Parasites that can infest full-time indoor cats

It may surprise people to know that full-time indoor cats can be infested by a range of parasites. On this page I will briefly list them and how they come to infect full-time indoor cats. I'm not going to go over any other aspect of this discussion in this article but by all means click on the links below to read more about parasites.

CAT PARASITES

CAT WORMS

Fleas are the obvious parasite which can infest indoor cats because they can be brought by their owner into the home. Or visitors to the home can bring one in or if there are other pets in the home which go outside, they may bring a flea inside the home. They will then jump onto the cat. The cat can ingest them when grooming. They can bite the cat causing a flea bite allergy which is most distressing. They transmit tapeworms to domestic cats.

Cat flea the most common cat parasite which can infest a full-time indoor cat. Photo: Shutterstock.

This brings me nicely to the next parasite which is tapeworms. This is a gastrointestinal parasite and the most common internal parasites in adult cats. They live in the small intestines and can be several feet in length. You sometimes see body segments containing the eggs passed in faeces and sometimes attached to the fur on the cat's backside. They are transmitted to cats by an intermediate host. One species of tapeworm is acquired from fleas or lice. Another species of tapeworm is acquired by eating rodents, uncooked meat and raw freshwater fish.

Roundworms are acquired by cats by ingesting the eggs. They can do this inside the home by eating a host animal such as a beetle or rodent which has acquired encysted larvae in its tissues.

Hookworms can be acquired by full-time indoor cat when the cat eats a mouse which is a host to hookworm larvae.

There are some rare worm parasites such as trichinosis which is acquired by ingesting uncooked pork which contains cysts. People acquire this parasite. It would be rare for a cat to acquire this parasite because they would have to eat uncooked pork but it is possible because sometimes people give cats treats such as uncooked meat. They may do so in order to attempt to provide their cat with a raw diet which some people consider to be beneficial.

Stomach worms most likely infect cats living in the south-western United States. Cats acquire them by eating beetles, cockroaches, crickets or lizards. Insects are on the domestic cat's menu.

Protozoan parasites can infect full-time indoor cats. These are single-celled creatures invisible to the naked eye. The first is giardiasis which is acquired by drinking water from streams and other sources that are contaminated with infected cysts. This may affect a full-time indoor cat if the cat it has access to an enclosure outside the home.

Toxoplasmosis is a very well-known protozoan parasite which has been endlessly discussed on the Internet. Although normally cats acquire this disease from consuming infected birds or rodents, they can also get it from eating raw or undercooked pork, beef, mutton or veal and/or unpasteurised dairy products.

Coccodiosis as a gastrointestinal parasite which usually targets young kittens. There are several species. One of the species, Cystoisospora is acquired by kittens from their mother who are the carriers. The mother would have acquired it when they eat a host animal such as a bird. This would be unlikely to happen if the owner keeps all their cats indoors full-time but it is conceivable.

Heartworms are delivered to a cat through a mosquito bite as larvae are in the mouthparts. The larvae burrow beneath the skin.

This list is probably quite comprehensive but I may have inadvertently have missed out one of the parasite species. As you can see a full-time indoor cat can acquire parasites and a veterinarian would recommend that you treat your cat for parasites. 

There are various ways of doing this. The most common parasite is fleas and provided you keep your home clean and tidy my advice is to flea comb your cat daily or twice daily to check for fleas. In this way you can keep fleas down without any harmful insecticides being deposited on your cat. 

My cat hunts mice and he regularly brings them into the home. He also kills birds occasionally but rarely. In the six years of his life he's only had two fleas. I combed them out and killed them immediately. 

It is possible to manage and eradicate fleas without harmful insecticides but you make your own choice on that. If the infestation is bad you will have to treat the entire home and treat your cat with an insecticide. You might like to consider using diatomaceous earth which destroys the exoskeleton of fleas and kills them that way. Click on the link to see what it is all about.

Cat wedding - yes, two cats get married!

The caption to this black-and-white photographic print reads: "Dawn Rodgers officiates at "wedding" of formally attired felines Tigger and Kirby, held by daughters Summer and September". Photograph dated: July 25, 1986. 

It is a non-digital photo. Old-style photo. Some people like to marry their cats. Some people like to marry their cat! I've seen that before :) . But is this an example of humans living their life through their cats?

