You Might Not Know That Your Cat Has Arthritis

Cat owners should be open to the possibility that their cat has arthritis. This is particularly so if their cat is elderly and/or overweight. We know that in people arthritis causes a lot of discomfort and it severely affects the lives of people. We also know that domestic cat hide their discomfort and their pain. The masking of the discomfort and pain of arthritis makes it difficult to diagnose.

 He has arthritis of the elbow and is on medication.

Veterinarians will admit that diagnosis of feline arthritis is underreported. Not enough vets are diagnosing arthritis. One reason why feline arthritis may be more prevalent than people think it is, is because the cat companion is becoming ever more overweight. We know that the extra burden of weight on joints can lead to arthritis.

The pet market place is very valuable to manufacturers and they are forever trying to sell more products to pet owners including cat and dog food that looks attractive to people. The cat treats are a modern phenomenon and cat owners who want to please their cat will tend to buy a packet of cat treats. Treats are packaged in a way that makes them look like sweets for people. That is the way I view them anyway.

People like to keep their cat happy and feeding them quality human food and cat treats will make a cat happy but it may also make a cat fat and flatness equates to arthritis and sometimes diabetes.

People should be aware of the possibility of arthritis in cats. When it is bad you will notice it in a cat. I remember a very old ginger tabby cat who lived outside for a very long time and he came into my mother's house for some warmth. His gait strongly indicated arthritis. It was as if he was walking sideways almost. If a cat is less mobile and has difficulty jumping up and perhaps is irritable, then he or she may have arthritis particularly if he is elderly or overweight.

If the cat does have arthritis who will be in discomfort and a good cat caretaker will not wish their cat to be in discomfort and they will want to do something about it. Perhaps a cat owner  should raise the possibility of arthritis with her veterinarian if she thinks that her cat has it. The vet can then do proper diagnosis such as x-rays.

A vet will advise on treatments, of course and there are home treatments that you can read about on the Internet. As far as I am aware, there's not much you can do though and I'm sure that part of the treatment is painkillers.

The photo is by Rocky Mountain Feline Rescue on Flickr

Andean Mountain Cat Camera Trap Photographs

This is a video of camera trap photographs of the elusive Andean Mountain cat. This is the most endangered wild cat species in the Americas. Almost the only way to photograph this cat is through camera traps although Jim Sanderson has photographed this cat with a regular camera as far as I am aware. Nearly all the photographs that one sees of this cat species on the Internet are by Jim Sanderson. You see the same photographs over and over again because there are so few photographs of this cat. Jim Sanderson PhD is the world's foremost small wild cat species expert.

This cat is about the same size as a regular sized domestic cat. However, you would not mistake this cat for a domestic cat.  The wild look and the thick tail are notable differences. The Andean mountain cat tail is thicker and more functional. The tail of this cat is used for balance negotiating rocky slopes etc. in the Andes. The coat is pretty much a regular tabby coat so this is a tabby cat but a rather special one as there are only about 2000 of them on the planet. Thank God they occupy remote places because if they didn't there would be none left already.

Lack of Proper Oversight Of Cougar Hunting In America

Big cat rescue make a point that had occurred to me for long time which is that the state governmental agencies who regulate the hunting of the cougar are funded through the license fees that permit people to hunt. This must be an incorrect and ill-thought out process.

If the regulatory agencies are funded by license fees then they will naturally wish to hand out as many licenses as they possibly can which will lead to a tendency to issue too many licenses for the sake of increased income. If too many licences are issued then too many cougars are shot and in addition the regulatory agency is no longer doing its job in protecting wildlife and ensuring that there is a balance between people and cat.

Because too many cougars are shot, the agency then have to sell the idea to the public that there are plenty of cougars about. Do they concoct sightings and are the sightings of escaped pet cougars?

The fees earned through licences should go to the state treasury and the regulatory agencies should receive a fixed budget from the state government. There should be no motivation or bias created through income. Their role is not to be a business but to be a totally unbiased regulator whose underlying goal is to protect wildlife and maintain a balance between wildlife and people. Even that goal is impossible because the population of people is consistently growing and therefore the balance between people and wildlife is consistently changing in the direction of less wildlife and more people. So where is the balance between the two?

I can remember the shell oil spill. Do you remember that? It was a massive ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The way I see it is that the regulatory authorities dishing out licenses to oil companies were getting backhanders to allow unsafe practices which in this instance led to this massive ecological disaster.

