“Doctor, I found this on the floor in my home and I am not sure which end of my cat it came out of!”  Mrs. Carlin began to open up a little bag she had brought along with her and her cat Smokey.  Smokey was Mrs. Carlin’s first cat and he had beautiful, medium length gray hair.  I knew what we were dealing with before I saw the contents of [...]

Cats have claws and scratching is a normal behavior.  Cats scratch to sharpen and clean their claws and to stretch, but they also scratch to leave their scent on things. If you go to the zoo or watch lions and tigers on nature shows, you will see the big cats engage in scratching behavior similar to that of our pet cats.  Instinct tells a cat to scratch, but training allows [...]

Cats in the wild spend a large part of their day hunting and catching food, so it is rare for a wild or feral cat to be overweight.  Our housecats have easy lives and usually just need to meow or look at us to be fed. Feeding a cat, or giving treats, is one of the few things we can do that elicits pleasant feedback from our cat.  You know [...]