Cajun is a very fussy cat when it comes to litter.

When she first came to my house I gave her a litter box with pelleted pine litter – the same stuff Violet and Clover were using. The carpet got peed on and her bedding got peed on and the litter box was untouched.

Figuring the texture was not right for her, I got a bag of World’s Best Cat Litter. The finer texture was better but still not right, and there was still peeing outside the box, so I got a bag of cheap clay litter, which was what she’d been using at the Humane Society, with plans to transition her off it. Litter box compliance got better again, but still wasn’t 100%, so she stayed in her own room till she was spayed, in hopes that spaying would help resolve the peeing problem. 

Spaying helped a lot of behavioural issues, and I thought the peeing was okay, but apparently not, and we had several incidents in quick succession, culminating with Cajun peeing on my husband while he was asleep in bed at 2am. Not a good night.

I was getting pretty desperate at this point. I couldn’t have a cat that was peeing on us at night, cleaning up cat pee was getting expensive and exhausting, but I also couldn’t keep her isolated in a room for the rest of her life or send her back to the Humane Society. 

Dr. Elsey’s to the rescue!

Despite my concerns about clumping clay litter (which I’ll get into in another post) and the cost ($12 for a small bag) I decided to give Dr. Elsey’s Cat Attract litter a try. It guarantees 100% litter box use or your money back, so I was sceptical but I figured I had nothing to lose by giving it a try. It contains a proprietary blend of herbs to attract cats, and a particle size that is supposed to be appealing.

Well, I’m on bag number two, and since switching there has not been a single incident of peeing or pooping outside the box. In fact, the cats absolutely love it, to the point where if the bag is left open they will climb inside and dump litter all over the floor. The box with Dr. Elsey’s Cat Attract in it always gets used first and used the most. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how effective this. If you’re having issues with your cat not using the litter box consistently, give it a try – if it works everyone wins and if it doesn’t, you can always get your money back. It’s a premium litter and a little more expensive, but the additional cost balances out – cleaners for cat pee are also expensive and you’ll also be saving yourself a lot of stress and headaches. It’s helped Cajun go from a problem cat to a kitty that I trust around the house. Each bag also comes with a booklet with helpful information such as fixing behavioural litter box problems and cleaning up cat pee. 

Litter box photo by aloha orangeneko.

Treats are a great way to reward or bribe your cat, but add extra calories and often are made with not so great stuff (wheat flour is the first ingredient in a lot of treats.)

Get more out of your treats and be able to offer treats more often by cutting them into smaller pieces.

Moist treats like Pounce are easy to break into pieces, and one Pounce treat is large enough to be cut into three pieces. Filled treats like Temptations also break up fairly easily and one piece makes two good treating opportunities. Hard, crunchy treats might be a little harder to break up into reasonable sized chunks.

A pea-sized treat is more than enough for a reward or bribe, and by giving smaller treats you’ll be able to give them to your cat more often.

What an easy way to get more love out of a bag of cat treats.

Photo by sillypucci.

This picture was posted on Cute Overload a few days ago, and I’ll admit, I’m confused. What exactly is cute about a cat this obese? He certainly has a handsome face, but from the neck down he’s looking more tragic than cute. This cat should probably be 1/3 as wide as he currently is.

Thankfully his family is putting him on a diet, but it begs the question – why, as a culture of cat lovers, do we still have positive associations with the image of the overweight cat, when the negative health consequences of being over weight are so well known?

Many cat owners recognize the risks of an overweight kitty, but others still hold it up as an ideal.

Where does this attitude come from?

The strange perception of fat cats being cute probably comes from a variety of sources.

• Is it the happy fat cat image that is portrayed in the media (Garfield et al)?
  
• Is it lack of education by veterinarians and organizations that adopt out cats (shelters, pet stores, breeders etc) to new owners?
  
• Do cat owners lack the ability or education to distinguish between muscle mass (healthy weight) and fat mass (unhealthy weight)? Or even between a cat looking “fat” because of dense fur, vs a cat being fat because it is carrying excess weight?
• Do people just fail to make the connection that obesity is a health issue that crosses species lines?
  
• Have pet food manufacturers provided misinformation about cat health and appropriate feeding?
• Are cat owners, unable to manage their cats weight, assuaging their guilt and negative feelings about this failure by attributing positive traits to obesity, thereby making it seem “not as bad”?

I believe all these are contributing factors to the “cute fat cat” perception.

Why should we care?

Even if we know that being obese is bad for our kitties, it’s much easier to ignore the very real dangers of obesity if we have a positive aesthetic association. We’re more likely to take our own cats’ weight less seriously and we’re less likely to discuss the inherent problems when the topic of fat cats comes up with other cat owners who may be less educated or aware.

