CatVetBehaviourist

Introducing cats and dogs a step by step guide!

Cognitive dysfunction in senior cats. Is it a medical condition?

Today I want to introduce this wide topic, I will cover the main causes of a cat biting you and how can we prevent it from happening. There are many causes of a cat biting you, you need to ask yourself why? (see summary pictures below) 🔸Attention seeking 🔸Inappropriate or predatory play 🔸Associated with petting 🔸Disease or pain related 🔸Redirected aggression 🔸Anxiety/fear or phobia related

 Cats don't cough because of hairballs and not all the cat cough is asthma

Senior cat diet

Anxiety in cats, the stress in cats, what is it, treatment

I'd like to approach to toxoplasmosis disease because this one can affect cats and humans. Unfortunately, I've found myself many times in the situation where one of my clients wants to get pregnant or is already pregnant and their doctor says: "Get rid of your cat". Do you know that you can acquire toxoplasmosis without having a cat? and even being vegan? Before reaching this point, I need to make you understand how this toxoplasmosis works (have a look to the picture above). Toxoplasmosis is a disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, an intracellular obligate parasite (coccidian) (1). The cat is the definitive host, it means, that even that this parasite can survive inside other animals (included human being), it only will be able to reproduce (sexually) inside the cat. That's why when we think about toxoplasmosis, we relate this disease with cats. But how can a cat acquire Toxoplasmosis ? There are two different ways: (To understand better, check the image) - Eating contaminated meat with Toxoplasma cysts (mice, rats, rabbits…) - Eating directly the "eggs" (oocysts) when grooming another infected cat or eating from contaminated surfaces. (When a cat is already infected, will get reinfected grooming itself). How is toxoplasmosis in cats? In healthy adult cats the clinical signs of infection are uncommon (2). Cats that develop clinical disease often have an episodic course with vague signs (3), that will depend on the body system affected. This disease can be riskier (even fatal) in a kitten or in a combination of other diseases such as FeLV, FIV, FIP… When we treat infected cats, our main goal is to reduce the shedding of oocysts and to control the clinical signs. But unfortunately, there is no drug to clear all the tissue cysts, so cats can remain infected for life (that is not the same as infectious). Now that we understand the disease, let's go to the main point: How can a human become infected with toxoplasmosis? Let's check again the image of the "life cycle of Toxoplasma gondii". A human can be infected eating raw meat, raw vegetables, drinking water or from a cat … And the only "risky" moment is the first time that you have contact with Toxoplasma, after that, your body has immunity and you don't need to worry about pregnancy or the disease. Raw meat : the animal ate oocysts, and formed cysts in the muscle. If we eat these cysts (without cooking or freezing), we will become infected with toxoplasmosis. Raw vegetables: if we don't appropriately clean the vegetables before eating them, we can become infected. Drinking tap water : if we drink untreated tap water and this was contaminated, we can become infected with toxoplasmosis. From a cat , the important point. Let's come back to the life cycle of toxoplasma gondii. The "infective" phase of a cat is only the time that they are shedding the oocysts. This is a period of time up to 14 days. Okay, still 2 weeks of risk. But what needs to happen for you to become infected with toxoplasmosis? You need to ingest these oocysts from the faeces. But not only this, fresh stools with oocysts are not immediately infectious! Before becoming infectious, they must go through a process called sporulation, which takes one to five days. But this is not all, you need to be "virgin" of this infection, if you ever in the past had contact with toxoplasma gondii, you can't be infected again! In short: if you pick the stools after deposition and clean the litter box once daily and you use gloves and wash your hands after doing this, the risk of contracting toxoplasmosis from your cat is nearly 0. Conclusions of toxoplasmosis and pregnancy: If you keep your house and litter boxes clean and you have good hygiene, you don't need to get rid of your cat when you want to get pregnant. Do you need professional help with your cat? Check our website . You can join our Instagram community to learn even more about cats :) References: 1. Dubey JP, Lappin MR: Toxoplasmosis and neosporosis. In Greene CE, editor: Infectious diseases of the dog and cat, ed 3, St Louis, 2006, Saunders Elsevier, p 754. 2. Lappin MR: Update on the diagnosis and management of Toxo- plasma gondii infection in cats, Top Companion Anim Med 25:136, 2010. 3. Lappin MR: Toxoplasmosis. In Bonagura JD, Twedt DC, editors: Kirk's current veterinary therapy XIV, St Louis, 2009, Saunders Else- vier, p 1254.

You may think, a post just about cat feeders? Really? You put a bowl down, and that’s it. But no, it’s not as simple. Image for post To understand better this post it will be helpful for you to check our post about how to feed a cat. In short, cats need to express hunting behaviour, and some of them don’t have access to small preys. We can use toys to cover this need, or we can use the feeding action. Feeding can be an activity per se, using time and effort to eat which can prevent obesity and help to improve the environment and give mental stimulation : as they spend more time eating, they don’t have as much time to get bored during the day. There are lots of different feeders, but how to choose the right feeder? As you know, cats are really special, maybe sometimes… too much? I’ll give you a list of different types of feeders and their pros |and| cons. But as you know, the one who will decide will be your furry friend. Traditional bowl : cheap. || Some cats may eat too fast and vomit after; no mental stimulation. Puzzle feeder : with these feeders, cats need to do something to get the food. Pros and cons: mental stimulation; difficult to eat too fast || Some cats can find it too difficult or tiring; affordable, but not so cheap as the traditional bowl. Feeding ball/toy: same pros as puzzle feeder (PF) || same cons as PF + can be too noisy to use; some of them break easily. Automatic feeder : easy to divide the food in different meals and prevent eating too much in one go, and some automatic feeders can give each cat its own portion using the microchip number; a good option if cats are alone many hours during the day || poor mental stimulation; expensive. Whiskers Friendly bowl: It is a shallow flat dish. Pros and cons like the traditional bowl, but whiskers friendly. Another cheap “homemade” option that gives lots of mental stimulation is to hide food around the house. The worst of it is that some cats won’t try to find food around the house, but like anything, training can help. Location is another important point; feeding stations should be placed away from litter boxes, ideally separated from water bowls too, in a quiet accessible place. And in a multicat household , we should follow the rule number of cats (n) +1, to know how many feeders or feeding stations we need. Comment here about more homemade cat feeders, or show us your own feeder! Do you need professional help with your cat? Check our website . You can join our instagram community to learn even more about cats :)