Domestic cats get married. Photo in public domain.

There is not much to say, is there? It is a bit of fun although I suspect that the participants took it seriously. There is nothing wrong with it if it pleases the people concerned although it is eccentric behaviour. The cats don't know a thing about it. It all goes over their heads in a mysterious blur. I would expect that they were good buddies and the ladies decided that it was a good idea to formalise their relationship. Perhaps they wanted to get married themselves (the humans, I mean!) but sadly had failed and so decided to marry their cats instead. A substitute for the real thing. I am speculating and probably being unkind.

Should feral cats be regarded as wild cats?

Are feral cats wild animals? No, they are not. It is wrong to regard feral cats as wild cats as one journalist has in an article about TNR in New Zealand (which Kiwis nearly always criticise). Feral cats are really domestic cats that have gone feral. It is important to distinguish between feral domestic cats and true wild cats. They are very different animals. Often feral cats are semi-domesticated at which time they are referred to as community cats.

Feral cats of a well-known Mumbai park. Photo: Mid-day.

A young person may become 'feral' if the parenting is neglectful. Essentially the feral cat is a domestic cat but because they've not been socialised and domesticated, they become fearful of people. This gives the impression that they are wild cats. However, there is a distinct difference between the character of feral cats and wild cats. Note: of course, feral cats are born feral too.

THAT SAID, SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT SOME AUSTRALIAN FERAL CATS HAVE EVOLOVED INTO TRUE WILD CATS!

You can domesticate, through socialisation, a feral cat. It may take a short time if you are dealing with a kitten. If you are dealing with an adult cat, it may take several months or even a year. But it can be done. If you try and domesticate a wild cat you never get to the same point that you would with a feral cat. The wild cat retains their wild character because they do not have 10,000 years of domestication behind them.

10,000 of domestication has resulted, in my view, in the domestic cat carrying that domestication in their DNA. It is gene memory. So, when a domestic kitten is born, all it takes is a little bit of socialisation in the first seven weeks of their life for them to become domesticated. You try doing that with a wild kitten, say a bobcat kitten, and you won't get the same result.

The feral cat and the small wildcat are different animals even if they are pets. Sometimes people like to keep exotic pets and this includes servals, caracals, cheetahs et cetera. These true wild cats always retain a different character when semi-domesticated compared to a feral cat that has been domesticated. Essentially, it is wilder. For the wild cats, that harsh, predator personality is not removed by socialisation.

I say "semi-domesticated" because that is how it happens for the wild cat species when they been socialised. But they feral cat can be completely domesticated to behave exactly like a domestic cat.

Common sense ways to protect your cat from sunburn and possible skin cancer

Summary: what you know about protecting yourself from sunburn applies to your cat as well. Use common sense to protect your cat from skin cancer.

Some online articles are saying that they have an expert to tell you how you can protect your cat from sunburn and possible cancer. It's actually all about common sense. You don't really need an expert for this. The world and their dog know that you can get skin cancer if you are consistently sunburned. That's why we have sunscreen and stay in the shade (or most of us do unless you're obsessed with getting a tan). And everything to do with skin cancer applies equally to humans and cats. So, what you know about human sunburn you can apply to cats. That's the end of the discussion theoretically but I'll carry on because there are some slight differences.

Fluff was sunburned and had to have his ear flaps removed due to skin cancer. This cat is a bicolor. The piebald gene causes the coat pattern, mainly white fur with no pigmentation in the hair strands to defend against the sun's UVB light. Photo: Cats Protection.

The difference with cats is that there are only two places, really, where sunburn is a genuine problem and that is the tips of the ears because the hair is very thin over the ear flaps. And white cats are particularly susceptible because there is no pigmentation in the hair strands because of the presence of the dominant white gene. That, by the way, is why some white cats are deaf and have blue eyes or odd-eye color. It's the same gene doing its work. The gene prevents the development of melanin in the iris of the eye causing it to be blue through the refraction of light.

So, you have an ear flap with very little protection in white cats from UVB and UVA. The ultraviolet light in the sun's rays penetrate into the epidermis and dermis of the skin damaging the individual cells of the skin. It damages the DNA of the cells which causes them to produce cancerous cells.

