Using diatomaceous earth to try and minimise fleas on my cat

The video explains it all but I will add a few words. Before I do, I'd like to admit to a deliberate error in the video. If you can discover it and leave a comment to tell me what it is then you will get a reward from Amazon Prime! I'm genuine. You've just got to pick out the error in the commentary and we can take it from there.

In the video I am spreading diatomaceous earth underneath the squirrel feeder because I believe pigeons and squirrels carry fleas and those fleas drop onto the grass underneath the feeder where my cat goes and the fleas then jump from the lawn to my cat. He is acquiring about three fleas per day which I comb out. He has never had fleas before. Well, not quite; he's had two fleas in his entire six-year life until very recently.

Using diatomaceous earth to try and minimise fleas on my cat.

And it is only until recently or relatively recently that I have been regularly feeding squirrels and I have a feeling that this is at least partly the reason why he gets fleas. I also feed foxes and they too, I am sure, have fleas so I have generated a little flea factory near my back garden! I have to do something about it. I happened to have a box of diatomaceous earth in my shed. It has been there for a very long time indeed. I am pleased to use it at last.

Diatomaceous earth is a material that comes from fossils as I understand it. It's is very fine and this version is edible. It's a very dusty fine powder which cuts the exoskeleton of fleas. Fleas don't have a backbone or spine or an internal skeleton but they are held rigid by their external skeleton. This material cats it, breaks it up and the plea dies. It's a natural way of killing fleas as opposed to using chemicals. I believe that internal parasites can be controlled in livestock by this material when it is added to their feed. 

That's the story and you can wish me luck if you read this. I do not expect many people to bother to read this which is fine because I had quite a lot of fun doing it.

Picture of a longhaired Selkirk Rex bicolour

This is a nice picture of the Selkirk Rex longhair. The coat is a bicolour, specifically a ginger-and-white bicolour. The news media refer to this cat as a cat in sheep's clothing. They have the approximate appearance of the better-known British Shorthair but with a curly coat. They are quite rare which surprises me because they are also popular. 

You will find shorthaired and longhaired variants. The curls are more pronounced in the longhaired version. The body is semi-cobby meaning slightly stocky. The head is pleasantly round. When you breed them you are allowed to outcross to British Shorthair cats because that method of selective breeding will not change the body shape of the Selkirk Rex.

Picture of a longhaired Selkirk Rex bicolour. Photo: Reddit.

The breed more or less started in Wyoming shelter in the late 1980s when a Montana Persian breeder was given a cat with curly hair from which she founded the breed. At that time, of course, the breed had not been named. I'm told that as the kittens get older the ends of the curly whiskers become brittle and break off leaving very short curly whiskers. And about four months of age the kittens might lose most of their hair. It grows back curly and it remains that way for the remainder of their lives. The coat is soft and plush with quite coarse guard hairs.

They are a sweet and loyal cat, a healthy breed making gentle, pleasant companions. You'll see them in all categories, all divisions and in all colours. You can read more about this cat by clicking on the link below if you wish.

Selkirk Rex Cat

Do you believe scientists who say that smelly clothes don't reassure domestic cats?

This is a cross post - click this for the earlier post. Three scientists conducted an experiment as to whether the scented i.e. unwashed clothes, of domestic cat human caregiver's provided what they describe as a "secure base effect" (SBE) for their cats. To cut out the technical language, they wanted to see whether cats obtained reassurance from the unwashed clothes of their owners when their owners were absent; away from the home or perhaps asleep at night. Are smelly clothes a substitute for the presence of cat owners in terms of reassuring the domestic cat companions?

Do you believe scientists who say that smelly clothes don't reassure domestic cats? Image in public domain.

I would expect that nearly all cat owners would say that they are at least a second-best substitute. Many cat owners place an unwashed item of clothing in a cat carrier to help to reassure their cat when they take them to a veterinarian for instance. Or they leave an item of clothing with their cat when they are boarded at a cattery when they are away on holiday.

And of course you see thousands of pictures on the Internet of cat sleeping on beds which contain copious amounts of body odour from their owner or domestic cats sleeping on their owner's favourite chair. Domestic cat sleep on the laps of owners because it is warmer and because it smells of their owner. The scientist will say that these are all anecdotal forms of evidence.

They wanted to address the issue through science and provide a scientific, objective answer as to whether smelly clothes reassure domestic cats. And they say that they DO NOT! This runs counter to conventional wisdom on cat caregiving.

ASSOCIATED PAGE: 14 links between stress in domestic cats and health implications

They conducted the experiment in what was a strange place for the cats. The cats would have been brought there in carriers. The room would have been quite stark I expect and there would have been other interfering aspects such as strange noises and strange people. I believe that when you place a domestic cat into an entirely new place which might be perceived as being hostile to them, you cannot expect them to behave normally. And if you can't expect them to behave normally you can't measure natural behaviours.

