Look at this sun puddle! And I don't have to share with Sisfur Mia because she's still napping in the bedroom!
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
You're Feeding Your Cat All Wrong!
Uh Oh, mom found this article about free-feeding and she wants to share it! We are free-feeding kitties, but maybe not after mom read this article. Read for yourselves and tell us what you think in the comments below.
Reposted from http://www.petsadviser.com/food/free-feeding-cats/.
Reposted from http://www.petsadviser.com/food/free-feeding-cats/.
By T.J. Banks on
I brought Cheshire and Dervie in for their checkups the other day. The brothers are big boys. For the past year, I’ve been trying to get their weight down by putting less food out.
Alas, both boys had gained weight. Apparently, portion control doesn’t work for cats. Cheshire, our former runt, had morphed into a striped barrel with short legs, and we couldn’t figure out how it had happened.
My veterinarian could. Cheshire was a grazer, he said.
The Lowdown on Grazing
For cats, grazing is basically nibbling at their food off and on all day. It’s not exactly normal to them.
“The types of animals that graze are herbivores: goats, cows, horses, sheep and so on,” remarks writer JaneA Kelley. “They graze because their bodies are built to chew, digest, regurgitate, chew again and digest again…. Cats, on the other hand, are carnivores. Their stomachs are not designed for grazing.”
At first, free feeding — another term for grazing — seems like the best answer. If you work all day or have to be away for any length of time, there’s an ever-ready bowl of dry food available, and your feline will be fine until you get home.
It also makes life a little easier in a household with more than one cat. Most of my pet-sitting clients have more than one cat. Some of the cats get canned food, some of them don’t, but all of them have some kibble nearby. At one home, each of the five cats has her own bowl of dry food.
The problem with free feeding, explains Dr. Thomas Morganti, DVM, of the Avon Veterinary Clinic in Connecticut, is that every time your cat goes for that kibble, there’s an insulin spike. The pancreas can’t handle the long-term overload, and eventually you’re looking at a cat with diabetes.
Dr. Debora Lichtenberg, VMD, has explained here at Pets Adviser that offering all-day dry food is especially problematic: “Cats conditioned to the never-ending dry buffet are at risk for developing obesity, urinary problems and kidney failure, to name just a few of the top feline health risks of a dry food diet. It would be like a human moving his recliner to a Las Vegas buffet.”
That said, it really doesn’t matter what you feed your buddy: It’s the frequent feeding, not the type of food, that appears to be the problem.
This video from Jackson Galaxy helps explain the differences in feeding for cats:
Meal Feeding
Meal feeding is the solution, says the Cat Hospital of Chicago. “Start by picking up the food when you leave for the day,” the hospital advises, “and putting it down when you return. The cat(s) start to realize that the food will not always be available.”
With meal feeding, each cat receives “a measured portion of food, usually two or more times a day. He or she eats the food immediately in a meal fashion, as opposed to grazing on food all day. Each cat has his or her own dish, and sometimes his or her own eating area.”
A Counter Story
In February 2014, UPI published an article that seemed to contradict all this. “Fat cats can slim by ‘grazing’ their kibble all day,” claimed the headline.
At the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Science (ACES), researcher Kelly Swanson and his assistants found that upping “the frequency of meals fed per day, as well as offering meals that contained added dietary water, promoted more physical activity among cats.”
The felines in the four study groups all received the same amount of food; the only variable was thenumber of meals. Activity apparently increased two hours before each meal. “If they know they are going to get fed, that’s when they are really active, if they can anticipate it,” Swanson commented.
The point is, the cats were getting meals. Grazing had nothing to do with it. So, the headline turned out to be totally misleading.
Other Solutions
- Put your cat’s dry food in “a rolling puzzle ball so he has to work for his meals,” says Kelley. “But just don’t load up a huge bowl of kibble and go about your merry way.”
- Play with your cat. He’ll get a light workout, and you’ll have some quality bonding time.
- No “extreme” diets. News flash: They don’t work for anybody. In fact, they can “produce serious abnormalities that may jeopardize the cat’s life,” according to The Cornell Book of Cats.
I’m taking a moderate approach. The food bowls go down early in the morning and stay down for a few hours; they reappear in the late afternoon, then disappear at bedtime.
Cheshire’s still looking anxious, but I assure him it’s worth it. Stay tuned for the before and after pictures.
Do you let your cat graze all day? In the comments below, tell us if you plan to change your cat’s feeding ritual. Why or why not? Also, if you enjoyed this article, you’ll love Pets Adviser’s email newsletter. It’s free to sign up, and you’ll be among the first to get alerts about major pet food recalls. New subscribers get instant access to our 40-page ebook — which has “secrets every cat and dog lover should know.” Learn more here.
