 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
||
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
||
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
This is a new format I'm beginning today. Natural Rearing Notes should be more of a "notes" section vs. a longer article-format. So here it is and hopefully I can keep up with it. For those of you who are on the NRN list, I'll still send a monthly e-mail to you, but it will contain multiple entries from that month. I finally landed a free-lance web design job. I'm coding all of the articles for a new site for teen girls called iEmily.com. It launches July 1, 2000 so check it out! At least a year ago the owner of a very successful American Shorthair cattery (her name will remain anonymous) refused to sell me a cat because I was feeding mice to my cats. She said she "found the idea appalling and, quite frankly, didn't want her cats to have to work that hard." That hurt. I try to do the very best I can for my cats, and I think I do. My cats are treated as the species they are. I hold my cats and their carnivorous heritage in very high regard. The wound was reopened when I read a post on the American Shorthair mailing list that a black male ASH, from that cattery, had finished his grand championship in two shows. That's very good. It takes a very special cat to accumulate 200 grand points in two shows. To be black (not a favored color for ASH) makes it even more difficult. To make matters worst, the cat is now neutered and granded as a premier (only needing 75 points to grand in premiership) in only one show. He made five out of six finals including one best cat. He must be incredible. The reason why this upsets me is that the owner of this cattery knows I work with black ASH. I would have jumped at the chance to have a black of this quality. Nope, he goes to Virginia and is now neutered. He'll still be shown, and will probably end up with a National Win. Now, if I had told this person I was feeding Fancy Feast to my cats, she may have suggested I might try a higher quality cat food, but certainly wouldn't have refused to sell me a cat on those grounds. I think the Cat God is looking after me though. This woman can be very difficult to deal with. To be involved in a breeding program with a difficult person can make life difficult, to say the least. I am probably better off without her cats. Even though I raise my cats differently than almost every other breeder, I can say at least I'm not feeling like I have to have all of my cats scanned for PKD and/or HCM as many of the other breeders on the ASH list are doing. I am quite certain if I continue to raise my cats holistically, I will avoid these worries. When researching my article on Pottenger's Cats which is to be published in the American Connection (American Shorthair newsletter), I discovered that cat food labels do not contain complete nutritional summaries. The box of Alpha Bits (I know, the breakfast of champions) I bought yesterday lists the amount of Vitamin C, E, B, etc. in a serving. A typical cat food label lists percentage of protein, moisture, Ash, Taurine, etc., but nothing about Vitamins. Wouldn't it be nice to know how much Vitamin E (for example) your cat is getting in a serving of IAMS? I called two different manufacturers and requested a complete listing of the Vitamins contained in their food, but both refused to give it to me. "It's proprietary information," I was told. Of course, if you are feeding commercial food, you really have no idea what's in the package. I hear all the time about bad batches of food and the problems they cause. Recently, IAMS was purchased and is now available in regular grocery stores, CVS, K-Mart and the like. I wonder what level of quality they will maintain now. There is very little literature published on feline nutrition. Most of what is available is written by the pet food manufacturers themselves. Are you aware of how the AAFCO decides the minimum daily requirement of nutrition a cat needs? Cats are put in small, stainless steel laboratory cages and certain nutrients are withheld until signs of deficiency become apparent. Some of the signs of deficiency may be blindness, retarded development, lameness and even death. Not such a great end for any cat. It seems to me a more perfect and preferable method of determining a cat's minimum daily requirement for all nutrients would be to take the nutritional analysis of a mouse (or other prey animal of a small cat), multiplying that by the caloric requirements for a cat (for example, an adult cat would consume three to five mice in a day) and use that to determine the minimum daily requirements for a cat. I doubt many commercial cat food formulas come even close to that standard I almost violated my own patience rule with Charya (the blue tabby kitten I got from Kentucky the end of March). When instructing people on beginning a natural diet or any holistic program, I tell them