Archive for January, 2009

Discover The Answers To Your Questions About Cat Urinary Infection Treatment

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

cat urinary tract infections

Do you have unanswered questions about the cat urinary infection treatment your vet provides?Many cat owners don’t understand the treatment for cat urinary tract infecitons, and they still have questions that haven’t been answered.  The aim of this article is to dispel the confusion and give you some answers.

Are Feline Bladder Infections Contagious?

The short answer is no.  You don’t need to worry, because cat urinary tract infections can’t be passed from your kitty to you or to another cat.

What’s The Difference Between Feline Bladder Infections And Cat Urinary Tract Infections?

People get really confused about this, and for good reason, since the terms are used interchangeably.  However, to answer the question, a cat bladder infection really only affects his bladder.  A feline urinary tract infection (also called a UTI) can affect any part of your cat’s urinary tract.  This includes his kidneys, his ureters (the tubes that carry urine from his kidney to his bladder), his bladder, and his urethra (the tube that carries urine out of his body).  

Usually, when someone is talking about a UTI, they really mean a feline bladder infection.

What’s The Difference Between A Urinalysis And A Urine Culture?

Your vet may want to perform both of these tests.  Many cat owners don’t understand exactly what they are, and what they’re for.

Usually a urinalysis is done first.  Your vet looks at the sample to see if the urine is cloudy or bloody.  Cloudy urine is due to the presence of white blood cells, which indicate an infection.Blood in the urine shows that there’s a problem.  Your vet may see that crystals are present, which indicate cat bladder stones.  The urine is also checked for protein.  

Based on the results from the urinalysis, your vet may want to do a urine culture.

A urine culture involves separating out the bacteria found in the urine sample from your cat.  These bacteria are then grown in the lab.  This test gives your vet some important information, namely, how many bacteria are present, what kind of bacteria it is, and which antibiotic will kill it.  

It takes at least a couple of days to do this test, as the bacteria need time to grow.

Why Do I Need To Give My Cat All Of The Antibiotic?

The good thing about antibiotics is that the cat urinary problems go away quickly.  However, this doesn’t mean the infection is gone.  Many cat owners make the mistake of not giving their cats the antibiotics for the entire ten or fourteen days.Don’t stop the antibiotics before they’re gone, as the infection will probably come back.  

A more serious problem is that of antibiotic resistance.  More and more disease-causing bacteria are becoming resistant to common antibiotics.  One of the reasons is that people are not finishing up all the antibiotics, which encourages the bacteria which aren’t killed right away to keep growing.So you can understand that no matter how hard your cat makes it for you, it’s essential to finish the antibiotic treatment.

Natural Remedies For Pets Can Help

You may be interested in learning more about herbal pet remedies.  These remedies are safe and effective, and can be given every day to prevent cat urinary problems.  Be sure you purchase them only from a company with a good reputation that’s known for providing excellent products for pets.

Now that you’re armed with this information, you can understand cat urinary infection treatment better.

Is Your Cat At Risk For Feline Bladder Infections?

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

Let’s face it.  Until your cat is one of the lucky ones who comes down with a cat bladder infection, you probably don’t even think about feline bladder infections.  But they can be prevented, with a little care on your part.  Here’s how.

Does Your Cat Drink Enough Water?

It comes as a shock to many cat owners to find out that their cats are chronically dehydrated.  Cats don’t always drink a lot of water.  This is because your cat’s ancestors lived in the desert, where there’s not much water around.Ideally, cats get most of the water they require from what they eat. 

Did you know that a mouse is more than 90% water?  A cat in the wild who is living on the animals he catches and eats gets most of his water from what he eats.  This isn’t true of our domestic house cats.  Dry commercial cat food contains about eight percent water.  So if your cat’s diet consists exclusively of dry food, he could be heading for trouble in the form of cat urinary problems.

Your cat’s urine will become too concentrated if he’s dehydrated.  This puts him at a much higher risk of developing cat bladder stones and cat bladder infections.

The best thing you can do is to feed your cat a good quality canned food.  Most canned cat food has a moisture content around 75 percent.  The problem is that many cats are addicted to dry food, so it can be very difficult to get them to eat canned food.  But with patience and persistence, it can be done.

Clean fresh water should always be available for your kitty to drink.To be safe, give him filtered drinking water that’s free from contaminants.  Change your cat’s water several times a day so it’s appealing to him.  You wouldn’t drink bad-tasting water with stuff floating in it, and your cat won’t either.

Natural Remedies For Pets Can Prevent Cat Bladder Infection

Humans have been using herbs to treat and prevent bladder infections for centuries.Many people all over the world still depend on these remedies to treat common ailments. 

Homeopathic remedies have also been proven to be safe and effective in treating bladder infections in people, with no side effects.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were herbal and homeopathic remedies for cats that would prevent cat urinary problems?Such a product should be formulated specifically for cats and dogs, not people.  It would have to be safe enough to give your cat every day, along with being effective for preventing feline bladder infections.  Most importantly, it needs to be in a form that’s easy to administer.Giving a cat a pill is not at the top of the list of things people want to do.

