat fountain. There are various different types available on the market, some are stand alone products which just hold water and others have separate compartments for their food as well. They have a motor inside which re-circulates the water ensuring it is oxygenated and filtered.

With cat fountains your pet can drink fresh and cool water with ease. There are various designs but many spread the water over a surface as it runs out to make drinking it easier and your cat can choose to drink from the running surface or the pool at the bottom. The fountains can be filled with tap water and any debris or impurities are filtered out as the motor runs. You will have to leave the fountain plugged in all day but the majority of them are quiet and they don’t use a great deal of electricity.

So if you are fed up with your cat muscling in to drink from the tap or sticking their head into your glass of water this could be the right solution. You may also find that you are surprised how much water your cat drinks once they have access to a fresh supply.

Ever wished you could see all your cat’s secret haunts and activities while he’s out roaming the neighborhood? Well, now you can.

Thanks to a cool German site called “Mr. Lee – Projects for Cats and Pets,” you can find out where all your cat goes and where he likes to hang out, and you can even have him shoot digital pix of all his feline pals, girl/boyfriends, enemies, frenemies, and even his prey. You might not want to see that last one, especially when it comes to snakes, mice, rats, spiders, and so on, but hey… that’s part of an outdoor cat’s life.

The photos have a very interesting perspective, with most taken at about six inches above the ground. The site features a wealth of pictures taken by Mr. Lee himself, as well as other cats. Some of the images are quite artistic – who knew cats were so talented!

Of course as we all know cats also spend a great deal of time napping. During these times all the pictures he takes will be black and boring. The solution? Hit delete.

The Mr. Lee site sells CatCams, CatTracks, and (coming soon) even a wireless Live CatCam that feeds a live signal to your TV or computer via broadband.

Mr. Lee himself is of course the star of the site. This gray-striped and white tomcat was born in South Carolina, but somehow ended up in Germany. He has even been given a trophy for taking the “World’s Biggest Small Photo.” He likes to eat shrimp cocktails out of it.

The Mr. Lee CatCam is a small 2.5-ounce noiseless digital camera that goes on your cat’s collar or harness. It’s enclosed in a plastic outer case that protects the camera from shock as well as dust, dirt, and water - because you never know what your cat’s going to get into next. Drinking water from the toilet or puddles? No problem. Playing in the litterbox or getting into fights? Yeah. You get the idea.

The CatCam, which uses one AAA battery (rechargeable battery recommended), takes a picture automatically at selected intervals. The factory preset is every 10 seconds, but you can change it to take photos however often you like. The CatCam will also take short video images as well.

As of this writing, the CatCam sells for $58 US plus shipping. The price will vary, however, due to currency fluctuations.

If you want to know where your cat is at any given time, or to find out how far he roams, you might want to consider the Mr. Lee CatTrack. This satellite-based GPS tracking device lets you know just where Fluffy is at any given time.

Those who prefer the live wireless video streaming model will have to wait a little longer, as it is in development now, according to the Mr. Lee site. However, the site shows how the live cam will work and provides other information about it. You can also sign up to be notified when it becomes available.

There’s also a 2009 CatCam calendar called “Views Beyond the Cat Flap!” that features pictures taken by cats wearing Mr. Lee CatCams. The sales for the CatCam calendars go to a British charity called Pets as Therapy. This worthy cause provides gentle, trained cats and dogs to hospices, nursing homes, etc., to provide love and comfort to the patients.

Mars Petcare has announced a recall of several lines of its pet food, including Special Kitty cat food and Ol’ Roy dog food. The recall affects all pet food produced at one of its plants, which had become tainted with salmonella. Although there are no reports of pets getting sick, there have been several cases of people getting sick after handling the pet food - particularly toddlers, who presumably played with the food and/or ate some of it out of the bowl.

Is it just me, or was 2008 a bad year for pet food? The melamine disaster affected hundreds of trusted pet food brands. Although in this case, I’m not sure if Ol’ Roy can be referred to as a “trusted” pet food brand.

Honestly, if you’re feeding your pet Ol’ Roy or Special Kitty, you have bigger things to worry about. These low-quality foods are the pet equivalent of a diet of Twinkies. Even Purina One or Pedigree will be a better choice for your pet. Ideally you would want to feed a high-quality food like Natural Balance (my personal choice), Wysong, or Canidae/Felidae. But hey, those foods get pricey, and we’re all trying to economize.

With all the bad news regarding pet food, it is no surprise that many people have started cooking for their pets. Many online resources exist for pet food cooking and suggestions - including valuable nutrients which you will need to feed as a supplement. For example, cats need taurine, which is only available in cat food and in feline nutritional supplements . You can’t cook up a big batch of taurine for your cats, and it’s a critical nutrient.

I have been cooking for my cats, as a replacement for the canned food portion of their diet. I steam a frozen chicken thigh for about an hour (until it gets seriously mushy), then crack in a few eggs, and add a splash of fish sauce. I freeze half of the results and save them for later. The other half keeps for up to a week in the fridge. Healthy, nutritious, and super easy!

