Should I shave my cat to get rid of fleas?

ANSWER: No. I can see the frustration and why there is a desire to shave a cat to get rid of fleas as they lurk in that dense fur and cause mayhem particularly if the cat is allergic to the flea bite. But fleas will go on cats without fur and fur grows back. Are you going to keep your cat naked for the rest of his life?

Also dealing with the flea problem on the cat in isolation will obviously not work. There has to be a global household attack on the bloody things. This needs to be done is a consistent manner and permanently.

Cats that are allowed to go out will always acquire fleas because they are on wild animals and on the ground. You can't rid the back yard or garden of fleas!

There is also the fact that a cat will feel uncomfortable without fur. How I do know? I don't know for sure but it is highly likely that a cat will feel uncomfortable and it may make him anxious. It is removing a part of a cat's anatomy.

The standard answer is to treat the house and perhaps surrounding area (Diatomaceous earth can be used outside or even inside). Apply Frontline to your cat - but follow instructions, please - cats are killed by insecticides and never use flea treatments for dogs on cats. The packaging can look similar. Sprays (on the cat) are hopeless and dangerous) in my opinion. Flea comb your cat, twice daily! This will work.

Associated Pages:

• Cat Flea Treatments
• Flea Products for Cats
• Flea Ecology

Russian Cat Breeds

Kurilian Bobtail. Photo: Helmi Flick.

These are the Russian cat breeds: Kurelian Bobtail, Karelian Bobtail, Russian Blue, Don Sphynx, Peterbald,  Mekong Bobtail, Ukranian Levkoy, Toy Bob and Siberian. Do Russian breeders breed these cats better than Americans or Europeans? They might and in case someone are rare and only bred in Russia. In Europe and the USA we don't get involved with Russian cat breeders that much but there is a pretty lively cat fancy in Russia. The Russians like their cats, you know. How much do we know about Russian cat breeders? I mention the big three in more detail below.

You might want to read about the Russian Blue first. In the first half of the 1800s, was the Russian Blue a moggie in Archangel, a port on the north coast of Russian near to Finland? I expect this cat was until it was decided that a cat breed would be created. Archangel is said to be the place where the Russian Blue comes from.

Was the Russian Blue always blue? Or to be more accurate: blue/gray. The Russian Blue today must be blue and green eyed. But before the Russian Blue was a purebred cat I doubt that it was always blue. The first Russian Blues were exported from Russia to England in the mid 1800s. That is where they started there life as a purebred cat. I think that someone thought that an exclusively blue coloured cat from the cold north of Russian would be a nice match. It worked out well. The Russian Blue is in the top ten most popular cat breeds.

What about the incredibly rare Kurelian Bobtail? Have you heard of this cat breed? This is a cat that has an origin in terms of natural development that is similar to the Manx in that there was a genetic mutation for a short tail on an island. In this case the island is off the coast of Siberia. There was probably inbreeding in a confined environment for the mutation to occur. This cat breed comes from the Kuril Islands, a disputed territory between Russia and Japan. Is this cat half Russian and half Japanese as a consequence? It is said that the famous Japanese Bobtail originates in the Kurelian Bobtail. The Japanese Bobtail goes back a thousand years so we are talking about long history here. The Russians breed this cat to a high standard.

Finally, we have the Siberian cat. Siberia is in the east of Russia. We all know how cold that part of the world is. That is why this cat is triple coated and stocky. What is unusual is that breeders (one breeder?) claims that the Siberian is hypoallergenic. Believe it? Not me. Research says otherwise. This cat breed looks like the Norwegian Forest Cat and the Maine Coon and there may be a connection. All three may originate in Scandinavia. The Siberian is another popular cat.

Of the three, the Russian Blue is the most popular with the buying public.

How do cats get worms?

I'll tell you how cats get tapeworms. It is a cycle as shown in the image below. Tapeworms are the most common internal parasite in adult cats. They live in the cat's intestine and body segments are passed in feces. You might see them around your cat's bottom.

Both types of tapeworm are transmitted by an intermediate host. One intermediate host is the flea. It has the immature tapeworm, Dipylidium caninum in its intestines. They are ingested by the flea when eating tapeworm eggs. The cat bites or swallows the flea and becomes infested that way.

The other type of tapeworm Taenia taeniaformis is ingested when eating rodents, uncooked meat, raw freshwater fish, and sometimes discarded animal parts.

Life cycle of Dipylidium caninim - diagram copyright Michael at PoC

Selected associated pages:

• Cat flea life cycle
• Tapeworms in felines

Photo of flea: by Armed Forces Pest Management Board

Wild Cats of South America

A list of the wildcats of South America in a spreadheet plus range map details and links to more. The wildcats are, in descending order of size: jaguar, puma, ocelot, jaguarundi, Geoffroy's cat, Andean mountain cat, margay, pampas cat and oncilla. Please go to the wild cat species page to see the wildcats of the world.



Selected associated pages:

• Jaguar photograph
• Jaguarundi photograph

Jaguar Photograph

This is a great jaguar photograph. It was taken by an automatic camera that is sensitive to movement: a motion activated camera trap. Correct placement is important obviously. In this instance it seems that it was placed on a well used trail in a forest in Peru. The jaguar lives in a variety of tropical and subtropical habitats.

I have worked on the image quite a lot. It has been sharpened a bit and the color made more saturated. It has also been cropped to a squarish format and text added to give the image a poster feel. I also retouched out two cables that were straddling across the undergrowth behind the jaguar. These adjustments are allowed under the creative commons license, for which I thank Smithsonian Wild.



This a really nice jaguar picture now. I think it works well. I hope you do too. I love the intensity in the eyes and the purposeful walk. Note: I have donated $35 to the Smithsonian Institute for the use of this photo.

The jaguar (Panthera onca) lives in Central and South America. It is the largest in all of the Americas. It is the third largest wildcat on the planet. The jaguar is a very burly cat. It is closely related to and similar in appearance to the leopard but it is heavier than the leopard.

The jaguar has a large head and short powerful limbs. The jaguar spots are rosettes; sometimes with a black spot in the center. These rosettes become solid spots on the limbs and undersides.

The jaguar varies in size over its range. Some are twice the size of others. This is due to prey availability. The average weight of this cat in Central America is 56 kilograms (123 lbs - pounds).  Male jaguars in the Pantanal region of Brazil average 102 kilograms however (224 lbs).

Read more about the beautiful and impressive jaguar.