You’ll want to purchase this remedy only from a reputable manufacturer who has years of experience in formulating natural remedies for pets.You’ll want to be assured that the manufacturer is known for producing remedies that are safe and effective.

Do your kitty a favor.  Prevent the pain and stress of feline bladder infections by using a safe and effective natural remedy for cats.

Tips To Start Your Cat Toilet Training

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

start potty training

You may have heard stories about cats that use a toilet to relieve themselves. Many people want to know how to potty train their cats to go on the toilet simply because they are sick and tired of handling and changing the litter box, and lugging home large sacks of expensive litter. The process of cat toilet training can take anywhere from 3 or 4 weeks to 3 or 4 months, depending on the receptiveness of your cat. With patience, you too can banish the cat box forever.

To start potty training your kitty, go slowly. The transition from litter box to toilet should be accomplished in a series of stages. If at any time he has a setback and uses a rug instead of the potty, then you may be going too quickly. Just back up a stage or two and try again.

To start cat toilet training, move your cat’s current litter box from wherever it is to one side of the toilet. Make sure he knows where it is and that he has used it in the new location for a few days or a week. Next, stack newspapers, a phone book or anything that will add height under the litter box to raise it a few inches at a time. Continue this process until the bottom of the litter box is level with the top of the toilet seat.

Now, move the litter box over so that it is sitting directly over the toilet seat. Let your cat adjust to this for a few days. The next step in potty learning is a big one. Take away the box entirely.

Toilet training for cats is big business and many companies sell “kitty potty training” kits or a toilet training system online and at pet retailers, or you can purchase a metal mixing bowl or aluminum roasting pan for this next step. Place either container (measure the inside of the rim to make sure your bowl or pan is big enough) inside the toilet bowl and lower the seat. Fill it with a few inches of scoop-able litter. You may need to tape it in place to prevent it from sliding around.

Begin reducing the litter in the container every few days. Go as fast as your cat will feel comfortable with. Make sure to flush the waste immediately to minimize both the smell and the possibility that your cat tries to cover it up and ends up tracking unpleasantness into the rest of the house.

By now, you should be down to a teaspoonful of litter in the bottom of the container. Start adding a little bit of water to the container. Increase the water level every few days. Remember that if your kitty isn’t adjusting well, back up a step and try again more slowly.

Once the water in the bowl or pan is a couple of inches deep and your cat is comfortable with everything, take the container away, leaving the bare toilet. The task of potty training is now complete.

Cat toilet training can take a short time or long time, depending on the kitty. Don’t forget that if your cat becomes reluctant at any stage of the training, go back a step or two. Just slow down, follow these potty training tips and your patience will be rewarded. Felines adapt to toilet training quite well.

Obsessive-Complusive Grooming

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

Animal separation anxiety disorder turns out to be a huge and tough to deal with hassle for dogs and their owners, as can obsessive-compulsive grooming or spraying is cats who are under this stress and their people. What do the two disorders have in common, you want to know? You’ll see soon just particularly what it is that joins the disorders and what specifically they look to as potential cures and methods to ameliorate the situation. You certainly don’t want to enable a ongoing pattern of destructive actions to proceed and create issues both for your animal and you.

Animal Separation Anxiety

Separation anxiety for dogs is quite a traumatic issue. Dogs are rather social animals and rely greatly on the comfort of a pack in their social relationships. As pet owners, people end up being the top dogs in your pack and will thus be in charge. But in today’s busy existence, those pack leaders go off and leave the dogs alone by themselves for most of the day. Animals separation anxiety reveals itself by means of some quite apparent and increasingly traumatic symptoms. Starting off with barking, excessive drooling, and hyperventilation, it often does quickly progress into deeper stages of inappropriate pooping with peeing, destroying furniture, and tries to escape so as to re-join the pack themselves. This will obviously be unsuccessful and generate significantly more strain on the poor animal.

Obsessive Compulsive Grooming Disorder

Anxiety issues for felines are quite completely different. Cats are generally independent of their owners, though social relationship concerns can still arise. Cats can be very territorial and aggressive, so cats may have concerns both during moving out of a familiar home to a new, unfamiliar place, or nervousness because of aggressive cats either in the neighborhood or the house. Feline anxiety can also show up as obsessive compulsive grooming actions, where the cat over cleans themselves and actually turns out to lose patches of their own coat!

Clomipramine

Clomipramine for dogs is a partial cure to exactly these types of issues. The same way with people and their anxiety disorders, pets may get treated with medicines for the same array of problems. Reduced to a basic level, it has become pet prozac. Medications in the vein of Clomipramine work to help take the edge off of your pet’s stress, allowing you time and breathing space to find a resolution for the actual underlying issues. Effects of Clomipramine might include drowsiness, dizziness, dehydration, weakness, constipation and loss of appetite, therefore you need to be careful that your pet gets lots of water and you observe them closely for a while. They certainly can’t tell you in plain English if they’re not feeling well. Clomipramine dogs are happy and healthy friends!