Pasha was a survivor. She was born fighting for her life, and her life ended the same way. Pasha was a fighter with a fierce life force and spirit to live, even when confronted with the most challenging physical problems to overcome. From the day Pasha was born in the drop box of the Martinez Animal Shelter, Pasha fought with all of her might to stay alive. She and her three newborn siblings and her mama were deathly sick with Feline Viral Rhinotacheitis (FVR), a common virus that spreads in animal shelters that can quickly devastate fragile, vulnerable kittens. When we brought Pasha, kittens and mama cat home to foster—one by one, the kittens succumbed to the virus following several visits to the emergency hospital to revive and treat them. But their tiny bodies could not defend against the virulent virus and they surrendered to the disease. Only Pasha survived along with her beautiful mother. Pasha had the life force of four lives in one. Now 18 years later, Pasha is fighting for her life again with every weak breath that is slowly taking her life and her vibrant, beautiful spirit with her. It is with so much sadness and heartbreak that we witness Pasha losing her battle to stay alive. In the last 24 hours, Pasha has developed rapid labored breathing, lethargy, weakness, and has stopped eating—as her physical body is letting go of life. And now, we are facing the toughest challenge, a day we wish would never come, the day we need to help our little Pasha go, to alleviate any further suffering for her.
Continue reading A Tribute To My Beloved Pillow Kitty, PashaHow to Determine Your Cat’s Age in Cat Years
Ever been curious how old your cat is in cat years versus human years? Well, there’s no absolute or reliable scientific calculation for determining exactly how old your cat is in cat years, but there are good calculations that come close to estimating your cat’s approximate age. So here’s how to determine your cat’s age in cat years.
What Factors Determine How a Cat Ages?
There are many factors that go into a cat’s aging and lifespan including how well they have been cared for, whether they are indoor or outdoor cats, their daily diet and quality of food, whether they have received good veterinary care and annual wellness exams, whether chronic diseases and short-term illnesses have been treated in a timely manner, if they have received good dental care, the environmental stresses they have been subjected to, and their genetic predisposition to disease. Continue reading How to Determine Your Cat’s Age in Cat Years
A Tribute to the Most Loving Cat— Angus
On Saturday, we became painfully aware it was finally time to say goodbye to our beautiful, loving cat Angus. A neurological condition had developed in the past couple of years, causing increasing discomfort and stiffness in Angus’s hind legs and back end, and it finally overtook him on Saturday. Angus could no longer walk or stand up, his hind legs collapsing and folding underneath him. The truth is Angus’s strong, once-muscled, 18-year-old athletic body—finally gave out and broke. He died the day before the anniversary of my father’s death and two days before my mother’s birthday—on July 11, 2020. But Angus was dearly loved by his human and feline family, and had a most wonderful life.
The Diagnosis of Malignant Melanoma In My Cat
My 15+ year old rescue cat Marcello was always the picture of perfect health. He passed his annual routine checkups with flying colors every year and only needed two dentals in the 12 years he lived with us. No sniffles, no sneezing, no coughing, no viruses, no infections. He could not have been an easier cat to care for. Until he started peeing outside the litter box. That’s when things started to change. That was a year and a half ago.
Marcello lived with three other rescue cats upstairs on our second floor. He would have been very happy as an only-cat, but unfortunately that was not his destiny as I was in cat rescue, and was actively trapping abandoned cats in our community, bringing them home to foster, medically treat, and socialize, before putting them up for adoption with my cat rescue organization. One by one, there was always a new rescue cat that Marcello had to put up with. He hated the competition for attention and would even punish and bully each cat for stealing affection away from him. He was a one-woman cat and that had to be understood by any new resident cat who came to share his home–those were Marcello’s ground rules and he strictly enforced them.
Marcello himself had been abandoned. Someone who owned him in his early years had left him behind and moved away, leaving him to fend for himself outdoors. Marcello survived, but he had been in his share of cat fights and had the scars and torn ears to prove it. But his real wounds were all on the inside—his trust in people had been deeply injured and his confidence in people shaken to the core. During the first two months of Marcello’s healing with us, he feared being abandoned again. Every time I came to visit him in his room, he completely let his guard down and would wrap, twist and curl his body all around me, then head-butt me over and over again, all with a big orange tail flared out like a bottle brush. But when I would get up to leave, Marcello would attack me like a police dog—and bite my ankles with a vengeance and leave me a bloody mess. That fear of abandonment slowly dissipated over time as he came to trust and realize that he was safe with us. In short order, Marcello became one of the most affectionate, loving cats I have ever come to know. He was a cuddle bug who loved nothing more than being stroked, rubbed, petted, caressed and loved every minute I could give him.
Continue reading The Diagnosis of Malignant Melanoma In My Cat The Latest Pet Food Recalls and Alerts
The latest pet food recalls and alerts from the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) based on reports and alerts received from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and/or manufacturers. This page also contains the latest product safety recalls.
