conscious living, health and happiness for cats and their humans
Vomiting in cats is not normal. Far too many cat parents rationalize occasional, or even chronic, vomiting with explanations such as “he just eats too fast,” “she has a sensitive stomach,” or “it’s just a hairball.” Chronic vomiting can be an indicator of serious diseases of the small intestine, including inflammatory bowel disease and intestinal lymphoma.Continue Reading
The health risks of secondhand smoke for humans are well known, but have you ever thought about how it can also affect your cats? Cats’ lungs are much smaller and have less reserve than human lungs. Additionally, cats will also be affected by the residue of cigarette smoke that ends up on their fur and skin and on furniture and carpets even after the air has cleared. This is known as thirdhand smoke, and it causes its own set of dangerous problems.Continue Reading
Two weeks ago, we introduced you to the benefits of CannaVet, a cannabis (hemp) supplement for pets developed by two Seattle veterinarians, Drs. Sarah Brandon and Greg Copas, who pioneered the use of medical marijuana for pets two years ago. I was so intrigued with the many benefits of this product, I asked Dr. Brandon to share one of her many success stories of using CannaVet as part of an integrative approach to treatment.
13-year-old Morgaine has been a patient of Dr. Brandon for more than 10 years. Continue Reading
Updated May 2022
Lymphoma, also known as lymphosarcoma, is one of the most common cancers in cats. It accounts for 90% of all blood cancers in cats, and for about a third of all tumors overall in cats. Lymphoma affects the lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that plays a critical role in the immune system.
Since the lymphatic system transports lymph fluid throughout the cat’s system, delivering oxygen and nutrients to the body’s cells, lymphoma can appear almost anywhere and affect different organs.Continue Reading
Hairballs are often the topic of jokes and cartoons, but there is nothing funny about a cat who gets frequent hairballs. While the occasional, isolated hairball may be nothing to worry about, there really is no such thing as “just a hairball.”
What is a hairball?
Traditionally it has been thought that hairballs develop because of how cats groom themselves. As cats lick their fur, the tongue’s tiny barbs pull off excess hair. Inevitably, some hair gets swallowed in the process. Ideally, it passes through the body and ends up in stools, but hairballs form when hair wads up in the stomach instead.
However, more recent findings show that hairballs also form because the affected cat’s intestinal motility (the movement of food content from the stomach to the intestines) is impaired, something that most commonly occurs secondary to inflammatory bowel disease, which in turn is caused in almost epidemic proportions by grain-based diets and their adverse effect on the gut flora.Continue Reading
Last updated May 2022
While cancer in cats is not as common as it in dogs, it is still one of the leading causes of death in older cats. And because cats are masters at masking illness, it is often harder to detect.
Cancer used to be a death sentence for cats, but advances in feline cancer research have made treatment possible in many cases. Just like with human cancers, early detection is key to successful treatment.
Treatment options for cats are almost as varied as treatment options for human cancers, and will depend on the type of cancer. Surgery is the most common treatment for any lumps or growths that need to be removed. In some cases, surgery can be curative. Other cancers may require chemotherapy or radiation.Continue Reading
Most cat owners accept that hairballs are just a normal part of life with cats. While the occasional, isolated hairball may be nothing to worry about, there really is no such thing as “just a hairball.”
What is a hairball?
Traditionally it has been thought that hairballs develop because of how cats groom themselves. As cats lick their fur, the tongue’s tiny barbs pull off excess hair. Inevitably, some hair gets swallowed in the process. Ideally, it passes through the body and ends up in stools, but hairballs form when hair wads up in the stomach instead.
However, more recent findings show that hairballs form because the affected cat’s intestinal motility (the movement of food content from the stomach to the intestines) is impaired, something that most commonly occurs secondary to inflammatory bowel disease, which in turn is caused in almost epidemic proportions by grain-based diets and their adverse effect on the gut flora. Gut flora is the collection of microscopic organisms that live within the intestinal system. Predominantly made up of healthy bacteria, it carries out many important functions for the cat’s health, such as the absorption of nutrients, support for the immune system, and the ability to fight disease-causing organisms.
A healthy cat with a healthy gut system should be able to eliminate hair ingested through grooming in her stool. Vomiting as a daily, or even weekly, method to eliminate hairballs is almost always an indicator that there is something else going on. Take your cat to the veterinarian for a good check up.
What can a cat owner do to eliminate hairballs?
Regular brushing or combing to get rid of loose hair before your cat ingests it certainly helps. But even more importantly, there seems to be a strong connection between diet and hairballs. More and more evidence points to a grain-free canned or raw diet as the answer to hairball problems. Cats are obligate carnivores, and their digestive systems are not designed to digest grains and carbs well.
What about diets marketed as hairball diets? These diets are high in fiber, and the theory behind them is that the fiber helps propel the hair through the digestive system. However, the opposite seems to happen in many cats, and the unnaturally high fiber levels contribute to impaired intestinal motility and actually lead to more vomiting. Since impaired intestinal motility is often a precursor to IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) and intestinal lymphoma, a grain-free diet seems to be a much better way to go.