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So... what do you think? Should kitties be allowed to graze (free-feeders)? or should they have scheduled feeding times? Mom works full-time and volunteers quite a bit on top of work so she thinks she will probably stick with free-feeding since it would be hard to be consistent with a feeding schedule. We kitties are happy about that! What do you kitties think? Will your humans allow you to free-feed or do they feed you on a schedule?
Monday, January 12, 2015
Friday, January 9, 2015
From fires to flood... Can't a kitty catch a break?
So mom got the call yesterday that nobody wants to get... "Come home, there's an emergency!" Um... deja vu! At least this time it wasn't a fire! (That awful anniversary is coming up next month.) This time it was a flood.
See the temps have been brutally cold the last few days with highs only in the single digits and teens. The temps have been so cold us kitties haven't gotten any deck time lately! But worse, it's been so cold that apparently a pipe in the kitchen froze. So... when the temps got up in to the 30s yesterday that pipe decided to thaw out. And thaw out it did.... it burst and rushed water right in to the wall and in to our home! Here's a pic of some of the damage.
Kitchen where the pipe burst from behind the washer. |
And because the pipe decided to burst while mom was at work, Mia and I got scared. Mia ran to the bedroom to hide while I tried to escape out the front door when management & maintenance came in to try to stop the water leak. That's when management called mom and said come home. Because the water was all over the kitchen floor and spreading to the living room as well as down the wall to the neighbors apartment, maintenance needed to enter right away to try and stop the leak (by turning off the water and containing the water from the burst pipe). They grabbed me as I tried to escape out the front door and put me in the bedroom with Mia. They made sure our food and water got put in there too. It didn't take mom too long to get home once she received the call. I am pretty sure probably broke some speed limits but I won't tell! When she got home she wouldn't let us out of the bedroom but she did feed us our nightly dinner of wet food and made sure we had toys to play with while she talked with management to determine if we could stay in the apartment that night or if we would have to go somewhere for a few days. It turns out the damage wasn't so bad that we would have to leave but us kitties will be confined to the bedroom for a few days until the damage to the wall and floor is repaired. I hope they fix it quick, I don't like being cooped up in the bedroom! I'm thankful that the emergency wasn't worse. I still have nightmares from the fire and don't need any more emergencies. I'm getting to be an old kitty (I am 13!). Can't a kitty catch a break? No more emergencies please! I am pretty sure sisfur Mia agrees!
Labels:
emergency,
Fire,
flood,
Kitty,
sisfur kitty,
winter,
winter weather
Friday, January 2, 2015
Paying it forward...
Mom learned of a woman who recently lost her husband and 4 kitties in a house fire on Christmas Eve. While mom doesn't know this person she knows of her through a Facebook group she participates in called Cat Addicts Anonymous. Mom remembers how much support we got after our fire and wanted to help. While mom doesn't have a lot to give she still felt it was important to pay it forward. Mom knows she can never repay all the people who helped us (including complete strangers!) but she thought paying it forward would be a good way to thank all those that helped us!
The devastating fire happened in Decatur Illinois on the night of Christmas Eve. The story can be read here: http://www.foxillinois.com/news/features/top-swordtories/stories/decatur-man-dies-tuesday-night-fire-2385.shtml. Linda Henderson lost her husband William in the fire. The funeral for William is being held today. Perhaps pals could include Linda in #pawcircle today?
There is a GoFundme account set up for Linda here: http://www.gofundme.com/jjlmcc. If you feel compelled to help please do. It looks like she doesn't have a lot of support. Even a little bit might be a big help to her. If nothing else, say a prayer for her that she is able to remain strong during such a difficult time in her life.
Thanks pals!
Mom, Mia and I want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year!
The devastating fire happened in Decatur Illinois on the night of Christmas Eve. The story can be read here: http://www.foxillinois.com/news/features/top-swordtories/stories/decatur-man-dies-tuesday-night-fire-2385.shtml. Linda Henderson lost her husband William in the fire. The funeral for William is being held today. Perhaps pals could include Linda in #pawcircle today?
There is a GoFundme account set up for Linda here: http://www.gofundme.com/jjlmcc. If you feel compelled to help please do. It looks like she doesn't have a lot of support. Even a little bit might be a big help to her. If nothing else, say a prayer for her that she is able to remain strong during such a difficult time in her life.
Thanks pals!
Mom, Mia and I want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year!
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