See the AVMA’s latest Pet Food Recalls and Alerts.
How to Adopt an Adult Cat
Adopting an adult cat through a foster-to-adopt arrangement is often a great option to make sure the cat is right for your home. Adult cats come with fully developed personalities and temperaments, they are mature, trained, better behaved than kittens, and know they’ve been rescued and will be forever grateful to you.
There are so many reasons to adopt an adult cat over a kitten, but in cat rescue, it’s often the kittens that get all the attention and get adopted, leaving the adults behind. But it’s the adult cats—the ones who have often been abandoned, are homeless, or have lived through loneliness, suffering, and maybe illness—that need the unconditional love of a committed home. Continue reading How to Adopt an Adult Cat
Treating and Preventing Feline Herpes Virus Infections
In our household of multiple cats, you could say we learned the hard way about feline herpes virus infections, how they are triggered and how to prevent them. We came home from a week vacation to a serious herpes virus infection that worsened for months before improving. This is our experience treating a stubborn herpes eye infection and how to avoid an outbreak in your cat in the future.
Feline Herpes Virus is extremely common in cats, with kittens often born with the virus from their mothers. Adult cats can carry the virus for years without showing any symptoms. Feline herpes virus can lie dormant until the immune system is weakened, or the cat experiences a stressful event, or even a particular medication can trigger the infection. In our case, it was our vacation that triggered the “stressful event” that brought on a raging eye infection and stubborn corneal eye ulcer that took five months to treat, heal and overcome.
Continue reading Treating and Preventing Feline Herpes Virus Infections
A Tribute to my Beloved, Beautiful Cat Marcello
Just over 12 years ago, a beautiful, lean and well-muscled orange tabby boy skulked and slinked low to the ground into our back yard—and started visiting our home. He was hungry and living outside during an exceptionally cold, wet winter when we were visited with constant storms and pelting rain. For three nights in a row, this orange beauty slinked across our patio to where our feral food bowls were located, right in front of our French doors, and scarfed up as much food as possible, before pivoting and discreetly walking away as quickly and quietly as he came. My first thought was that this orange tabby was a new feral joining our small band of neighborhood feral cats that I had taken responsibility to feed outside every night. These cats had come to depend on us for their nightly repast for many years now. But on second thought, I knew it was even more likely that this adult orange boy had probably been callously dumped and abandoned by some thoughtless person who decided to move away with one less belonging—tossing this helpless creature to fend for himself, while she or he went on their merry way. It was evident that he had been living outside for some time, as the tips of his ears were well chewed on—healed scars and wounds from cat fights that left him tattered, but alive. He was extremely fearful of seeing us in the window—so his physical contact with humans appeared to be long forgotten and now we were something to be feared. We were enemy number one for this boy.
A Loving Tribute to My Dear Cat Dusty
On Monday, December 3rd, we sadly said goodbye to our sweet, dear old cat Dusty. At 21 years of age, Dusty’s body had just given out. His health had been slowly deteriorating, and in the past two years he was suffering from arthritis, hyperthyroid disease in recent months, kidney disease, muscle wasting—but the final straw was an upper respiratory infection that he could not overcome with antibiotics. The infection worsened, and when Dusty started to have difficulty breathing—we knew we needed to let him go. But Dusty put up a hard fight, he had fought valiantly to live, and didn’t want to leave his loving cat mates and his humans—but his body had other ideas.
Dusty was the dearest, sweetest boy imaginable. He had a heart of gold, was gentle and kind to all of his cat friends, and was dearly loved by his best friend Angus who stayed loyally by Dusty’s side—licking him, cleaning him, care-taking him and cuddling him. Angus thought of himself as Dusty’s big brother even though Angus was many years his junior. Angus would hold Dusty in his arms, his legs extended cradling his body, and he would give Dusty this loving embrace for hours. Dusty could not have been happier and loved Angus back equally, and felt secure in Angus’s strong arms.
A Tribute To My Beautiful Cat, Angel
On Sunday, December 10th in the early morning hours, I lost my greatest friend, my sweetest love, the most beautiful soul I have ever come to know on Earth. My Angel was beyond beautiful, she exceeded all definitions, and words can hardly describe her most profound and deeply beautiful spirit, but I will try in words to share our story and honor my beloved Angel in this written tribute to her. With a broken heart forever at her passing, and the deepest grief I can possibly feel, I want to share Angel’s deep soul, beautiful spirit and most profoundly loving being.
Angel came to bless our lives when she was brought to our home in early spring of 2004. We bought our house in June of the previous year, bringing two rescue cats, Pumpkin who was homeless in Seattle and Red who was rescued from being dumped at the Oakland Airport. With our new house, in August, we decided to adopt another rescue cat, which quickly turned into two rescue cats from Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek. We were sure that — that would be the end of our kitty family!