If you want to know a bit more about the science of how cancer develops from sunburn, you can click on this link.

Common sense dictates that the way you protect a cat from this serious health condition is to keep them inside during the hot weather. This may be difficult but I'm told that in America around 7/10 of the cats are indoor cats anyway. That said - and this is not common sense! - most UVB is stopped by the glass in windows and therefore an indoor cat snoozing under the sun behind the glass of window should be okay in terms of getting sunburned ears. But check this point if you wish.

We know that cats like to find little pools of sunlight and the home if they are confined to it. I'm waffling a bit but you simply protect the cat from the sun if you want to protect them from sunburn. Common sense. Sunscreen, as mentioned, is an alternative. You can buy sunscreen for pets online on Amazon but you might wish to consult with your veterinarian before purchasing it.

And if you cannot confine your cat during the hot weather because they insist on going out it'd be wise to provide shady spots in your backyard. Cats will normally find the shady spots but the problem here is that some don't because if they did, they wouldn't get sunburn on their ear flaps, would they?

It is interesting that you can buy an ear wrap for dogs. It's a band which goes over the ears. I am thinking aloud. If a cat could wear something which protected the tips of their ear flaps that would be a winning result. The problem is that cats wouldn't realise the benefits and would simply do their best to get it off. And they'd succeed. They may also have a tendency to wash off sunscreen. I'd watch that.

The bottom line on this topic is that you have to keep your cat indoors if the weather is really harshly hot with bright sunlight throughout the day if you want to guarantee protecting your cat's ears from sunburn. This will certainly apply much more for all-white cats than other coat types.

P.S. At the other end of the spectrum frostbite can also lead to the amputation of ear flaps (and paws). Once again, a cat's ear flaps are particularly vulnerable because there is very little covering of fur.

Prophet Muhammad's love of cats transformed a Muslim cat hater to a cat lover

Qais Hussain's mother had an irrational fear of cats. She suffered from ailurophobia. Her son, Qais Hussain, in complete contrast, is a confirmed ailurophile; a cat lover. He has written a very interesting article for The Guardian. During the coronavirus lockdowns he wanted to adopt a kitten like many other people in the UK. As he lives with his mother it was impossible to introduce a kitten into the household.

Muslims with cat at mosque. Photo in public domain. Not all Muslims are this kind towards cats however.

He believes that her irrational fear of cats may have started when she watched a scary video about a cat in her childhood. She remembers seeing a black cat with green eyes jumping into a man's mouth and suffocating him. He also says that his mother actually hates all animals believing that "Cats are Satan incarnate, who use their cuteness and their adorability to bewitch and do the devil's work."

It seems to me that his mother had also been indoctrinated by many stories of mediaeval Europe when black cats were the familiars of witches and persecuted for hundreds of years. During that black era of humankind's relationship with animals, the black cat was seen as the devil incarnate, which is exactly what his mother believed.

He was desperate to adopt a cat and had the idea of reminding his mother of the stories of the Prophet Muhammad's love of domestic cats. There are many hadiths about how domestic cats and indeed stray cats should be treated by Muslims. Hadiths are believed to be a record of the words, actions of the Prophet Muhammad. They are reports of what Muhammad said and did. And therefore, they carry great weight.

IS DESEXING A CAT HARAM?

Once Qais Hussain's mother had been reminded of hadiths it flicked a switch in her brain it seems to me. She fully accepted cats and embraced their company. Her change in attitude allowed him to adopt a kitten who she adores. They named him Milo and she treats Milo as her fifth child.

IS IT HARAM TO SELL CATS?

Initially she was fearful and unsure around him but gradually got to know him. One day Qais returned from college to see Milo sitting on her lap while she watched TV. She now looks after him and in his words "she runs down the stairs to kiss him in the morning."

It's a good story. I'm not sure why his mother didn't already know the stories of the Prophet Muhammad and his love of cats but that's neither here nor there. She now loves them which is the right attitude!

I just hope that now she can learn to love other animals as well. As a postscript, Qais admits that Muslims treat dogs unfairly. Dogs are treated incredibly unfairly as they are regarded as unclean. Cats are regarded as clean. This is speciesism and I would hope that the senior clerics in the Muslim faith clear up this false anomaly.