A. Datta - CAT CARE: Caring for Furry Mouse-traps A.k.a. House Cats

by A. Datta

Copyright 2010-2016 A. Datta

ISBN 978-1-4523-3666-4

Nonfiction Home and Garden Pets & livestock Cats General
Nonfiction Children's Books Animals/Cats

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For Sweety, the nicest cat ever

Disclaimer of Warranties

This book is written with the best of intentions butcomes with no warranties. And of course cats should not be deployedin mission-critical applications, controlling medical equipment ornuclear facilities ;-)

Although most things apply to cats all over, all butthe first chapter of this book are specifically based on house catsfound in east-central India. Note that this is a brief but usefulguide. Brevity is its hallmark.

Clickable Tableof Contents

A house cat is any domesticated member of the genusFelis.

The following diagram shows their exact position inthe animal world and thus house cats are known as Felis catus andalso as Felis domesticus.

House cats are somewhat larger than stray onesbecause the latter generally are greatly underfed. The termdomestic cat is usually applied to non-purebreds a.k.a.non-pedigree cats. Domestic cats may be shorthair, longhair, red,tabby, black and blue and frequently with markings. Unlike pedigreecats they are also frequently semi-longhair.

Pedigree longhairs often referred to as Persian catstend to be short and heavily built with small ears and a flatishnose on a roundish head and sport a plethora of color variationsand may be patterned or particolored. The original breed of Persiancats is the Doll Face Persian. The Exotic Shorthair is actually anoutcross of the Persian and may even produce longhaired offspring.The Maine Coon or American Longhair is a famous hunter. The Sphynxis a coatless breed. The Ragdoll is blue-eyed and docile. It isalso point colored, that is, darker at the extremities. One of themost popular breeds is the Siamese, a native of Siam or Thailand.It is known for its intelligence and can retrieve objects like adog. The Siamese Persian is an interbreed of the Siamese andPersian varieties. The Birman is the Sacred Cat of Burma orMyanmar. The Chinchilla cat which is quite different from therodent by the same name, is said to make a very attractive pet. TheTurkish or Van cat likes water and is a natural swimmer. TheBritish shorthairs are sometimes incorrectly assumed to benon-pedigrees. The shorthair variety known as Manx is eithercompletely tailless known as "rumpies" or may have an almostnon-existent tail stump in which case they are called"stumpies".

Some cats have colorations on their limbs that arereferred to as "socks" or "gloves".

Every house cat must be given the anti-rabies vaccineas per the advice of a registered veterinary doctor. In fact thisis not a perfect solution. And if the cat bites or claws into theskin of a human being it is still necessary for the victim toconsult a physician. Of course the chances of a vaccinated catcausing rabies being relatively less many people don't botherconsulting a doctor if the cat is domesticated and vaccinated forsure. I myself belong to this group but will not recommend it toanyone as being totally safe. Cat owners need to preserve thelatest vial labels from these vaccines to help establish that thecat is vaccinated and victims of attack have a right to see thisdocument. They also have other legal rights but should rememberthat the law does not permit anyone to inflict any injury on a petexcept in self-defense in most of the world.

For a complete list of all the vaccines available inyour area talk to your vet.

Other than vaccination, deworming your cat is alsonecessary. The medicine has to be administered with some food whichthe cat prefers. If your cat eats rice and fish for instance, youshould go for pure fish when you have a deworming medication toadminister orally. Cats frequently don't like the taste ofdeworming drugs. If you are going to give it with milk, it shouldbe lukewarm and certainly no warmer. Also if the amount of milk istoo little the drug may offend the taste buds. If it's overmuch,your cat may not be able to lap it all up. It is also a good ideanot to give it any food for at least a couple of hours beforedeworming and to watch out for the same. In case you are wondering,deworming involves destroying the intestinal worms within a cat'sbody. This is not only for the cat's sake. It is much more for yoursake because the same worms that your cat carries can be carried byyou. So when you deworm the cat consult your family physician aboutdeworming your whole family. A word of caution about deworming yourcat if your vet prescribes about as much medicine for cat as yourfamily physician prescribes for you (frequently it's the same pill)take a second opinion. I know a vet who has a lot of experiencewith dogs but relatively less with cats and habitually prescribesthe same amount of drug for a three-month-old cat as for a grown updog!

The way to restrain a cat during inoculation is tosuspend it by clasping the fold of skin behind its neck close tothe head but not very close to the backbone which causes pain, maycause serious injury and doesn't work. If its claws can still reachyou which often happens with female cats you'll need another personto hold the hind limbs with a thick towel or multilayered denim.Giving a shot demands regular practice in addition to experience.So if it's once or even five shots each year, it is safer to callthe vet even if you know how to give it hypodermically behind theneck or hypodermic could become intradermal or you may even end upinjecting yourself. If you need to confine your cat for a couple ofhours till the vet arrives, lock yourself up with it rather thanalone which would make it irritable.

Purring is a low vibrating sound made by house cats.New cat owners particularly those having experience with caninestend to get alarmed when their cat makes this sound. One possiblereason for this misapprehension is probably the partial similarityof the sound to a low growl typical of ill-humored dogs. In fact,if your cat purrs it means it's quite content. Moreover cats growlas well and when they do it is meant to warn like when they don'twant someone to come near their kitten or when they don't wanttheir offspring to come near them to suckle because it is weaningtime. Since both purr and growl are onomatopoetic it isn't reallyvery difficult for a new owner to differentiate between the two. Ifyou want to be surer, search YouTube for "cat purr" and "cat growl"separately.