What about hairball remedies such as Petromalt or Laxatone? These products are petroleum based, and petroleum is derived from crude oil. Does this really belong inside a cat’s stomach? Says feline veterinarian Dr. Fern Crist: “A cat is not a car. And in no way could a cat have naturally evolved to require the dosing with ‘lubricants’ to survive or to thrive. Feeding a cat something wildly different from the diet it has evolved on is more likely to result in harm than in good.”
My own personal experience with cats and hairballs goes all the way back to Feebee, my first cat. I didn’t know any better back then, so he grew up on a vet-recommended commercial diet, and he ate mostly dry food. He coughed up hairballs at least a couple of times a week, despite frequent brushing and regular dosing with Laxatone. He also developed all the classic feline diseases now associated with dry food and foods high in carbohydrates: urinary bladder stones, and later, IBD and intestinal lymphoma, which eventually took his life at age 16 in April of 2000.
When I adopted Amber three months after he died, I transitioned her from the vet-recommended dry food with the occasional canned grocery store brand canned food that she was fed at the clinic to a quality natural, protein-based grain-free canned diet. She didn’t have a lot of problems with hairballs even prior to the diet change, but after the change, she never had a hairball again.
Buckley had a major hairball problem while she was my office cat. She, too, was being fed the standard clinic diet of dry food with occasional canned food. When I took her home, she ate the same grain-free canned food Amber ate, and her hairballs virtually disappeared.
Allegra is my first raw-fed kitty. She has never had a hairball in the year she’s been with me. She also doesn’t shed. I’ve always brushed all my cats daily, but I’ve never had a cat who doesn’t shed. She also has the shiniest coat of all of my cats. I brush Allegra every day because she likes it, but the amount of hair I pull out of the brush after each session, compressed into a ball, is smaller than the size of my thumbnail.
Are hairballs a problem for your cat?
Today is National Hairball Awareness Day, which is sponsored by Furminator, Inc., and to mark the occasion, they have generously offered a Furminator Deshedding Tool for Cats to go to one lucky reader. Come back tomorrow to enter our giveaway!
Photo: Feebee.
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While cancer in cats is not as common as it in dogs, it is still one of the leading causes of death in older cats. According to the Animal Cancer Foundation, 6 million cats will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States along. And because cats are masters at masking illness, it is often harder to detect. Cancer used to be a death sentence for cats, but recent advances in feline cancer research have made treatment possible in many cases. Just like with human cancers, early detection is key to successfully treating feline cancers.
Common cancers in cats
One of the most common forms of cancer in cats is lymphoma. Other frequently seen cancers are oral squamous carcinomas, similar to what people get. Fibrosarcomas, or soft tissue sarcomas, are tumors developing in muscle or in the connective tissue of the body. These are generally associated with injections and vaccinations. Other forms of cancer are less common, but they do occur in cats: lung tumors, brain tumors, nasal tumors, liver tumors. There are fewer incidences of mammary tumors (yes, cats can get breast cancer, too) since more cats are spayed and spaying is one of the best ways to prevent this particular cancer.
Symptoms of feline cancer
People and cats both show similar symptoms when it comes to cancer:
If you notice your cat showing any of these symptoms, take him to your veterinarian for a thorough examination.
Diagnosis
Diagnosis will vary, depending on the presenting symptoms. An exam will most likely include a complete blood chemistry, blood count, and urinalysis. Your veterinarian may take x-rays, perform an ultrasound, and take tissue biopsies. Depending on where the biopsies are taken from, this may require sedation, or full anesthesia. Biopsies will be reviewed by a veterinary pathologist to determine the type of cancer.
Treatment
Treatment options for cats are almost as varied as treatment options for human cancers, and will depend on the type of cancer. Surgery is the most common treatment for any lumps or growths that need to be removed. In some cases, surgery can be curative. Other cancers may require chemotherapy or radiation. Cats tend to tolerate chemotherapy much better than people, and can have good quality of life for many months and sometimes even years following treatment. Radiation therapy may be used for tumors that can’t be removed. This is a more stressful therapy for cats, since it will require sedation or anesthesia for each treatment.
Causes
There isn’t as much research into the causes of feline cancer as there is on the human side, but I don’t think it’s much of a leap to assume that some of the same environmental toxins that cause cancer in humans also cause cancers in our cats. There have been some studies looking at secondhand smoke and feline cancers. Vaccinations and other injections have been proven to be responsible for fibrosarcomas, and these findings have led to changing vaccine protocols for cats.
Prevention
While some cancers are caused by genetic mutations, there are still things cat owners can do to lessen the likelihood that their cats get the disease.
A wholesome, species-appropriate, meat-based diet is one of the most important foundations for preventing cancer, or any other health problems in cats. A balanced grain-free raw meat or canned diet provides the best nutrition for your cat. As obligate carnivores, cats do not need carbohydrates in their diet. In fact, commercial dry cat foods have been linked to many of the degenerative diseases we’re seeing in cats such as diabetes, kidney failure, and inflammatory bowel disease. The latter is often a precursor for intestinal lymphoma. The one best thing you can do for your cat’s health is to eliminate all dry food from his diet.