that it will take at least a month, for every year of the cat's life, before you start to see any major changes. For example, if a 10 year old cat with a skin problem is put on a homemade diet, I wouldn't expect to see the skin improve for at least 10 months. If it doesn't improve in that amount of time, then intervention via homeopathy is probably in order. I believe diet will take care of 80% of health issues in cats. Anyway, Charya wasn't fitting in. She had no social skills, therefore, she was getting beat on by several of my other cats, wouldn't play, squealed like a stuck pig when I picked her up, and was being very problematic about eating (would only eat beef, without the supplements). I was ready to send her back to Kentucky. Her most recent homeopathic remedy (given a couple of weeks ago) was a high dose of Sulphur. Previously, I had tried two other, well indicated remedies, but there was little response. Sulphur, the remedy that will often help when other well indicated remedies fail to respond, is a very slow acting remedy. This weekend she's be doing pretty well. She's eating better and has been playing, both on her own and with Yukon and Wiley. I had entered her in a show this past weekend (the second one I've entered her in since I've had her), but I didn't feel she was ready to go. So we stayed home (which was a good thing). I worked out of my apartment today on the iEmily project. It was really nice being here. I could get into doing this on a regular basis. The cats were very well mannered all day. The only one who really bothered me for attention was Wiley, and even he wasn't terribly insistent. Life is good right now. I was able to act like a "normal" cat owner today at the grocery store and purchase cans of cat food. T, the male (who will remain nameless to protect his breeder, has something going on. He has an appointment with my regular vet on Friday. He isn't eating well. I think it's a combination of being so stuffed up he can't smell the food nor can he eat and breathe at the same time. Also, I think he's got some teeth problems and can't chew well. Anyway, I bought him a couple of cans of Hills A/D, the canned food for cats AND dogs who are not eating well. It's highly palatable (so the people at Hills say) so even ill animals will eat it. Well, he did show a lot of interest in it and ate some, but still not well. Of course my other cats wanted some of this junk food. I won't even get into the poor ingredients tonight. I'm too tired. There may be some exciting career news to be posted soon! Keep watch. We're still here. Very busy coding articles for iEmily.com. Took T to the vet on Friday. He got the full "anti" treatment for what the vet diagnosed as a sinus infection. He got oral antibiotics, antihistamines and an eye antibiotic ointment. It's only Saturday and the poor cat runs when he sees me coming. It doesn't like taking his medicine. I'm sure it tastes nasty to him. He is looking better, I'll give the conventional medicine that credit, but I do have to question whether it is truly "curing" him or simply suppressing the symptoms. Unfortunately, since I do not have the benefit of time, I cannot treat him via homeopathy. He may have to go back to Kentucky next weekend (assuming he is better). At least he's eating better now and I don't have to feed him the nasty canned food I bought. That stuff will be given to my neighbor. I don't want it in the house! As I've said before, the beauty of homeopathy is that you give the remedy once (usually), it's only little sugar pills which the cats usually don't object to, and then you wait and watch. No daily dosing of nasty medicine. Since I've invested $75 in vet bills and will soon have to put out $200 to ship him back, I'm hoping John will let me keep him until Bella is bred. Who said breeding cats is cheap? We just got back from visiting the nursing home. The residents just love to see the cats do their thing. If only it's looking out the window or jumping on top of the refrigerator. I need to revise my kitten contract so that it states, "I am selling a living, breathing being; not a stuffed animal." I honestly believe the general public does not expect their companion animals to get sick. The fact is, they do get sick, especially the young ones - and it needs to be an expected and even a desired occurrence. Especially if it's only a minor illness, like an upper respiratory infection (which is a cold to us). If they do not get sick, they do not develop immune systems. Bella's Baby's new owners came home on Saturday evening to find him with a stuck eye (stuck closed). They rushed him to the emergency room at Tuft's University. The veterinarian who examined him told the owners that this was a symptom of Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) and that he would most likely die within a year. A stuck eye is not a symptom of FIP. The symptoms of FIP are:
Of course, this upset the kitten's owners considerably. They called me that night. I was on the phone with them for about an hour explaining that the stuck eye was an upper respiratory symptom, not FIP. To my knowledge I've never had FIP in my cattery. None of my kittens have died once they were sold. It has since snowballed. They took the kitten to their regular vet who also told them a stuck eye wasn't a symptom of FIP. The stuck eye is now ulcered. Luckily they didn't use the medicine Tufts sent them home as it would have further damaged the now ulcered eye. If a kitten's eye gets stuck, and believe me, they do get stuck shut due to accumulation of mucus in the eye (human baby's eyes do the same thing), you gently unstick the eye with a warm wash cloth. Then you keep the eye moist and lubricated with artificial tears. I've found the artificial tears ointment works better than liquid. It is when the eye continually gets stuck that causes the ulcers. If you want to use an antibacterial eye ointment as well, fine. I've also found Vitamin E (food grade) invaluable in healing eye ulcers, should they occur. You need to be diligent about applying both the artificial tears and Vitamin E in order for the cure to occur; but it does cure the problem. Unfortunately, the kitten owners are now on an FIP witch hunt. On Monday, they were still considering having a blood test done to see if the kitten has FIP; even though I've told them there is no accurate test for FIP; and their regular vet has told them the same thing. I don't know what's happened since Monday. I haven't asked. I'm quite sure the kitten doesn't have FIP. The kitten was at their regular vet's office on May 15, checked out healthy and got his rabies shot. He's gained weight, he's eating well, playing, acting like a normal kitten. He certainly hasn't been showing any of the above symptoms. The crazy New England weather probably caused him to have some upper respiratory symptoms, so he got a stuck eye. It should have been no big deal, but now it is. I'm glad I don't have young kittens at this time because of the erratic weather we've been having. 50 degrees one day; 90 degrees the next. It's making everyone sick. This isn't the first time this has happened to a kitten buyer. Some veterinarians are quick to diagnose FIP in purebred kittens. I'd be willing to bet if this were a random bred kitten (not a purebred) this wouldn't have happened — even though shelter cats are just as prone to FIP as purebreds. I'm not sure why they are doing this (diagnosing FIP); because as I mentioned above, there's no accurate test for FIP, so they can't back up their diagnosis. FIP must be the current vogue disease for conventional vets. Ask me why I now use a homeopathic vet. Homeopathy does not label diseases, it treat symptoms. It takes into account the whole picture, not just a stuck eye. Unfortunately, they are a bit behind the times; FIP is old news now for breeders. Many admit to having had FIP, a cat or two died from it, and they've gone on, no big deal. A year or so ago it's all they could talk about, the FIP Plague. The disease to talk about now is PKD (PolyCystic Kidney Disease). In the opinion of some breeders, if you don't scan your breeding animals for PKD, you are not a responsible breeder. I'm waiting for veterinarians to catch up and start diagnosing PKD when they see a sick kitten. It's really difficult working on the computer when you've got one (a particular blue tabby kitten who's just learning how to play) pulling on your fingers when you type; and when she gets bored with that, she chases the mouse on the screen. And, when you've got a pesky Bombay pushing on the laptop screen from behind. I can't complain too much. They've been really good while I've been working on the iEmily project. Given the number of hours I've put into it so far, they could have been far more demanding. They are all such great cats. Moon lies beside me on the bed and gently puts her foot on my face, all the while looking lovingly into my eyes and purring. Bella races me up and down the hallway every morning. I asked T's breeder last night if I might be able to buy T. I've become very attached to him. He's the perfect stud cat. He doesn't spray, he's not aggressive. He's just a sweetheart. I told the breeder, he's become a housecat. He sleeps on the bed now. I spoke to John again today. He's agreed to sell him to me for a very reasonable price. I'm still thinking on it, but I'm pretty sure he'll be staying. I need to get him healthy now, my way. More to come on that project. Hello from HTML Code Land. We're still working away here. Drove into the North End this morning to get some meat. These cats eat pretty darn good. Brought home some rabbit feet for the kitties to chew on. They are enjoying them. It's too hot to eat, so the next best thing to do with food is to play with it. T is doing much better. He's more active now than he's been in weeks. He's off his antibiotics and being treated via homeopathy. He got his remedy this morning. Hopefully it's the right one. Cleo is here for the week. Her new caretakers are off to Canada for a week. She's not too happy about it, the poor thing, getting carted around yet again, but she'll survive the week. It has come to my attention that Chef's Catalog no longer carries the grinder I recommend. It is now carried through Pierce Equipment. Details are on the My Diet page. Be sure you get the right one, not all meat grinders will grind chicken bone. I have heard some have aluminum parts which can chip and end up in your cat's food. It's been a while since I've written and I apologize for that. A week ago today things went very bad. I woke up Monday morning feeling pretty terrible for various reason; then I couldn't find T. He hadn't been doing well most of the weekend, but Sunday night he seemed a bit better, so I wasn't worried about him until I couldn't find him. I found him in the closet. I pulled him out and examined him. He was a sorry sight. His belly seemed swollen. I had noted over the weekend that he was constipated so I had been giving him some extra fiber in the form of psyllium husk powder mixed with water and squash. I made an appointment to bring him back to the vet that morning. The look on the vet's face told me the answer. He was in critical condition. A lot of tests needed to be done as well as x-rays. I called his breeder and got permission to have these tests done. T needed to be put to sleep on Wednesday. The tests indicated he most likely had FIP. I knew from the beginning there was something wrong with him. I thought it was due to his previous life style. I never thought it would be FIP. I rarely even think about FIP - considering it a disease of large catteries. T came from a large cattery, but I've had other cats from the same cattery who are in good health. I don't think Moon is pregnant, which is probably just as well. Kittens are particularly susceptible to FIP. Luckily the kitten who was originally diagnosed with FIP by the vet at Tufts had a blood titer test done and he was completely negative. I spoke at length today with my homeopathic vet about FIP. I'm worried about my existing cats, all of whom have been exposed to T. FIP is fatal. She told me FIP has been around for a while and you see it in catteries that have a lot of problems with conception (queens not getting pregnant when bred or aborting once bred), fading kitten syndrome, and chronic upper respiratory disease. The lose a lot of kittens, but rarely their adults; only occasionally do they lose an adult to FIP. That is not happening here. Even when taking into account the year I lost a lot of kittens. I know what caused that, all the showing I was doing. My cats are all very healthy. I can't worry about the chance of their showing FIP symptoms until they do. Hopefully they will not. They say if you breed long enough, eventually you will have FIP in your cattery. I guess that was true. I got very attached to T. I had hoped he'd have a good five years left to live here, eat good food and sleep on the bed. I guess that wasn't meant to be. God works in very mysterious ways. Greetings from the plague ward. We have all been exposed to a very deadly virus so we've become the plague ward. One, or perhaps all of the cats will be dropping dead soon. I'm being a wise-ass, but that's how it feels. I do worry about my cats getting sick, but I always worry about them getting sick. The other night Wiley went in the corner and didn't eat his supper right away - "he's sick!". A half hour later he was tearing around the apartment like a mad man. It's been hot. They aren't so interested in eating as they usually are. Today is my birthday. I turn 40 today - A-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h! Age is all relative, it doesn't really matter. My cats don't care. I'm healthy. What difference does it make how hold I am. In honor of my birthday though, Boston is having a fireworks display over the harbor. That's nice of them. Yukon won best brown tabby American Shorthair and Moon won best black American Shorthair in the Region. Pretty cool considering they each only did about one show as champions. Speaking of Moon, she may be pregnant. I still can't figure it out. It's been an exciting month. Dealing with T's illness has taken it's toll on me. Coding the iEmily articles also did me in. Everything is good here now. The iEmily job is pretty much done. Remember it launches July 1, 2000 so check it out. Tomorrow is a new month. If Moon is indeed pregnant, she'll be due July 15. I'm still not sure. On a good note, I've adapted to living alone. It took me long enough. Not that I'm alone with six cats living with me. There's no other human here is what I mean. Last night while in bed reading with all the cats in bed with me, I thought, "there's no room in this bed now for another human." That for me, right now, is a good feeling. Blakkatz Cattery All Rights Reserved
|
