FOOD & NUTRITION

Can you please settle once and for all whether cats can safely drink milk? Thank you.

When you do an Internet search on how to feed a cat with cancer and come upon a website that says to buy your pet a supplement designed by the person running the site, your instinct to feel suspicious kicks in automatically. Or when you click on a website that says not to feed your cat a diet with grains because cats are not naturally grain eaters, and the site points out that you dont see cats grazing in grassy fields. (For the record, cats tolerate grains just fine.)

My wife likes to pure vegetables- like peas, carrots and sweet potato - and mix it into our cats canned food. Is this okay to do? Are there any vegetables that should never be added to the cat food? We also add some cranberry powder (made for cats), along with some hairball powder. We trying to be to health-minded, but could we be causing potential problems?

Pet Nutrition: General Information vetnutrition.tufts.edu/petfoodology - visit Tufts Cummings Schools Petfoodology site, with information on everything from whether you should give fish oil to your cat to what to feed your kitten if she has a health problem to diets for certain disease conditions. You can look for any nutrition topic using the search bar. …

A study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology sheds new light on optimal nutrition for our pets and disputes the common notion that cats want and need a protein-heavy diet.

I am writing in hopes that you may have a suggestion regarding my three-year-old Persian cat. I adopted her through an agency when she was about two years old, but nothing was ever mentioned to me about her eating issues.

Firstly, you need to consider this to be an affair of the heart AND the head. If coffee and cats sound like your perfect cup of tea, there are quite a few things to consider before pouncing into the cat caf business. When Sergio Castillo, co-owner of Purringtons Cat Lounge in Portland, OR, was asked what inspired him to open a cat caf, he said, One day my wife, Kristen, announced I want to do that! They then sat down and talked about everything it would take to be successful - including leaving their jobs - to run not just a new business but a new idea.

As I settle into the easy chair and sip a cup of tea, Mr. Moo plays with toys, Fernando lounges on the futon and Tiggy Bella is blissfully curled into a cubbyhole mounted on the wall. An afternoon tea break and snuggle time with my cats is my usual routine - but this isnt my living room, nor are these my cats. Mr. Moo, Fernando, Tiggy Bella and a handful of other cats temporarily reside at Purringtons Cat Lounge in Portland, OR while they (briefly!) wait to be adopted into their forever homes.

It is estimated that nearly 60 percent of American cats may be overweight or obese, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. This excess weight can lead to a variety of health conditions that are reversible with weight loss.

Something didnt seem right, recalls Kim Feild of Montgomery, Texas. The kittens she and her children had brought home from an animal shelter were surprisingly small for their stated three months of age. And alarmingly, one of them had taken to sleeping in a quirky way, head thrown back, body straight up. Mrs. Feilds husband, Marc, drove that kitten to the shelter to see a veterinarian, but it died en route. It was heartbreaking because her son, Cody, had picked out the cat and had already named it Cottonball.

Many premium commercial pet food manufacturers now include foods that offer novel proteins and limited ingredient, hypoallergenic and grain-free formulas. Most comply with AAFCO guidelines and are easily available in a variety of price points. Many cat owners prefer to pick one of these instead of buying a therapeutic diet from a veterinarians office - especially when the ingredients on the labels appear to be so similar.

On the surface, food allergies may appear to be straightforward - the body reacting negatively to something ingested. When taking a closer look, however, food allergies are considerably more complex than that, and often require much trial and error to reach a solution.