CAT HEALTH & MEDICINE

The art of traditional acupuncture traces back several thousand years to ancient China, and is one branch of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The other three branches are herbal medicine, food therapy and Tui-Na (medical massage).

The feline urinary system relies on two structural components: an upper tract and a lower tract. The upper urinary tract consists of two kidneys, which handle the biochemical processes; and two slender tubes (ureters) - one leading from each kidney - that deliver waste-containing urine from those organs down to the lower tract.

The lower urinary tract - whose function is solely excretory - consists of the bladder, a muscular sac that receives the urine delivered to it through the ureters and stores it until it is expelled from the body via the other component of the lower tract, the urethra, a narrow tube leading from the bladder to the outside world.

A raw spot on my cats body
Q Recently, I noticed that my seven-year-old male cat, Bisco, was excessively grooming his hindquarters. When I investigated the site, I discovered a raw red spot where Bisco had licked the fur and skin off. The vet explained that Bisco had developed a hotspot and that these were fairly common in cats, particularly during the summer.

I am the director of a small-town animal shelter, and we recently took in a two-year-old Bengal who was living with his owner in a meth house. This poor cat was subjected to his owners drug use for most of his life, and he is now suffering the consequences. He suffers from hallucinations, obsessive grooming and blindness - all the while being an incredibly sweet and affectionate cat when not experiencing the after affects of this terrible drug.

My female, Lily, is barely seven pounds, and seems to be pretty healthy except that she has chronic loose bowels/ diarrhea. Texas, the male, is about 10.5 pounds, and has normal bowels (sometimes, even on the hard side). I mention him because the cats are both fed the same diet of primarily wet food.

Thanks to progress in veterinary health research, a vast array of medicines are readily available today for the treatment of many feline diseases and behavioral disorders. Many of these medications can be administered only by veterinarians or qualified technicians in animal clinics or hospitals, while others can be administered at home by a cats owner.

While taking good care of your cat should obviously be a year-round concern, your vigilance is perhaps most necessary in the late spring and summer months, when temperatures rise significantly in most areas of the U.S. During extremely hot and humid weather, cats can be increasingly vulnerable to heat exhaustion and dehydration. They are more susceptible to assault by fleas, ticks and other insidious parasites. They can be dangerously exposed to cancer-causing sun rays.

Cats are well known for being exceptionally clean animals. They take pride in their appearance - grooming constantly to remove any offensive odors that might make them detectable to both predators and prey. Occasionally, however, cats sometimes do emit a foul odor. Although there are several possible reasons for a cat to be malodorous, halitosis (bad breath) is the most common cause of fetid felines.

Q My longhaired cat, Pretty Kitty, seems to groom her beautiful silver coat all the time. She is an indoor-only cat nearing her fifth birthday. At least once or twice a week, I can count on finding a hairball coughed up on the carpet. She never seems to pick floors that are easy to clean, like the tile in the kitchen. She gets regular checkups, and my veterinarian has not found any health problems. So…

Myth: My cat is just naturally lazy. It's the breed.

Truth: There is no question that there are "fast cats" and "slow cats," just as some people naturally prefer a sprint to a leisurely park stroll. In the animal world Olympics, cats are sprinters, not marathoners. There's a natural tendency to assume that just because your cat doesn't move much, he doesn't like to move at all.

If your cat is seriously overweight, he may have become less active to compensate for his extra pounds. He may even be unable to jump, and both his heart and his lungs are working overtime. He may not be lazy so much as suffering under the strain.

Q I have a cat that has a problem with a weeping eye (at the nose), a condition she has had for several years.

Now, the iris is gradually turning orange, starting at the nose, and the eye is starting to squint slightly. This seems to be getting worse. When the cat was adopted at about nine months old, she already had this condition (she was microchipped, but we received no response from her owner).

Our veterinarian has tried several different medications to no avail. Do you have any advice?
Sean Mahoney

In a clinical trial led by Dr. Boaz Arzi - a dental surgeon and researcher with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine - about 20 cats are receiving stem cell therapy that is showing promising results in the treatment of feline chronic gingivostomatitis (or FCGS).

This condition is a debilitating feline dental disease that is marked by severe and chronic inflammation of a cats gums and mucosa, the tissue that lines its oral cavity. Though the disease is relatively uncommon, it is very painful and frequently diagnosed among cats with certain viral diseases - especially feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV).