Cat Wellness Helpful advice to keep your kitty in tip top shape

by Dr. Barbara Royal, DVM | Apr 30, 2010

Cats! They are the number one pet in America, and we spend more annually on cat food than we do on baby food.

Aloof, cuddly, sensitive, selfish, sweet, tough, complicated, playful, silly, elegant, unpredictable, and incredibly resilient, cats are highly entertaining. Their bodies are perfectly designed for stealth and hunting. Sharp claws and teeth, a Velcro tongue, flexible spine, muscles that can spring them seven times their height, night vision six times better than ours, and a fourteen times stronger sense of smell than we have. An astonishingly powerful design, beautifully packaged into sweet softness. They are unique and specialized, and cat ladies and gentlemen who understand this will raise cats with distinct health benefits.

Many feline medical problems I routinely see are often linked to either stress or poor nutrition. These include: Obesity, inappropriate urination, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, kidney and liver disease, hyperesthesia (itchy skin), allergies, thyroid disease, asthma and even behavior issues. If you have an obligate carnivore (an animal that MUST eat meat to survive), a Felis catus, living in your home, it is best to feed a proper carnivore diet. It makes perfect sense to nourish the body with food it is designed to digest. Having once helped to hand-raise a baby Sumatran tiger, I