So what can we do?

As a cat owner you can:

• monitor your cat’s weight,
• put your fat cats on a diet,
• discuss your experiences with dieting and health problems caused by feline obesity with other cat owners,
• contact cat food companies and demand that they put better feeding guidelines on cat food packages & provide accurate information about cat nutrition,
• learn to determine if your cats are at a healthy weight through observation,
• discuss weight concerns with your vet,
• don’t glorify obesity by sharing images without discussion or expression of concern.

As a shelter volunteer or worker you can:

• talk to the public and other volunteers about cat nutrition,
• talk to potential owners about the special needs of over weight cats,
• ensure that new owners of over weight cats are prepared to take the necessary steps to bring their new cat’s weight down,
• educate others about the dangers and health risks of feline obesity,
• show potential owners the consequences of obesity that some of the shelter cats are experiencing (poopy bottoms, mats, arthritis, daily medical treatment required for diabetic cats etc)
• correct misconceptions that fluffy, cobby or large cats are “fat”,
• correct misconceptions that fat cats are “big boned” or “muscular”.

As a veterinarian you can:

• make sure your clients understand the dangers of feline obesity,
• determine your patient’s ideal weight so that their owners have a baseline,
• teach your clients how to use their hands and eyes to determine if their cat’s weight is changing,
• teach your clients how to use their bathroom scale to weight their cat,
• provide feeding guidelines based on what your clients are feeding, and make recommendations on switching to a more appropriate diet if necessary,
• make sure your clients understand the seriousness of obesity and how important it is to be persistent in reaching and maintaining ideal weight,
• promote the benefits of a healthy cat.

We live in a society that has a tendency to glorify unhealthy extremes and ignore the underlying dangers of things we consider aesthetically pleasing. Changing cultural attitudes isn’t easy, but we can start by changing our own and promoting the beauty that comes with good health.

The Pet Connection Blog’s Dr. Marty Becker is promoting Bayer’s “Help Your Pet, Get to the Vet” campaign. Visit the site to download a $20 voucher that can be used toward any preventative visit (vaccination, deworming, dental, wellness exam etc) to any vet.

http://www.gettothevet.com/

This offer is available to Americans from Feb 16 – 28, 2009 and there are limited vouchers available so get yours today.

One of the intimidating aspects of raw feeding to the uninitiated is ther perceived cost and time investment required – often people express interest in starting on raw but are worried that they won’t be able to afford it or that it will take too much time and dominate their lives.

Time is precious and we’re all short on money, so no one wants to spend hundreds of dollars every month feeding their cat, or hours every day preparing food. In reality, raw feeding can cost less than a high quality commercial diet, and daily prep can be cut down to one minute per meal – no more time consuming that cracking open a can.

My monthly prep

I prepare food in batches, usually once or twice a month. If I choose large or whole bony items, like a whole turkey, pork shoulder or undressed rabbit I’ll spend 3-4 hours cutting, weighing and bagging. If I opt for small or pre-cut items like chicken hearts & gizzards, split chicken wings or chicken drumsticks, monthly prep can be done in an hour or so.

Meat gets cut into roughly 1oz pieces, organs into bite sized pieces and things like chicken wings and legs stay whole. All the meat goes into a big pile on the cutting board or into a big mixing bowl.  I have three cats so one snack sized baggie holds one meal for all three of them (4-5oz) – the food gets weight out and the filled bags get lined up on the counter. Once I’ve filled my space, I seal up all the bags and toss them in the freezer. Repeat until all the meat is packaged up.

I don’t use any fancy recipes or supplements. No grinding, mixing or measuring out extras.

Total prep time per month: 3-4 hours or less

My daily prep

Twice daily feedings are really easy. You can take food out the night before and allow it to thaw in the fridge, but I usually forget and that’s okay. When meal time come around, I grab a baggie from the freezer, fill a dish with hot tap water and drop in the baggie. I ignore it for 10 minutes and when I come back it’s thawed and warmed to body temperature. Each cat gets about one third of the bag, which gets dumped into a dish or directly onto their feeding mats. Then the baggie goes into the trash (or you can rinse and reuse them if you’re feeling really ambitious and environmentally conscious.)

It takes me about 30 seconds to start the food thawing and another 30 seconds to distribute food to the cats. All in all a fast and simple process at each meal.

Total time spent feeding per day: 2 minutes

Cost of supplies

Feeding raw requires very few supplies. All I use are:

• small kitchen scale ($5 at Walmart)
• a couple of good knives, which I already owned
• a cutting board
• tongs and a large serving spoon for scooping portions into bags
• baggies (75 for <$2)

You can invest in a grinder for the transition or other special tools if you feel like spending the money, but other than the scale, I never needed anything that I didn’t already have in the kitchen.

