Dear Doctor – Are my cats contagious?
Kitten Care Tips
Common Anti-Anxiety Drugs Used in Cats
Dear Doctor – February 2016
Blood work: How often is best?
Q I have an eight-year-old cat who I rescued from a shelter as a kitten. I take Daisy to our local veterinarian once a year for a health examination. During our last visit, the veterinarian recommended that we run blood work every year. Is this really necessary for my cat, who is overall healthy? If so, can you explain the advantages of looking at blood work every year?
Elizabeth Vega
A Dear Elizabeth: The American Veterinary Medical Association states on their website that, geriatric pets should have semi-annual veterinary …
Signs of Asthma in Cats
One-On-One with Veterinary Technician Gail Berthiaume
To learn a little more about how a veterinary technician (veterinary nurse) carries out her responsibilities, we sat down with vet tech Gail Berthiaume, who works at Tufts' Foster Hospital for Small Animals — and happens to have four cats of her own, "all unusual in their own way," as she puts it.
Catnip: Are you a general veterinary technician, or do you have a specialty?
Ms. Berthiaume: I work only in the surgery suite. The way it works is that in smaller practices, vet techs do a little of everything — anesthesia, …
Managing Feline Idiopathic Cystitis
The health conditions that involve the lower urinary tract (the bladder and urethra) in cats are commonly referred to as feline urinary tract disease (FLUTD). FLUTD is not a disease in itself, but actually a variety of diseases that affect the lower urinary tract. They usually present similar clinical symptoms, which can complicate the specific diagnosis.
Further confounding the situation are those cats who show clinical signs of FLUTD, yet an underlying structural cause - such as bladder stones or a bladder tumor - has not been identified. This condition is called Feline Idiopathic Cystitis (FIC). Experts feel that. …
Common Skin Conditions in Cats
Taking Vital Signs at Home: A Double-Edged Sword
It might seem that taking a cats vital signs can help you determine whether hes in a state of emergency. But, says Tufts Cummings School emergency and critical care veterinarian Armelle de Laforcade, DVM, I worry a little about people trying to determine the seriousness of a situation by themselves because it can be tricky. For instance, you may find upon taking a cats temperature that he doesnt have a fever, but a cat can still be quite sick in the absence of an elevated temperature - especially if hes not eating or urinating.
That said, here are a couple of vital numbers:
Temperature (taken with a rectal thermometer made for cats) Normal: 100-102.5 degrees F. …
Looking Outside of Spay/Neuter in cats
Biliary Cysts in Cats
Shedding Light on Feline Vision
[From Tufts March 2012 Issue]
The eyes of cats and dogs are quite similar to our own, but there are notable differences. Feline eyes were designed with the night hunter in mind, one reason that cats have the largest eyes of any meat eater. If our own eyes were proportionally the same, human eyes would be eight inches across.
The difference between cat and dog eyes goes beyond size. The way pets see influences how they interact with each other — and with us.
"Placement of the eyes in the skull affects the animals' ability to see, as it affects their binocular field of view versus monocular field of view," says Christopher Pirie, DVM, veterinary ophthalmologist and Assistant Professor at Cummings School of …