Holiday plans

If you are planning a big  holiday this year don't forget to think about pet care well ahead of time. Cats would prefer to stay in their own home and yard, of course. If you can arrange for a friend, relative or house-sitter to call in regularly or stay in the house they will be most grateful.

However many cats have to go on their own holiday to a boarding cattery. Outgoing cats spend happy holidays at boarding facilities and even look forward to their own break from home routines. Nervous kitties though need a little extra tender loving care. Ask the staff to spray some Feliway around the bed and room if they haven't already got a Feliway diffuser plugged in. 

Visit the cattery or kennels beforehand, inspect the accommodation and meet the staff. If you feel comfortable with their cat handling skills and can see they are cat lovers, then your cat will probably settle in after the first day or so.

All commercial boarding establishments are licensed by the local authority but standards vary. Seek out recommendations from friends, neighbours or your veterinary surgeon. Some people like to trial board their pets for a weekend or a few days to see how they settle if they are going away later for an extended period.

Check that your pets’ vaccination status is up-to-date well before the holiday. Cats must have enteritis (also known as parvovirus or panleukopenia), calicivirus and herpesvirus vaccinations within the previous 12 months.

Home ground

The cat next door

My cats have come to a truce with Tiddles, the cat next door. When we moved in Tiddles and my crew had a few close encounters of the hissy kind but they soon worked out some compromises. Most cats prefer to avoid fights if they possibly can and use one or more olfactory signals to mark their territories.
Tiddles and my three skirt around each other in shared zones - the front gardens of both houses, the paddock across the road - and avoid each others' inner territories.
My cats still regularly mark their territory by scratching the fence post between the houses and Tiddles marks one of the trees with urine occasionally. Cleo used to defecate on that side of our house as a signal to Tiddles, but thankfully has stopped that now.
We rarely hear any warning hisses from the cats now that they've worked out their territorial limits.

Bonding time

Caught my two old beauties together today. This type of grooming and spending time together reinforces the social bonds in a group of cats.
My third cat would not be caught dead in either of these roles! She disdains the other two and prefers to groom me. I guess I'm her substitute feline friend.
Amazingly cats spend about 8% of their awake time grooming themselves and ingest two thirds of the hair that they lose. That's an awful lot of hair if the amount they leave on my bedspread is any guide!

Cleo tidies Cinta up

Resting time

Sore eyes

Mus be the season for it - this morning I saw Zoe, a half grown girl with very sore eyes. She's had red and watery eyes on and off since she came home from the cat shelter at 8 weeks of age.
Mostly she's a happy little cat, but today she was very miserable. She  and sneezed a glob of snot right at her nurse! One eye was almost closed with swollen conjunctiva and the other was very mucusy.
Poor Zoe! With her history of intermittent sore eyes and snuffles we suspected feline herpesvirus, probably complicated by a chlamydial or mycoplasma infection.
Most cats are infected with herpesvirus as kittens but only a few have signs later on. Zoe's family moved house a week or so ago and the stress of the change, strange noises and people probably brought this bout on. Any type of stress brings the herpesvirus out of hiding and causes sore eyes and snuffles in cats like Zoe.
Treatment for chlamydia and mycoplasma is reasonably straight forward but herpesvirus is variably sensitive to the antivirals we have available. Hopefully Zoe will respond to the Famciclovir we have prescribed.
Her family will have to nurse her through the worst of it. They will gently clean her eyes and nose with salty water on cotton balls and take her into the bathroom with them when they shower to loosen up the nasal and sinus congestion. Strong smelling foods like canned fish will stimulate her appetite and help get her back on her food.

AMRRIC Trivia Night

Have a heap of fun and raise money to send a team of Canberra veterinarians including Dr Kate and Nurse Geraldine to the Indigenous communities of Utopia in Central Australia to desex and care for their dogs. Make up a table of 8 or just come along and we'll match you up with a like-minded team. Tickets $20 from Hall Vet Surgery or phone 6230 2223 to reserve a table

When? Saturday, February 25, 2012 6.30pm

Where? Southern Cross Club Jamison, Cnr Catchpole & Bowman Streets Macquarie

Living with cat allergies AND cats

Do you suffer wheezing, sneezing, watery eyes and itchy eyes and arms around your cat? For me, these allergy symptoms are a small price to pay for the company of my cats – although some mornings when I wake with a heavy head and red eyes I wonder!

Cat allergies are not caused by cat hair as most of us assume. They are caused by a protein found in cat saliva, urine and skin cells, or dander. The immune systems of people with allergies mistake this harmless protein for a dangerous invader like a virus or bacteria and mount a full scale attack on it.

Here are some tips for minimising our allergy symptoms without giving up our cats.

• Made your bedroom a cat free zone
•  Reduce the load of cat allergens in your bedroom by washing or replacing bedding, curtains and pillows. Then cover pillows and mattress with allergen-proof covers.
• Open windows wide at least once a day to air the house and dilute the allergen load
•  Send your cat outside, preferably into an outdoor run, to disperse some of the dander
•  Eliminate allergen traps such as carpet, rugs and upholstered furniture as you can. Carpet accumulates up to 100 times more allergens than vinyl or wood flooring. If you can’t take it up steam clean it regularly and vacuum with a high efficiency particulate arresting (HEPA) filter or us and allergen-proof vacuum cleaner bag.
• Brush your cat outside and/or in an outside enclosure to minimise contamination of your home with dander
• Wipe the dander away with a moist cloth or wipe to remove saliva and dander.
• Spray the house with anti-allergen sprays
• Use a low dust cat litter and ask non-allergic family members to clean the litter box frequently
• Take the antihistamines, decongestants, eye drops and aerosol inhalers your doctor recommends. Antioxidants such as Vitamins C and E also have anti-allergen effects.

 Don't let allergies come between you and your feline friend.

Snotty cats

Snotty-nosed and snuffly cats are difficult to live with. Their owners put up with sneezesand snot all over the house, as well as snuffles and grumbles all day and half the night.

The causes of sinusitis and rhinosinusitis are also difficult for vets to diagnose accurately and even more difficult to treat effectively.

Inflammation and infection spread rapidly from cats’ throats to adjacent structures, such as the middle ear, frontal sinuses, nose and tympanic bullae. These cavities are difficult to reach with medical or surgical treatments.

Felinemucus is also thicker than human mucus and medication has a hard time penetrating the mucus to get to the offending microbes.

Feline Herpesvirus is the most common initiating cause of chronic rhinitis and rhinosinusitis. It causes chronic airway inflammation and swelling, destroys the normal lining of the nasal cavity and upsets the normal mucus layers. The nasal cavity cannot remove foreign particles or the abnormal mucus and the sinuses become blocked. Bacteria leap in and set up infections making the situation even worse.

Drugs to reduce the mucus and the swelling in the sinuses help a bit. We treat the bacterial infection with antibiotics but are still left with Herpesvirus and all the damage it does. Herpesvirus sinusitis soon flares up into full blown bacterial sinusitis again. Some cats respond well to antiviral drugs but others keep getting intermittent sinusitis.

Nastier causes of similar signs are Cryptococcosis, a fungal disease, and cancer,commonly lymphoma, adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. These are difficult to distinguish on X-ray but CT or MRI are very helpful, if they are available. A biopsy clears up any doubts. A blood test is available for Cryptococcosis.

Bad teethand infected tooth roots sometimes make cats snuffly. A dental inspection and X-ray under general anaesthetic allow targeted and successful treatment.

Occasionally a cat breathes in a grass seed or other foreign body. Usually nasal discharge is from one side only and there is some bleeding.