Total cost of one-time purchase supplies: $5

Total monthly supplies: $2

Cost of food

Buying food is probably cheaper than you would think. There’s a wide variety of options out there, providing different costs, types of meat & level of convenience.

My regular purchases are (and keep in mind that these prices are on the higher side, as I’m in Canada and in a city with limited options):

• pork shoulder picnic roast (<$2 per pound)
• chicken hearts & gizzards (about $2 per pound)
• chicken drumsticks (<$2 per pound)
• chicken wings, split, tips removed (<$3.50 per pound)
• beef liver & kidney (about $2.50 per pound)
• beef heart (about $3 per pound)
• whole turkey (<$1 per pound on sale)
• deer & wild rabbit (free, from Freecycle or hunters)
• misc meats (free from Freecyclers cleaning out their freezers)

I occasionally splurge and get the cats a more expensive treat, like farmed rabbit, frozen mice, cornish hen and the like, but they’re not staples and don’t affect my overall budget. Over time, my food costs average out to about $2 per pound. My cats eat 9-10oz per day between the three of them, so my daily feeding budget is about $1.25 for three cats.

Compare this to feeding a premium canned cat food, which usually costs more than $1 per small can (and each cat needs at least one can per day, if not more).

Total daily cost to feed three cats: $1.25

As you can see, raw feeding need not be time consuming, complicated or expensive. Anyone who can find the time and money to feed a good commercial diet can easily fit raw feeding into their life without disruption or hardship.

Watch for more articles on raw feeding. I’ll be discussing benefits, my experiences, why I decided to go raw, and practical considerations. Or, Get started with raw at http://rawfedcats.org/.

What is your daily food budget per cat and how much time do you spend on feeding? If you were familiar with raw feeding, what was your perception of how much time and money it would take to switch?

Photo by Niels Timmer.

Want some kitty icons for your website or profile? We’ll you’re in the right place. This Abnormal Love of Cats exclusive set of  Purri Kitten icons is free for use on your blog, website, profile or signature. Right click to save to your hard drive and then upload to your own image host (please don’t direct link – it eats up my bandwidth and the location of these images may change.)

A link back to http://abnormalloveofcats.com/ is appreciated but not required. Please do not edit, redistribute, resell or use for commercial purposes.

Want more colours or patterns? Post your suggestions here! If you’ve used these icons on your site leave me a link so I can visit. 

Yesterday morning I was feeling sick, so I slept in. Normally I’m up shortly before 9am, I feed the cats and then go to work. This routine breaks down on the weekends, but during the week the cats expect breakfast.

Since breakfast was becoming more and more delayed because of my sleeping in, Violet decided that she was going to get me up. First, she came in and wandered around the room chirping. When that wasn’t working she emptied the garbage bin onto the floor and pulled out a plastic bag to crinkle. Loud enough to be disturbing but it just wasn’t quite enough to get me out of bed.

I was clearly being stubborn about staying in bed, and breakfast wasn’t serving itself, so Violet upped the ante.

Ever been woken up by a cat dumping cold water all over you? If not, consider yourself fortunate, because it was just about the most shocking thing ever. Violet pushed a large cup of water off the headboard and on to my head, thoroughly soaking me and the bed. Well, I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I got up, put on some dry clothes and a few minutes later, breakfast was served.

I think I may have set a bad precedent, though… this morning I also over slept and woke up just in time to catch Violet trying once again to push my cup of water on to my head.

So, don’t ever tell me that cats are untrainable – they learn all too fast which actions create the results they desire. We humans on the other hand might be a little slower to catch on, and by the time we realize what kind of lessons our cats have learned, it may be a challenge to get them to unlearn them.

Having cats around seem to make everything more enjoyable, but nothing goes  from boring to entertaining with the addition of a cat (or two) like making the bed.

Violet and Clover always join me for this activity and we have a great time making the bed. The sheets become giant moving cat toys as I shake them out over the bed and they will  pounce and stalk and scamble on their bellies to catch the sheet.

Violet likes to stay under the sheets as I make the bed.  She’ll crawl around and Clover will go on top of the covers for some good chasing and pouncing action. The have a great time wrestling through the sheets. Some times I’ll toss Clover under so that Violet can chase her around for a bit.

Alone, making the bed is a boring chore, but add in the cats and we all have a great time. They’re hilarious and adorable and add a wonderful element of fun to things.

How do cats add joy to your daily routine?