 by Phelicity Marie Dauphine
I had all my vaccines when I was young, and kept them up every year. It was harmful to me, because all those different vaccines injected into my bloodstream made my own good immune system confused and made me feel furry sick fur days. We stopped getting them all together in one shot, even if it meant extra trips to the vet. Now there is new thinking among many humans, including vets, about whether cats continue to need boosters every year as we get older. Human children do not. Also there is real concern about the high incidence of feline sarcomas at vaccination sites, especially from rabies and FeLV vaccines. I get rabies as required by law but all shots much less frequently now that I'm 9. My sisfur, at 15, who always had bad reactions to vaccines, and my auntie at 18, who is battling kidney disease, do not get them at all any more. Our vets agree that this is wise. So I am NOT in favor of routine yearly vaccinations after a cat is 4 or 5, and by then has good immunity, unless she is exposed to other cats all the time outside, and NOT in favor of repeating any of them except rabies when we get old or ill.
Proper nutrition is the most impurrtant overall thing in our lives, if we want to have long, healthy ones. Our needs differ from d*gs in that we cats are true carnivores who cannot live without meat, and plenty of the taurine in it. High quality food with high quality protein and other ingredients are essential for us cats. There are many catfoods available, but that doesn't mean they are all good. It just means there are many companies using cheap, nasty ingredients to make catfood because it's profitable. In my furmily we don't eat any cat food from the grocery store. I never did. My meowmie reads labels,and if the food has "meat byproducts" or unidentified animal fat, we don't get it. Mew don't even want to know what those things are. We don't get food with a lot of corn in it, because of allergies and tummyaches that can cause. We eat Sensible Choice or Nutro here, including our two cats on kidney diets. The SC is just as low in things it needs to be as the biggest prescription diet is, but has higher quality ingredients and tastes better. Our dry food is Sensible Choice too. The Senior is better than the presciption stuff, for what's in it and what isn't. I think the most impurrtant thing our meowmies can do when they buy our food is take a magnifying glass along and read the labels. If cellulose (wood), by-products (slaughterhouse floor), beef tallow (hard like candle wax) and stuff that sounds like what they make brooms from are in the food, we don't want it. The furry most important word on dry food bags is "Ethoxyquin"! That's a poison, plain and simple. It's a pesticide or rubber hardener, and it will make cats sick eventually. It's banned for human use as a poison; it should be banned for cats, too. My auntie and sisfur cats ate junky food when they were young and nobody knew better, but I'm a purrty good example of healthy food myself, cause I'm 9 years old and nefur been sick!
It's so important to spay and neuter, because most of all there would not be so many unwanted kittens and cats with no homes, and such full shelters. We kitties don't want to be responsible for that, and we wish our humans didn't either. Spaying and neutering is proven to be beneficial to our good health, too. A female cat who is not bred when she goes into heat can develop a serious illness, and I don't think any female cat wants 30 or 40 babies before she gets spayed. An unaltered male cat will be out wandering all the time, getting hurt in fights and maybe disappearing. Not to mention spraying in your house! So it isn't any kindness to him not to neuter him, either. I think there will always be plenty of cats, as there should be. What is sad is when there are too many. Cats don't deserve to have terrible, short lives because there were too many. I think humans should be aware of the importance of spay/neuter, with all the information out there. Cat magazines and websites do a good job of telling them. If they get a kitten from a shelter, a vet's office or a reputable purebred breeder, it's required. So when is it more up to them? When they get a kitten from someone who advertised, when that person didn't prevent more kittens, "pet shops", where the sellers only care about making money from poor little animals, or when they rescue a homeless kitten or cat. Then nobody reminds them. So we need to keep reminding humans every time we can. Maybe one problem is that spay/neuter is something they have to pay for, and they are not willing to pay money to take good care of their cats. It would be helpful if more vets and cat organizations could coordinate and offer free or low cost neuter/spay opportunities for humans who aren't willing or are too poor to pay.
I think some outward signs of a healthy kitty are a healthy and shiny coat, clear, bright eyes, and no scratching of fleas or skin problems or ears. Our ears should be clean inside too, and if we scratch them a lot, our human should look to see why, much as I hate that! Most of us like to take care of our grooming ourselfs, but it's impurrtant fur our humans to help us out by regular brushing. This will distribute our natural skin oils through our fur and get all the loose fur out, so we don't swallow it when we groom and get a (Yech) furball! It's purrticularly impurrtant fur longhaired cats who might get mats, too. I'm a longhaired kitty, but I am a Birman, and we Birmans nefur get mats. I'm not kidding, our breed really doesn't! But Meowmie loves to brush and comb me a lot anyway, so my fur is always in purrfect order. That's because, when Meowmie's done, I go off and rearrange it the way I want it. Brushing my ruff out is real impurrtant, cause my neck and tongue aren't long emough to reach to the end of it, and that really aggravates me. If we don't pay attention to our grooming, it can mean we are sick. I see that in my house. But over-grooming is bad too, cause that could mean we are upset or nervous or haf a skin allergy. So our Meowmies need to pay attention if we are doing either of those things, and find out why. I think we kitties are always grooming ourselfs because we love to be clean and purrfect all the time. And so we are.