I have no evidence to support my allegation but that's the way it seems to me and it is very similar to what is going on with respect to the wildlife and fishery agencies. They simply are not doing their job.

I also reminded of the Florida panther. The population of the Florida panther is fixed and about 100 and they live in a fixed island (meaning enclosed and a fixed size) habitat. Commercial development continues to take place in Florida placing ever more pressure on the habitat of the Florida panther. There are more buildings, more roads and more people in the same space. What is the wildlife agency doing in Florida to protect their precious cougar? Is someone getting backhanders? And I'm cynical but that is the way it seems to me.

Dead Cat Bounce

"Dead cat bounce" is an obnoxious phrase to a cat lover. The phrase has nothing to do with cats really. It has everything to do with finance.

In finance, a dead cat bounce refers to a temporary recovery in the price or value of the declining stock of a company or stock market. The stock of a company refers to its value with respect to shareholder's interests. That, in any case, is my understanding of the meaning of the word “stock".

The phrase was apparently made up by a couple of journalists - Horace Brag and Wong Sulong - working for the Financial Times. The Singaporean and Malaysia stock markets fell rapidly and then bounced back. In a report on this event these journalists concocted the phrase, “dead cat bounce".

To this couple of journalists the phrase was appropriate because to them even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height and the stock market, I presume, had fallen from a great height and then bounced back a little bit.

Of course, they could have picked any number of inanimate objects to use in their concocted phrase but chose the domestic cat above everything else, which, to me, indicates a rather unpleasant attitude towards the domestic cat. Although, no doubt I'm being overly sensitive but I've always disliked this phrase as it appeared to me to have come from insensitive people.

What about these alternatives:

“Squash Ball Bounce"
“Dead Person Bounce"
“Smart Phone Bounce"

None of them sound as good as the original partly because we are used to the original but they are all more decent and respectful of the domestic cat than the original.

Are Your Living Conditions Unsuitable for Cat Welfare?

Are your living conditions suitable for your cat? Are your living conditions good enough for you but not good enough for your cat so that you could end up being prosecuted as a criminal in the United Kingdom under the Animal Welfare Act 2006? You might think that this is some sort of joke or spoof article but it is not because it actually happened to an amateur folksinger who lives in Hull, England.

Apparently, in the UK it is possible for a person to decide that their living conditions are suitable for them, although they might be poor living conditions in terms of clutter and lack of cleanliness, but aren't suitable and substandard for their cat if the RSPCA and the police say so.

The story concerns a lady whose name is Ms Nadian. I won't go into the full details but you can read about her story on this page. She was prosecuted for several things concerning her cats, one of which, incidentally, was failing to take a veterinarian's advice in euthanising one of her cats. As it happens, all the prosecutions were dropped due to a lack of sufficient evidence. In reality, it was the gradual dawning upon the prosecution (The Crown Prosecution Service) that this was a misguided prosecution.

Apparently, the RSPCA called the police requesting that they enter the lady's home to take her cats. We are told that the police failed to obtain a warrant to enter her home. The police forced the front door down claiming to exercise powers under section 17 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, a provision which covers emergencies such as capturing fugitives. It was clearly inappropriate in this instance.

On entering her home both the RSPCA and the police state in witness statements that the living conditions for Ms Nadian were suitable in respect of cat welfare. They refer to strong smells clutter and filth. As I understand it, Ms Nadian would readily admit that she has difficulty in keeping her home tidy and clean for various reasons. She has been described as a vulnerable person but I would also describe her as a cat loving person and somebody who has a decent knowledge about the domestic cat.

I find it a little bit disturbing that the police and the authorities generally can decide that her living accommodation is suitable for a person but unsuitable for a cat. This, on my reading of this situation, is what has happened in this instance.

This whole matter has been badly handled, in my opinion. What this lady required was some help to perhaps tidy up her home and that simple matter would have resolved the whole thing. Ms Nadian's new veterinarian has undertaken to monitor her cats while this lady's bungalow has been cleaned and tidied. Problem solved.

Neither this lady nor her cats should not have been put through this highly stressful situation by an overzealous RSPCA and unthinking police. The whole matter was kick-started by a rather nasty veterinarian who disliked the fact that this lady disagreed with her regarding the euthanasia of one of her cats. The veterinarian reported her to the RSPCA for something which the lady was entitled to do, as it happens.

In any case, it would seem that quite possibly hundreds of thousands of people living in the UK who look after a cat or cats are open to a charge of failing to provide a suitable environment for their domestic cats to live in under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Do you find that rather shocking? I do.