Most owner’s spend a considerable amount of time considering names for their feline companion(s).  I heard of one fellow who was naming his dogs for the Beach Boys’ song that has all those islands. . . Aruba, Jamaica, Key Largo..  After many years he was halfway through the song.

My three cats came from the same litter, and I wanted to name them with their predecessor in mind.  “Quninella” was my kitty for 20 years before she passed.  It took three kittens to take her place:  “Stella”, “Angel Bella”, and “Fella Othello”.  I was stuck with rhyming in my blood.

[Read more →]

During a summer that I was blessed with two fertile female felines and nineteen kittens, I discovered Nutro Kitten as one of the options at my local Petsmart.Feeding cats–particularly kittens–a higher priced quality dry cat food will cut down on the odor from the litter box. I found out by experience.

I had given the kittens Friskies dry food, and the reduction in odor was definitely noticeable when the food change worked its way through the little ones system’s. The stuff still stinks, but not quite so intensely. The back of the cat food bag says “Guaranteed to Reduce Litter Box Odor”–”Complete Satisfaction or Your Money Back”. Even with all the cat box cleaning I’ve done this year, Nutro is one of my top picks for digested remains.

[Read more →]

Our cats tend to be clean and healthy pets in general, but cat fights, parasites, and illness may crop up from time to time.  Notice when  your cat withdraws physically and socially.  Instead of telling you he’s sick, and needs to go to the vet, Kitty’s instincts are telling her to hide.  She feels more like the hunted instead of the hunter, so she hides to escape any possible danger.  Kitty doesn’t realize she needs to come tell you when she needs to go to the vet.

[Read more →]

When you and your cat come to an agreeable arrangement about the litter box, there’s usually something wrong when kitty goes somewhere else. She may be stressed or ill. When my 19-year old feline companion didn’t deposit anything in her box in over a week, we visited the vet and she received a diagnosis that ended in her ultimate demise.

It’s important for a cat’s owner to monitor what’s deposited in the litter box, and how often. You may have no reason to think your cat has worms, but if they’ve consumed raw meat, a.k.a. a slow bird or neighborhood rodent, it’s a possibility. If you feed and manually clean the litter box on a regular basis, monitoring output will come easily. It’s a litter box second nature worth developing.

[Read more →]