Question:

I am a new foster mom to a 3-year-old female cat through our local Animal Humane Society. She is sweet and friendly, and I''m thinking of adopting her myself. But since I''ve had her, I''m finding her to be shedding hair excessively. I brush her almost every day, and I just vacuumed yesterday, yet my floor is full of black cat hair. She is a domestic, medium-haired cat, all black and slightly overweight. She eats dry Purina One cat food that the Humane Society provided, and I''m trying to control how much she eats. Do you have any ideas why she is shedding so much? Is it dietary or maybe stress? Is there anything I can do to reduce it?

P.L., Maple Grove, MN Mar 07, 2010

Answer:

The two most common causes of excessive coat/fur shedding in cats are stress and poor nutrition. I recall one of my early TV appearances talking about cats and handling a spooky one on-set who had just been groomed. I stroked her reassuringly and clouds of fur surrounded us, which I inhaled and could barely talk!

The humane society from where you got this cat, like many animal shelters around the world, has been co-opted into being a marketing arm of the manufactured pet-food industry. Giving out free samples of dog, cat, puppy and kitten food with every animal adopted is a sure way to get owners hooked and believing that it must be OK because it comes from a "humane society." But they are doing a gross disservice to the pet-owning public because one kind of food does not suit all animals, and many of the kinds of food humane societies and animal shelters are giving away are, as per the title of my book co-authored by two other veterinarians, "Not Fit for a Dog." Dry cat foods high in carbohydrates and vegetable protein cause many health problems. Give your cat canned cat food such as Wellness, PetGuard, Evanger''s or Evo. Give your cat up to a teaspoon of good-quality fish oil in the food every day, beginning with one drop and slowly increasing the amount if she is finicky. While some cats seem to do fine for most of their lives on dry cat foods, a time comes in their lives when prematurely, their kidneys or immune systems give out, or they develop various gastrointestinal diseases, such as megacolon and inflammatory bowel disease. These and other diet-related health problems are treated in part with prescription/therapeutic dog and cat foods that are expensive, generally unpalatable, very profitable and ethically questionable when there is no concerted effort to eliminate their justification by insuring that dogs and cats are given a wholesome diet from the start. I see this as a major responsibility of the veterinary profession. My ethology cohort Professor Sir Patrick Bateson (in his U.K. report www.dogbreedinginquiry.com) is calling out vets to become more proactive in addressing the health and welfare problems of pedigree/purebred dogs.

Question:

I am writing in response to the person who has cats with frequent urinary infections.I have an 8-year-old female cat that was experiencing bladder infections. I tried diet changes and litter-brand changes. I then tried bottled spring water. Our city water is high in phosphorus, chlorine, fluoride and lime.My cat has had only one bladder infection since then and that was due to my husband''s forgetfulness -- he gave her tap water.I have four cats, and one bottle of spring water per day hydrates them well. It''s a small price to pay for the health of my cats.

D.C., Maple Grove, MN Aug 03, 2008

Answer:

Thanks for confirming what I have long advocated, especially for cats: pure water."The alternative is to install a reverse-osmosis water-purification system. Bottled "spring" water is not always what it''s cracked up to be, plus plastic bottles leach toxic chemicals (like bisphenols) into the water."Good-quality water is especially important for cats since, being originally desert-dwelling animals, they concentrate their urine to conserve water and do not have a well-developed thirst mechanism. This can mean that if they do not drink much to flush out their systems, harmful chemicals may accumulate in body tissues and also cause chronic-bladder inflammation (all aggravated when cats are fed dry cat food exclusively).Pure water is now hard to find on this beleaguered planet. Deep-water aquifer reserves are being rapidly depleted and polluted; agricultural pesticides and industrial pollutants contaminate rainwater; and all kinds of pharmaceutical products that sewage treatments do not get rid of are being found