Be Aware of Changes in Your Elderly Cat

One of the most important things we can do as pet owners is to be continually vigilant. Our cat's behaviors may become as commonplace as the carpeting, but they shouldn't be. Our awareness needs to be consistent, every single day, especially with an older animal in the home.

Older cats can have troubles with hearing, eye sight, and balance among so many older things. Like their human counterparts, these changes reflect their advancing age. But sometimes these lifestyle changes come along quickly. This can cause behavioral changes that are subtle. If we're being aware as pet parents, we can catch the changes.

Take Maui, for instance. She's deaf. How do we compensate for her deafness? We gently pat her to wake her up for food and we flick the light switches so we don't startle her. We also tap our hands on the floor when we want her to come to us. The whole family makes an effort not to scare her but rather engage her in different ways since she can't hear us. Yes, we still talk to her constantly and she sometimes talks back. More than anything, Maui needs to be engaged in her silent world.

It wasn't difficult to figure out what worked the best. We just found ways to communicate with her. She still is very vocal although we've noticed that her volume control seems to be broken :) She meows very loudly now whereas she never did before. Of course, she's talking to us. What we've found is that she says "jump" and we don't even ask how high. We just do!

Great Websites for Pet Owners

It shouldn't come as a surprise that there are so many fabulous web sites for animal lovers. But sometimes the scope of what's available just stuns me. People are so innovative. I love creativity.

While writing an article on Thursday, I hunted through the Internet for pet social networking sites. It seems there's a number of heavily trafficked sites. What exactly are pet social networking sites? Think Facebook or MySpace for your critters. Truly extraordinary.

We shower our pets with love and attention so it shouldn't surprise anyone that pet lover's would broadcast this love on the internet. Two sites, www.Catster.com and www.Dogster.com have thousands on members. Dogster has 180,000 members. Wow! Both sites allow picture posting and let your pets have "friends" for socializing.

I came across another site last week that provides a wealth of information for cat owners. www.Catchannel.com is a comprehensive site that can answer questions, provide tips and hints for behaviorial problems, and even has a feature called "ClubCat" for users to set up their very own webpage for their cat. It requires membership.

I'll be posting other links for great sites as I find them. It definitely take a village to take care of our pets too. Sharing information helps to keep our beloved animals healthy and happy.

Pet Food Recall

It totally sucks to wake up Thanksgiving morning and find that the Mars Company has instituted a recall on two brands of foods for cats and dogs.

Special Kitty and Ol' Roy products are being pulled for suspected salmonella poisoning. Please check the following comprehensive link at PetSitUSA.com for more information:

http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=1457

There's also been a recall of Orijen cat food in Australia. The recall is confined to that country. However, it's is truly horrifying what is happening to the cats in that country. Cats who've eaten the foods have shown severe neurological symptoms after consumption. Orijen is produced by Champion Pet Foods. More info is available here:

http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=1459

What a way to start the day :(