The researchers found that when cats were left in a room without their owner being present but with the benefit of smelly clothing from their owner they did not use those clothes to seek reassurance. When their owner was in the room with them their stress levels went down but the clothes did not reduce stress levels as judged through their behaviour when their owners left the room.

ASSOCIATED: Study says that cats are prone to separation anxiety in homes with two female residents

They concluded, firmly, that this was scientific evidence that cats don't obtain a "secure base effect" from scented objects belonging to their owner. I would argue, as mentioned, that the study is tainted by the abnormal behaviour of the cats brought about because they were out of their home range and placed in a strange place with can induce a mild sense of panic and anxiety which masks normal behaviours.

The use of scented clothes to help reduce a well-known condition called "separation anxiety" in felines appears to have been debunked by this study. You make up your own mind. I have made up mine as you can see. There is too much first hand experience to show that scented clothes are very important to domestic cat because the smell of objects is a vital part of their lives. The use their sense of smell as much as they use their eyesight. Humans rely far more heavily on their eyesight.

Note: The scientists are: Alexandra C.Behnkea, Kristyn R.Vital and Monique A.R.Udella who, I believe, conducted the study at Animal Health & Behavior, Distance Education, Unity College, 49 Farm View Drive, Suite 201, New Gloucester, ME 04260, USA.

Ethical rule in using pharmacotherapy for cat behavioural problems

Pharmacotherapy for cat behavioural problems means treating certain behavioural problems in cats with drugs. Medical problems can cause behaviour changes, for example, due to endocrine imbalances or neurological disorders. These are quite specific but sometimes cats might benefit from antianxiety medication. 

I think that this sort of medication such as amitriptyline (off-label for pets) or Valium (off-label for pets) is more problematic when given to cats (only give these drugs under vet supervision). A cautious approach should be taken because these drugs cannot provide a magical cure and they should only be used in conjunction with a program to modify behaviour plus, perhaps, a repositioning of the cat caregiver's expectations as to what is 'normal cat behaviour'.

Ethical rule in using pharmacotherapy for cat behavioural problems. Picture: Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

The ethical difference between using pharmacotherapy for cats versus for humans is that cats cannot give their informed consent. That is obvious and perhaps it's stupid to say it but what it means is that their caregiver should only agree to drug treatment if it is entirely for the benefit and welfare of their cat and not because the owner wants behavioural modifications to suit themselves.

I'm sure that there are lots of instances when owners have false expectations. They want their cat to behave in a certain way but they don't. Perhaps they try and force the cat to do certain things which makes matters worse. This is expectation management based on education. You will find that most cat behaviourists tackle so-called feline behaviour problems by first addressing the expectations and knowledge of the cat's owner. That in itself can straighten out lots of "bad cat behaviour".

Clearly, there are some genuine cases of cat mental health problems which can benefit from drugs but they should be assessed very carefully and a drug therapy treatment regime should always be prescribed under the direct supervision of a qualified veterinary behaviourist.

The world is a cat playing with Australia (tweet)

You might have seen it: an image in a tweet in which the artist has drawn the outline of a cat covering all the countries of the world (almost) while Australia is a ball that the cat is playing with. It's quite clever. An interesting aspect is that the cat's backside it in the exact same spot where the United States is! I disagree completely with the implication because I really like the United States. A different culture to the UK but by and large a good one and I love the space and the size of the country. And they love cats except for a few miscreants who like to shoot them.

 The world is a cat playing with Australia (tweet)

But this drawing can't be true because there is nothing in the news or anywhere else which indicates that the world is playing with Australia. Australia fits in quite nicely with the world. You could argue that China is playing with Australia as reflected in the dispute between these countries over China's treatment of the Uighur Muslims. There is friction between them. That's about the only idea that comes to mind in terms of one country playing with another.

TWO AUSTRALIAN CAT STORIES:

• Cat exclusion zones in new Australian housing developments
• Australia is killing all their feral cats and now they have a mouse plague

Actually, that's incorrect because I've just thought about Russia playing with Europe over their supply of natural gas. They are jerking Europe around by reducing supply which forces the price up and then saying that the price could come down if Europe agreed to a new gas pipe line which they are constructing and which is controversial. Russia wants to control gas flows to Europe to have some leverage on political decision-making in Europe and particularly in Germany. But that is a boring political topic and nothing to do with cats whatsoever.

If you are trying to figure out what sort of cat that this person is drawn you would have to say that it is a random-bred cat with a cobby body meaning quite stocky. The British Shorthair comes to mind actually but this is a purebred cat. I am trying to weave into this article something to do with cats!

There is one last observation that I have. The tail is far too short for any cat other than one of those semi-tailless cats that you see in Asia padding around the streets. They do have a lot of Siamese-type cats and other types of cat with short and/or kinked tails. This supports the story that the first Siamese cats to be imported into England had kinked tails. They were sick cats with worms apparently.

The cat fancy in the West selectively bred out of the Siamese cat the kinked tail but if you feel a Siamese cat's tail you might be able to detect the vestiges of that famous kink.