I have written a few entries in the past few weeks regarding my odd and auspicious, yet oh so cute and lovable kitten named Migs. We found our cat outside of our home one night, roughly a year ago, he was homeless and hungry, and very thin. The neighborhood kids next door had named him Migs because he would streak across the front yards at lightning speed, like a Russian Mig fighter jet, and the name just sort of stuck. Migs has been the most interesting animal that I have ever had the pleasure of keeping company with. He has the most unique personality that I have ever seen in a cat, and I am just thankful that he found our front door that night and that we opened it and welcomed him into our life. And here is yet another interested tale of our experiences with our lovable and boisterous kitten named Migs.

It Took us a While to Realize he Was Following Us
We have two large dogs, a wolf hybrid named Wolfgang Amadeus (after Mozart of course) and a Lab/Rotty mix, named Sampson. We take the boys on a few mile walk every evening before they get their dinner; wet food and a treat. And yes, my dogs are spoiled rotten, but what is the point of having dogs if you don’t give them the world right? Our newer house in Chandler, AZ, has a kitty door for our cat; he was always an outside cat, so we wanted him to have options when we moved. But we didn’t think that he would start following us on walks. But naturally, Migs wanted to feel like an active member of our pride, and before we knew it he began following us on our evening walks with our dogs.

Now our Cat Walks with us Regularly
First it started with us noticing him streaking by and hiding under cars, or in bushes. Then our dogs began to whine and look for him. Finally, we caught him following us on several occasions, always staying in the shadows and ducking out of sight, like a little kitten spy. Then it would become routine. Every time that we took the boys on their walk, the shadow of Migs and the jingle of his collar and name tag could be heard in the distance. It was not long before he was accompanying us on each and every walk—feeling like a true member of the family.

It has Become a Game of Sorts
It has become a game for him now. He hides and ducks and darts. And then he tries to make it home before we do. He creeps in through his door and then waits by the front door with questioning eyes that scream: “I was here the whole time, nice to see you again mom and dad!”

What Outlandish Things Does your Cat Do?
I am curious to learn what weird things that your cat may do? I have never heard of kittens following people on walks. Please comment back with your weird cat stories, I am anxious to read them all, and to learn more about your experiences.

I can easily recall a few months back when I found my cat outside bleeding—he is an outdoor indoor cat with his own kitty door and sometimes he can get into fights with other cats when playing outside during the day—and I knew that I needed to take him right into the veterinarian office to get checked out; to make sure that all was well. So about two hundred dollars later, and after a nice disinfecting of the lacerations on his paw, and of course, some minor antibiotics, I realized, hey this is really darn expensive. Which was when I decided that for the future, some cat health insurance may be in order for my hyper one year old Tabby.

Why You Need Pet Health Insurance
I looked around, and since I already had my dog Amadeus insured through IAMS VPI pet health insurance, I decided to see about adding my kitten. It cost about thirty bucks per month and it kicked in right away—all they did was contact the vet who signed and faxed them back a local form. I received my cat health insurance cards in the mail about ten business days later. Now, whenever I take him into the vet, I print out a claim form for my vet to sign and simply mail or fax it in to get reimbursed. And yes, it really can add up in then end.

What Procedures Does it Cover?
Surprisingly, the pet health insurance policy that I have covers nearly every known medical procedure for both cats and dog, and other pets as well. Of course there is a percentage that it covers—it does not work like traditional human health insurance. But, if you factor that I spent nearly two hundred smackers at the vet last time with my cat, and they would have sent me check for half, that would have easily paid for a few months of pet health insurance. And, they cover checkups and routine visits, so they cost half as well; essentially it pays for itself in the end.

Who Provides Cat Health Insurance?
There are a number of great providers that offer quality and affordable pet health insurance. Here are some providers that I was able to find during my searches online for the best pet health insurance out there. IAMS VPI – I recommend this plan over others because they offer online claim forms. Pet Care Insurance Programs is another great pet health insurance company that offers similar rates and coverages to IAMS. And finally, ASPCA Pet Health Insurance is another great company that you can choose to go through. All offer similar rate plans and coverages, as well as claim processing efficiency.

How Does it All Work?
It is very basic how pet health insurance works. You bring a claim form into the office and have the vet sign it. You copy the invoice and mail it back in, or fax it back in with the claim form. They reimburse you for the difference of the percentage of the covered amount. Most pet health insurance companies will place an annual cap on the amounts that they will reimburse. For example, VPI will reimburse up to 14k annually.

The Associated Press reports on a rising protest outside the Guangdong government office in Beijing. The protests were partly inspired by a series of articles recently in the Chinese press regarding the practice of rounding up cats in rural provinces, and butchering them for meat. On Monday, a Guangdong newspaper story claimed that about 1,000 cats were being transported to Guangdong for slaughter every day.

The cat meat industry in China has come under fire in recent years, as China’s increasing affluence means that more people can afford to keep pets. Some people feel that the cat meat market has become more desperate and underhanded in its tactics, possibly due to the bad economy.

