What I Need To Know About Cat Arthritis? - Bruce Fogle

All my life I've enjoyed climbing, but now whenever I jump down from the kitchen counter it hurts. Will an aspirin make it better?

Aspirin is an excellent anti-inflammatory but it can be exceptionally dangerous, even lethal to cats. The cause of the pain is the first and most important question to answer.

Cats have such superb bodies that they rarely suffer from the forms of arthritis that afflict humans and dogs. The shoulders are attached to the body only by muscles allowing for lithe dexterity.

Sometimes the ball and socket shoulder or elbow joints become inflamed through damage and need tome to heal. The ball and socket hip joints can become damaged in a similar way.

People first should make sure that a cat is well nourished. A diet of only meat results in a lack of calcium in the bones and an increased risk of damage from something as simple as a jump off the counter. Similarly, a diet of oily fish can result in generalized pain.

If there is a swelling on any bone, a veterinarian should examine it to discover whether there is bone infection from a cat bite of possibly even bone cancer, something that does develop in older cats.

Treatment will vary according to the cause of the problem, but a restriction of exercise is almost always one of the most important aspects of nursing. Aspirin is a marvelous and safe anti-inflammatory in people and dogs.

Both of those species have livers that break down aspirin within eight hours, so they can take the drug several times each day. It takes a cat ten times as long to expel aspirin from his body, which is why aspirin should never be given more frequently than every eighty hours, and at a maximum dose of 100 mg per time.

More than this can cause serious hemorrhaging. So, aspirin definitely not a good medication for your cat.

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I Believe in Sharing. Why do People Get So Upset When I Jump on the Bed in the Morning and Give them a Fresh Corpse?

by Bruce Fogle

Dawn is one of the best times for successful hunting. Dew worms are still lying on the ground. Frogs are concentrating on dog flies. Flies are concentrating on dog droppings. Birds are concentrating on dew worms. Rodents are returning to their nests.

There is a cornucopia of food, a three star restaurant fresh for plundering. The only complication is that house cats usually have full stomachs. They have no physical need to hunt but they simply can't help it. They follow their instincts. The question then is what to do with this prize.

Many cat remain in arrested emotional development when it comes to capturing, killing and eating prey. They remain kitten-like in that they capture, release and capture their prey again and again. They torment and tease rather than carry out the natural and instantaneous death bite that feral cats would inflict on prey almost immediately after catching it.

Domestic cats with full stomachs catch animals because of the thrill of the hunt, much in the same way that fishermen catch and release fish.

In a curious way, adult household cats in particular have split personality. Part of their development arrested because people feed them and house them, so they retain some kitten-like behaviors. This is part of the reason why they torture prey rather then inflicting instantaneous death bite.

Because domestic cats develop social bonds with people, they often want to share their prizes with them. Dawn is the most successful hunting time, it is also the time of day when people are most likely to be in bed.

A wounded frog or bisected earthworm on the pillow at dawn simply a manifestation of feline generosity; it is only because people do not show generosity in a similar way that they find it unpleasant. It is just feline way of saying 'I love you'. 

I Normally Says 'Hello' by Raising My Tail and Sticking My Behind in Someone's Face. Why Do People Find This Unpleasant?

by Bruce Fogle

Odour plays a major role in communication between cats. But just as important as the odour is the willingness of the cat to allow another to capture his scent.

This is one of the reason why, when cats meet for the first time, they circle each other.
 What they are trying to do is to capture the scent produced from two different glands around the other's behind.

Cats that have just met haven't had time to work out seniority, so they keep their tail down, protecting their perianal glands and anal sacs from inspection, and move in a circular pattern as each tries to sniff the other.

The dominant cat eventually gets the first sniff. When cats meet other cats or people they know, there is no need to hide their scent, so they carry their tails high and present their posterior for inspection.  In this way, they are simply acknowledging that the other cat or person is dominant or 'top cat'.

In cat hierarchy, people replace parent or to be more specific people replace mother cats routinely lick clean their kittens' bottoms, so it is natural to the cat to present her backside to her people parents.

However, because bums in faces have a different connotation in human behavior, people find this form of greeting unpleasant.  

I Like To Think I Have A Good Range of Voices. I can hiss, spit, purr, growl and chrip, but why is it that sometimes when I meow people don't seem to hear me?

by Bruce Fogle

Considering their size, cats have a magnificent range of noises, certainly wider ranging than those of their confreres, dogs. The hiss is almost snake-like : when a tabby cat is curled up and hisses, she might even mistaken by a predator for snake. The spit accomplishes two function : the noise itself can be frightening; at the same time, the animal that has been spat on smells hot cat breath, on its own enough to frighten many predators away.

Purring is a tension-reducing sound. Cats purr when they relaxed or when they want to relax. Rumbling growls are audible sounds of anger, chirps are sound delight.

Meows, on the other hand, have specific meanings according to their duration, pitch and inflection. Cats understand different meows instantly, but people need training before they can interpret whether the meow signifies impatience, worry, consternation, gentle request of demand. People have an added problem, however. Cats have hearing range, and meow range, that is beyond the hearing range of humans.

When a cat utters a 'silent meow' people don't respond because they just don't; hear it. If they see the cat meow, they are enchanted and think the silent meow has been performed especially for them, they don't; understand that the meow is silent only because their hearing is so limited. It is a perfectly good meow to any other cats.