Tag Archives: Care

Global Cat Day

Alley Cat Allies are launching the premiere of Global Cat Day today. The motto of the day is : kindness for all catkind.

Alley Cat Allies is an organization dedicated «to transform and develop communities to protect and improve the lives of cats.»

“On October 16th, compassionate people around the world come together to stand up for policies that protect the cats in their communities.”

You wouldn’t bring a wild animal into your home, and that’s what a community cat (feral cat) is : a wild animal. Pet cats are socialized and domesticated, community cats live outside, and this is their home.

Community cats are not abandoned or lost. They are not pets in distress, but they are often mistaken with socialized cats who have been abandoned. Feral cats are born outside, and are for the most part unadoptable. If you bring them to a shelter, they risk to be killed because they are unsocialized and cannot be re-homed.

Local laws sometimes punish caregivers of community cats. Authorities don’t always understand that the best place for feral cats is outdoor. This must change.

In some areas, it’s allowed to kill cats who don’t have an owner. To us, that’s just cruelty. There are other ways to control feline population.

TNR (trap-neuter-return) is the BEST way to solve the problem. Cats are trapped, they are seen by a veterinarian, they are spayed / neutered, and returned to their home : the outdoor. Every TNR cat has the tip of his ear cut, you can recognize them easily.

If you want to help, advocate for community cats and educate your own community about «compassionate cat management».

How do cats get ready for winter ?

We had cold, rain and wind yesterday, a real autumn weather ! Leaves begin imperceptibly to change color and to fall, and we begin discreetly to get ready for winter.

How do cats get ready for winter ?

They moult.

The renewal of our coat accelerates, and we lose many hairs : our summer hairs fall and are replaced by our more thick winter hairs. It’s important to brush us regularly ! Indeed, we spend a lot of time to lick ourselves to have a wash, and the excessive ingestion of hairs can cause digestive problems : hairs gather together in our stomach and form balls. If we can vomit these hairballs, so much the better, but otherwise, we risk an intestinal obstruction.

They eat more.

Zorro increases his daily ration of about 50 grams. His weight increases by at least 300 grams in winter ! He bards literally himself with bacon, eeh, fat, to protect himself from the cold, because he goes out almost as much in winter as in summer.
As for me, there are few differences between my summer rations and my wintry rations, because I go a lot less outside as soon as it gets a little bit chilly.

They sleep longer.

As there are fewer small critters to be observed, we get a little bored… Fortunately, our human is attentive to play every day with us to make us move ! She also places puzzles feeders in strategic places to distract us.

They spend more time inside.

It’s normal, we get cold pads after a while !

Indoor cats are also subject to these changes, but in a much less marked way.

Why spay or neuter your cat ?

Pals, that’s my serious face : tomorrow, it’s World Spay Day. And it’s some serious stuff.

Let’s say that a couple of cats, then their descendants, has two litters of 2 or 3 alive kittens every year. Here is how the feline population is quickly going to increase within 9 years :

By spaying/neutering your cat, you reduce the number of abandoned animals, you avoid unwanted behavior as urinary marking, you save expenses at the veterinarian (tomcats often fight and can be hurt), and you increase the good health of your cat by reducing the risk of certain cancers as the cancer of testicles or uterine cancer.