Environmental toxins and stressors are also linked to cancer in humans, and probably cause cancers in cats. Avoid exposure to commercial cleaning products and use natural products instead. Make sure your cat always has pure (bottled or distilled) water available. Most municipal water systems are contaminated with anything from heavy metals to chlorine. Don’t use chemical flea and tick products on your pets, use natural alternatives instead. Minimize vaccinations, and if your cat already has cancer, do not vaccinate the cat at all.
Cancer is a devastating disease, but early detection, combined with ever increasing treatment options, makes it possible for cats to continue to live with good quality of life.
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In memory of Sophia: cat owner runs half marathon to benefit cancer research
Feline nutrition: who bears the responsibility?
Photo is of Feebee, my first cat. I lost him to lymphoma two days before his sixteenth birthday.
Melissa Steinberg lost her beloved cat and best friend Sophia to lymphoma in November of last year. On May 7, 2011, Melissa will be running in the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half-Marathon to raise money for the Animal Cancer Foundation to help find a cure, or at least more effective treatments, for this devastating disease for both humans and their animal companions.
Melissa first met Sophia when she was living in Los Angeles and working crazy hours in the film industry. Even though she was worried that her lifestyle at that time was not conducive to having a pet, she began looking at photos of cats at LA shelters online. Says Melissa “I looked at all of those cats, and I thought, how can I pick just one? But then I saw Sophia, with those eyes. I just couldn’t stop thinking about her and I couldn’t wait for the weekend when I would be able to go to the shelter and get her and bring her home.”
Sophia was about 4 years old. The shelter workers wouldn’t even let Melissa touch Sophia without protective gloves. Sophia was terrified, and they were not sure whether she would be aggressive. Melissa had already made up her mind before she even met Sophia, and brought her home that day. Sophia hid for three days. She wouldn’t eat, and ultimately, Melissa had to crawl under the bed and syringe feed her.
On the third night, Melissa was watching tv, and Sophia was watching her. “Finally, she came out, jumped on my chest, curled up and went to sleep. From that moment forward, we were inseparable” says Melissa. Sophia never lost her fear of people, with the exception of Melissa and her husband David, whom she met after adopting Sophia.
Eventually, Melissa moved to New York with Sophia. Melissa attended law school, and she was worried that Sophia might get lonely, so she adopted another cat, Dr. Katz, from Animal Care and Control in Manhattan. The two cats hated each other from the moment they met, and couldn’t even be in the same room together. Sophia only ever wanted to be with Melissa and David. She slept on Melissa’s pillow every night. She was happy. Eventually, Melissa and David adopted Earl Grey to keep Dr. Katz company.
When Sophia was 10 or 11 years old, Melissa noticed that she wasn’t eating, and took her to the vet for tests. She knew cancer was a possiblity, but she hadn’t even gotten the test results back when Sophia crashed. Melissa rushed her to the VCA Veterinary Referral and Emergency Center in Norwalk, CT in the middle of the night. Sophia was in extremely critical condition, and spent five nights at the clinic. She still didn’t have a definitive diagnosis, so Melissa took her to the famed Animal Medical Center in Manhattan.
The diagnosis was lymphoma, and Sophia received chemotherapy at the Veterinary Oncology and Hematology Center in Norwalk, CT. She never responded well. Eventually the disease started to affect her central nervous system, and she wasn’t eating, no matter what they tried. In order to get nutrition into her, the vets inserted a naso-gastric feeding tube. Sophia pulled it out. The vets placed an endogastric tube, but while recovering from the surgery, Sophia kept getting seizures, which they were not able to control, and she died that night.
“From the day she got sick to the day she died, it was barely more than a month,” remembers Melissa. “It was a terrifyingly fast-moving, aggressive cancer. For most of her illness we didn’t have much time to think, we just acted. We made sure she had the best possible care, but that meant we were at the vet nearly every day. We knew she had a terminal illness, but we truly believed we’d have her for several months, if not years. We never believed we could lose her so quickly.”
During Sophia’s treatment, a friend who was about to run the New York marathon suggested to put together a fundraiser to help defray Sophia’s massive veterinary costs. Melissa thought about it, and had just started training when Sophia died.
Melissa decided that it was more important to do something to honor Sophia’s memory, and she choose the Animal Cancer Foundation as the beneficiary. She choose ACF because Dr. Gerald S. Post, DVM, ACVIM, one of the founders of ACF, was Sophia’s vet at the time of her illness. “He was very caring and thoughtful and loving with her when she was so sick.” She choose a California location to honor Sophia’s heritage.
Melissa has never run a half-marathon before, but she ran competitively in high school, so that distance is not foreign for her. Until the weather improves, she is training on the treadmill, but she is signed up for some shorter road races over the next few months.
If you’d like to contribute to Melissa’s fundraising efforts and help honor Sophia’s memory, you can do so by visiting her fundraising page at Crowdrise.
The Animal Cancer Foundation develops and supports research that advances the prevention and treatment of cancer for people and pets. Specifically, their endeavors focus on furthering research in comparative oncology, which is the study of cancers that occur similarly in both pets and humans. In this way, ACF is committed to advancing the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of such cancers, and becoming a preeminent resource in educating the public and scientific community.