How sensitive are cats to heat?

-
The answer lies in the type of heat: ambient or directional. Cats like to lie in front of a fire. It feels too hot for us but our cat finds it acceptable. This is because the cat's coat protects the cat from the heat directed at her/him. Clive Dalton on Knol, a Google website subdomain, says that cats are not very sensitive to heat and then refers to the cat lying besides the fire at over 50ºC.  A fair point.

He is correct, but cats do not tolerate high ambient temperatures as well as people. Cats don't sweat that much. They sweat on their paws. Cats lose heat by panting and licking fur to use the latent heat of evaporation of their saliva to cool themselves.

Cats can overheat - heatstroke - which leads to rapid breathing, very red mucous membranes, and vomiting.  The cat's body temperature rises to over 106º F (41º C). If left untreated heat stroke can lead to coma and death.

Therefore, cats are more sensitive to high temperatures than us. That, I think, makes them sensitive to heat.

Comments

Post a Comment

Your comments are always welcome.

Popular posts from this blog

Serval cats as pets

-
Image
Do servals make good pets? They can be very attractive. Look at this photograph below of a young serval in someone's home sitting on the bed looking blissfully happy. What's wrong with that? It looks as though it worked out very well. But we don't know the back story. And I don't want to paint an incorrect or too negative a picture because it can work out quite well (rarely). Pet serval looking happy. Photo: Cats of Instagram But in my opinion having a serval as a pet is likely not to work out that well for various reasons. Firstly, they are a wild cat species. If they are raised from a new-born kitten by humans they might fit in quite well. But if they are adopted as a young animal then they will never be a true domestic cat. They might spray in the home to mark territory which is incredibly upsetting to the owner but very reassuring to the cat! This is a tamed serval at A1 Savannahs many years ago. I made the video. He was a quite small serval. Probably a subadult.
Read more

Cat Ear Mites

-
Image
Brown gunge caused by ear mites in a ferret. Image in public domain. Yes, I know this is a ferret! It does show the build-up of dark brown to black ear wax caused by the presence of the cat ear mites in the outer ear canal. This parasite is not restricted to the domestic cat, which makes this photo valid and a useful illustration (I was unable to find a suitable photo of a cat with the condition). Photo Stacy Lynn Baum under a creative commons license. Can cats give ear mites to humans? Very rarely, yes. Can cats give ear mites to humans? Yes but very, very rarely indeed. Ear mites (minute crab like creatures) are one of the causes of inflammation of the outer ear canal (scientific term for this inflammation is Otitis externa ). The outer ear canal is the tube that runs from outside to the ear drum (the pathway for the reception of sound), which can be seen when looking at the ear. Otitis externa affects humans and often swimmers as it is called "swimmer's ear" in
Read more

Tidy Cats Lightweight Litter: Reports It Is Dangerous

-
Image
There are reports that Tidy Cats Lightweight Litter is dangerous to cats.  It just needs to be flagged up at this stage. There are countless other alternatives so if there is even a small chance that it is dangerous, I believe that people should stop using it until we have conclusive evidence one way or the other. On Facebook, there is a page about this cat litter.   Kelly Sanford , says she tried this litter recently. She says it is extremely dusty and is so light it clings to her cat's fur because of static electricity on the fur attracting the tiny particles of cat litter.  Then of course it can be licked off and ingested. She says that at the moment there has been no response to these allegations about the litter from the manufacturers. Nina Minster states quite categorically that people should not use this cat litter. She says people should stop using it immediately and throw it away. Nina belongs to a group of cat lovers with 450 members and she has learned through her
Read more