Animal rights activists have ambushed trucks loaded with cats for market, and in one case managed to liberate hundreds of cats. In Nanjing, “a major trading hub for cats,” dealers come from all across the province bearing cats for sale. Although the cat meat dealer interviewed for the Associated Press article asserted that her cat meat came from legitimate cat farms, cat lovers have begun to worry about their cats being nabbed by a dealer on a “fishing expedition.”

PETA has published a press release decrying the practice. Spokesman Michael V. McGraw issued a statement which focused on the treatment of cats destined for the butcher, and pointed out that China has no animal protection laws on the books.

Traditionally, cats were considered a legitimate food item for the Cantonese people, who have long been known as China’s most inventive and adventurous gourmands.

If you have ever had the distinct pleasure with the company of a cat for a pet, then you already know where I am going with this one merely based off the title. But where my story may beg to differ from the others that surround this often talked about topic, with regards to our cats, is that the present he (my cat) brought to me this time, for a change, was still alive. Cats like to let their parents (owners, handlers, what have you) know that they love them. They are happy little hunters in the pride that we call our homes. And from time to time, they will display such affections to us in the forms of tiny little creatures that they have hunted for and captured on our behalf. It’s purely a form of love, or them saying, ‘Meow’ (which translates into thank you for all the kibble, kitten treats and toys…I love you).

Why Do Cats Leave us Dead Presents?
Of course, on most occasions these poor creatures have suffered a terrible fate, all to appease the offerings of our cat to us! Thanks kitty! In many cases the cat will leave the present on the doorstep of the home, for those of you who have outdoor cats, as a reminder when you leave, “Hey, you see that dead thing? I caught that, and it’s for you buddy! Cause I love you so much!” Then we are left to clean up their loving mess, which can be gruesome task for most people who are not fond of having tiny dead animals rotting on their doorstep. But I guess the most important notion here is that cats will always catch things, and leave them for us—they are saying they love us, that is all.

Throwing out a Dead Bird Really Sucks!
Then there is the present that you don’t find for quite sometime: my cat caught a bird once and decided to hide the dead body underneath the bed, where he likes to hang out; only after a few days of a horrid smell did I dissect the room to find his thoughtful gift. But in most instances, the cat will leave your dead present on the stoop of your front door or your back door.

Firstly, it’s a present from your cat to you – so you don’t want to let them see you hocking it in a plastic bag and heading to the trash can. Put your cat somewhere inside where they are unable to observe what you do with their ‘gift.’ Then don some gloves, and wrap the present in a plastic grocery bag, and keep your garbage bin outside until the truck comes by mid-week. And always thoroughly sanitize your hands afterwards. 

Please Comment on the Weirdest Thing your Cat Ever Caught or Killed to Bring You!
Even though I have some odd stories, what have you experienced with gifts from your cat? My latest experience was my cat bringing a pigeon in by the wings while I was watching a movie in my bedroom – poor bird.

Please, comment back with your stories, I am eager to hear them all!

Okay, this is a weird anomaly, at least I think so. I have a very eccentric, lovable and cuddly kitten that loves to curl up, snuggle, is very fond of laps and is indeed, a fantastically tempered cat. But he does one thing that I find to be very uncharacteristic of cats: he likes to hang upside down from my arms. Not once in a while, but all of the time. He will jump up into my arms for a cuddle, and then wiggle his butt and his body so he overhangs my arm. He even sleeps on his back most of time, looking up at the ceiling. Is this abnormal behavior for a cat? To sleep upside down, enjoy hanging upside down, and so on?

The Upside-Down Loving Kitten
It has gotten to be so frequent, in fact, that now he will jump up into my arms and immediately try to hang upside down. I will droop him over my arms and then support his head with my other hand and arm. He will do this several times per day, and likes for me to walk around with him like this, so he can view the entire world upside down.

Is my cat a Regenerated Possum?
Here is the conclusion that I have been so far able to digest: I think he was a possum or something similar in a former life; if cats have former lives, I know that they already have nine of them. But the upside down loving cat is a mystery to me. I have had plenty of cats during my life, but have had none that so loved this possum aperture to the extent that my kitten does.

Ah Dogs and cats, forever friends and equally enemies – in many cases that is. But is a dog man’s best friend, really? I actually happen to own a long haired tabby named Migs – because he is silver and streaks across the house faster than a Russian Mig Fighter Jet. But, I also own a full grown Timber wolf, yes wolf, and a full grown Lab, and mind you, my cat and my dog, and my wolf, are all the best of friends, so no worries, there. The wolf even lets the cat eat out of his dish and drink water out of his dish, and will even drop pieces of food for the cat to share. How cute.

But the point that I am getting at is that cats are equally, if not more so, affectionate as dogs. My purpose with this blog is to plainly exclaim that dogs and cats are both men’s best friend. My cat will find me several times throughout the day (I work from home) he needs cuddles, he needs love, he gives me kisses aplenty on my hands. He likes to sleep under the covers with me at night, and he is always there. So are my dogs. But, the cat seems more affectionate than my dogs at some times.

Cats are just as gently, more agile than and as sensitive as dogs. They learn as fast, sometimes faster. They are always checking up on us to make sure we are okay. When we are sad they cuddle us. When we are happy they play with us. They are indeed our best friends.