Cat FAQ Health

The Cat FAQ health provides basic idea about the condition of your kitten. It won't be the substitute for a veterinarian's diagnosis or treatment. Be sure to seek the advice of your own vet. about any question you may have regarding your pet's health and behavior.

Just go through these Cat FAQ health to get an idea about your cat illness...

1. What are the signs of a healthy cat?
Cat needs to be alert and active. The animal should have normal walking, etc. Activities that are routinely carried out by the cats like drinking of milk, eating of food, pawing, licking activities, food habits including defecation and urination activities etc. need to be the routine ones.

The stool sample should not have the red tinged status or worms in it. The cat needs to respond when called, as usual. These indicate that the cat is healthy apparently.

2. How to find a sick cat?
If your cat does not come near you at all in a day, you need to watch the cat so closely for any signs of abnormality. The abnormality may be so apparent like a pain provoking swelling on the body or very pungent and bad odor from the body.

Some times, you may come across some indirect evidences of diseases like staining at the posterior regions of the body by the loose stools passed by your cat. Signs of oral diseases or disorders need to be understood by the cat owners.

Frequent pawing at the mouth region and bleeding from mouth regions indicate the chances for existence of oral cavity related diseases. You need to check frequently the signs like excessive yellow colored teeth, bad smell from the mouth region, and severe redness in the mouth.All these indicate about the oral diseases in cats.

Just observe the walking pattern of the animal. If the animal has limping, then the paw region may often has some problem and hence, needs to be examined closely, for the presence of any lesion or excessive redness or swelling or any foreign body.

If the cat behaves in an abnormal manner like biting everything etc., then suspect for rabies etc. All these indicate that the cat is not in a good condition and is sick.

3. What is the approach to worm problem in cats and how to diagnose this?

Diagnosis of the worm problem is simple in most of the occasions. Examine the stool sample under microscope and eggs will be visible. A clinical pathologist or a pet animal specialist does this generally.

When the round worms affect the kittens, the vomitus is seen with worms some times. Spaghetti like materials will be seen in case of vomitus in such occasions.

Tapeworm segments may be seen crawling at anus regions some times. Pyrantel pamoate, fenbendazole, ivermectin etc. are frequently used for worm problems. Similarly, for tapeworms, specifically, praziquantel may be used specifically.

4. Are hairballs common in cats and what to do for this?
Yes. The occurrence of hairballs is common in case of cats when compared to the dogs. Similarly, the animal may have long standing anorexia if there is hairball inside the stomach regions.

Dry hacking type of cough will be there in case of affections by hairballs. Vomiting will be more severe if there is concurrent gastritis in your pet cat with hair balls. Many times, the cats may have poor hair coat and less appetite. In such situations, veterinarian needs to be approached.

However, this condition is some what difficult to diagnose and however, the indirect evidences like entwined hair materials may be seen in feces of cats with hair balls. Though drugs producing purgation are given, the response is often dependent on the size of hairballs and body status during the therapy.

Hence, more care needs to be taken in this regard. Boredom has been attributed to be one of the causes for occurrence of hairballs in cats in addition to the natural habit of grooming of skin and coat, skin infections etc.

5. How to give medications to sick cat?

If the cat drinks milk, then the medication may be concealed in milk and given. However, do consult a veterinarian on this. This is because that drugs like tetracycline should not be given along with milk.

If not, by taking proper care, give some palatable feed to the cat. But, the cat may be made hungry by giving food in a delayed manner and in such occasions, mix the tablet or powder with food.

You need to approach the veterinarian for parenteral therapy with different kinds of drugs. If you need to give solution or a tablet by mouth in a cat that declines to eat, you have to be careful in using a dropper and place the medicines by side of the mouth only to avoid entry into lungs. Hence, aspiratory type of pneumonia can be avoided in such cases.

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