My meowmie has been reading catfood labels since before I was born, that's why we have only premium food in our house. But even some of the "premium" has ingredients Meowmie won't give us. What she looks for in canned food is for the main ingredient to be a named meat or fish, not just "meat" (the 4 D's leftover in slaughter houses: Dirty, Diseased, Disabled and Dead) and not "byproducts", and especially not "meat byproducts" - a double horror. She looks for a named kind of fat, not just "animal fat" (cause Bast only knows what that might be!) and not "beef tallow" that's hard like candle wax and indigestible. She looks for rice as a grain, and no corn or corn gluten meal, because corn causes so many stomach upsets and allergies. She looks for all the added vitamins, minerals and taurine we need to be on the label, cause the processing cooks them out of the food if it had any value in the first place. She looks for things like cellulose (sawdust) and gums (glues) NOT to be there, and no fillers like beet pulp, which is the leftovers from the sugar making industry, and not food for cats. The "ash" percent must be low, to avoid urinary tract disease, and phosphorus must be low, to avoid kidney disease. If mew think that doesn't leave much good stuff fur her to buy us, mew are right! But good stuff is out there if mew look fur it. Most of the same things apply to dry food, with one huge addition: ETHOXYQUIN ! No bag that has that word on it ever comes in this house! Ethoxyquin is a chemical poison used as a preservative, that is banned for use in human food. It shouldn't be in cat food either! "Complete and balanced diet" on the label means nothing to our meowmie. The law lets any company call a food that, if they dump the right mixture of vitamins in it, even artificial and unusable ones. So that's why she reads those labels so carefully!
We are all older cats in my house, so it's been a long time since our mom needed to cat-proof the house against dangers at Christmas time. But we know younger cats are much more likely to get into stuff. One serious danger to kitties I know about purrsonally: the old-fashioned "icicles" or tinsel look real purrty on a tree, but purrlease do not use it! A kitty can swallow tinsel and cause a serious GI tract obstruction that is life-threatening. When I was a kitten, my mom found a piece of tinsel in the wrong end of me, and there has nefur been tinsel on our tree since. Some things we know are toxic to kitties, such as mistletoe, holly with berries, and poinsettia plants. If mew are a kitty who chews on or tastes plants, it sure is safer not to have those in the house! Also, if mew haf a real Christmas tree in water, be sure to cover the water in the stand with screen or wire, real tight, so no kitties can drink any and get sick. And be sure to keep the electric cords to the tree lights bunched up and out of kitties' reach, so they don't chew on them and get a shock! Candles are real purrty and nice to haf at Christmas, but be sure to keep those out of reach of all kitties, too. We don't want to haf any burnt noses or tails catching on fire!
Dear Santa Claws, Christmas will soon be here, and I am so excited! I haf been a furry good girl this year, just as I always am, furry kind and considerate to my sisfur and old auntie cats, and extra sweet and good to my Meowmie. When mew get here, mew will know it's our house by the Christmas tree, cause it's all decorated wif kitties and kitty angels! Mew can't miss it! I haf a purrfect home and a wonderfur life, so I don't ask fur much fur me. Purrlease would mew bring me a new little honeysuckle cushion? Wrapped in tissue paper, so I can unwrap it myself and chew on the tissue? Mew know I do that efurry year. We girls in my house would love some new scratch pads, too, we kinda wore them out. And we love little toys stuffed wif catnip! And mew know those little furry mousies mew left us last year? Well, my sisfur Mewsette lost them all, and we sure could use some new ones. Now about treats, we aren't allowed many, mew know. But I'd love a little can of Nutro veal pate all my own (shhh!), and BamBam would like something that smells really good so she'll eat it, and Mewsette just wants a sardine, as usual. Purrlease don't furget her sardine! Most of all, Santa, if mew find any cold, hungry and homeless kitties out there on Christmas Eve, would mew take them home wif mew and feed them and let them sleep by the fire? Maybe mew could find some lonely humans who need kitties, and would give them homes? Thank mew fur all the wonderfur presents mew always bring us! We will leave a saucer of eggnog fur mew under the tree. And mew haf a Meowwy Christmas too, Santa! Purries, from Phelicity
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