EVERYDAY CAT CARE

For years, I adopted kitten siblings that required close to zero socialization to adjust to living in my home. However, the last four cats Ive adopted from shelters took a long time to feel comfortable enough to come out of hiding from under my bed or behind my sofa. I am happy to report that they are all now well adjusted and contented, but it did take some time.

The truth is that cats are generally regarded as non-compliant subjects, and that most professional photographers get few requests to train their lens on them. Cats, being notoriously cantankerous and uncooperative, will most likely get up and move once you have placed a light near them, says Michael Weymouth, a commercial photographer who works from his Weymouth Design office in Boston. That makes it difficult to set the stage, so to speak.

Obviously, it is very important to know which plants are safe for cats and which ones are not. Fortunately, there is a long list of safe grasses and herbs that can provide your cat lots of enjoyment. Among them are:

You may still be shoveling the last vestiges of snow off the walk, or cuddling near the fireplace soon after the sun goes down. But spring is just around the corner, and now is a good time to think about your warm weather goals while you still have some time to plan. For instance, maybe youre thinking about how to enhance your outdoor environment for your pets, or wanting to grow some indoor greens that are cat-friendly.

Kittens are rambunctious, delightful little balls of fluff who delight and entertain their owners for hours on end with their silly antics and mischievous behavior. But there is something very special about living with cats as they mature. We were extremely blessed to be able to share our lives with our beautiful and loving white Oriental Shorthair, Sir Hubble Pinkerton, for seventeen years.

Believe it or not, there was a time when cats were considered seniors when they reached the age of seven or eight years old. As a result of the major breakthroughs in veterinary care - along with the many advances in feline nutrition - cats are now considered elderly at twelve, seniors at age fourteen and geriatric at the age of fifteen. Today, some cats can even live up into the upper teens and into their twenties.

When we invite cats to live with us in our homes, its our responsibility to align their basic needs as closely as possible to Mother Natures provisions. The natural substrate that cats use outdoors for elimination is dirt or sand.

I am fostering an adolescent stray mother cat and her three kittens (I picked them up when the kittens were about one-week-old) and I fed her a high-quality wet cat food the first few days.

In a striking visual of the tenacious bond between pets and their human parents, Houston residents remained yards from the safety of the George R. Brown Convention Center during last summers Hurricane Harvey because they were not permitted inside with their cats and other companion animals.

To better understand mats in cats, lets briefly recap shedding. Seasonal shedding - with the two biggest shedding times of the year occurring in the spring and fall - correlates with the amount of sunlight during the day. However, indoor cats shed year round due to the constant artificial light in our homes; so instead of two heavy bouts of shedding, indoor cats experience continual light shedding. And it is the sloughing of dead hair that contributes to the baneful matting in a cats fur.

We certainly dont need experts to tell us that cats enjoy having their heads scratched and rubbed by their owners. But experts feel that its probably because this handling reminds them of their mothers. Feline behavior experts believe that when owners take over this role, it inadvertently reinforces the idea that we are their mothers -and it can also serve as a reminder to the cats that they should groom themselves.

Most people have some familiarity with the concept of a blood transfusion, perhaps by donating blood to the local Red Cross, or possibly as a recipient during a hospital stay. Thankfully, most cat owners have very little experience with transfusions when it comes to their pets.