Posts from — June 2006

I got an e-mail the other day from a breeder asking for help. She said her cats had problems with diarrhea, vomiting, fading kittens, ringworm and various other things. She also mentioned that she was starting to use some drug (forget the name now) to treat the ringworm.

Gosh, I didn’t know how to answer her and I considered just ignoring it. I wasn’t about to offer to help her take on her problems in a holistic manner. Been there, done that, it doesn’t work. I’m starting to wonder if alternative medicine even has the capacity to cure cats (or dogs) with many of the chronic problems that they have these days.

I’ve known a very nice lady via the Internet for quite a while now. She has a cat with chronic vomiting issues. I tried to help the cat, but could not, so I suggested she try a competent homeopathic vet. $450 later and the cat still vomits and the woman is reluctant to spend more money on her treatment. I agree with her. I expect this cat is going to continue to vomit for the rest of her life.

I tried for years to beat an addiction using homeopathy, supplements and most recently acupuncture. Nothing worked and I’ve given up.

Anyway, back to the breeder. I asked her what she fed (dry food); how many cats she had (7 adults plus kittens). I told her that we are essentially living on two different planets when it comes to how we raise our cats. I feed raw, don’t vaccinate or use conventional medicine. I’ve been through the sick kitten routine and even dealt with ringworm once, but I kept plugging along using alternative means and got through it. This isn’t an easy path to take. It’s a lot more work, possibly more expensive (but probably not), you doubt yourself all the time, you suffer abuse from individuals who would rather be like sheep following a more mainstream approach to caring for animals, and sometimes it doesn’t work. I suggested that she ask for help on the Fancier’s Health list at Yahoo Groups as I think they are more in a position to help her than I am.

I don’t have the energy to hold hands anymore. Perhaps it is because so much of my energy is going towards training Angelus, but I doubt it. I think I’m just jaded. People want quick fixes even if they have decided that they want to try an alternative approach. They don’t understand why a week after switching to a raw diet their cat isn’t miraculously transformed into a vibrant jungle cat. They don’t understand that even if they got the cat as a kitten, fed it raw and didn’t vaccinate it, that what the kitten’s parents ate and what vaccinations and medications they received play a part in the kitten’s health.

Although Yukon, Hermione and Oleander, all first generation raw fed, unvaccinated, have been relatively healthy, I don’t expect they are going to live to be 30. I’d love it if they did, but I know what is in their lines. I had thought I was going to quit breeding and I may very well do so, but the temptation of producing fourth generation naturally raised kittens – even if I keep all of them for myself – is hard to ignore.

Maybe it doesn’t make a difference what you feed your animals (or eat yourself) or how you maintain their health (be it conventional or alternative).

But then again, I look at my cats and Angelus and I do see health and well-being so maybe there is a difference.

I’m tired. The heat has taken its toll on me. We went from early spring (cold!) weather to hot as hell weather too quickly. I need to take a few pounds of fat off this old body of mine so I can tolerate the heat better. I need to do a lot of things, and maybe I will, or maybe I won’t.

I try to tough it out as much as I can without A/C, but it was starting to make me sick. I was able to open up the house late last night which was wonderful. Let’s see, the cats brought in a moth the size of my thumb, ate the wings off and left the moth in the middle of the floor. Someone also caught a frog and I found it, sort of alive, under an end table. I released it outside, hopefully it will live. Angelus squeezed through the tiny opening in the screen door that’s there for the cats and he was outside running around in the middle of the night — something I don’t want him doing! I can’t remember what else went on last night, but I think they were all telling me how happy they were that it has cooled off and they could go outside and be cats and dog.

I have been taking obedience classes on Thursday night from a very competent instructor. We sort of have a love/hate relationship — she’s tough and I often don’t want to work as hard as she wants me to. Do you know how hard it is to keep a young dog’s attention on you when there are other dogs and distractions (like running vacuum cleaners!) in the building with you? I have to make myself more entertaining than other dogs and running vacuum cleaners — not always easy at the end of the day. Do you know how much I’d like to be able to come home and crash on the couch? I can’t. I have to work the dog. I’m really not complaining (well, I sort of am), but it’s worth it. Anyway, this instructor ended up in the hospital last Thursday. She is now in an induced coma (not sure what that means), on a ventilator and very, very sick. I can’t believe how much this has upset me. First she’s there, driving us in class, and now she’s in the hospital in very bad state. You never know.