Monthly Archives: February 2017

Feline Health, Taking cat to vet

Providing Great After-Surgery Care for Your Cat

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Shady eating
Shady has always enjoyed her meals, but were there any food restrictions after her surgery. ©2017 Weems S. Hutto / DustyCatWriter.com

 

A week ago, I found a lump on the throat of our foster failure, Shady. I took her to my vet, who scheduled surgery for the following morning.  Dr. Cassie Epstein (a shameless plug for the fabulous Animal Hospital on Teasley Lane in Denton, TX) removed the 3 mm by 2.5 mm mass located under Shady’s jugular vein. The next morning Dr. Cassie cleared Shady to go home. The bulky black feline looked like she was geared for Halloween with her shaved side and stitches. As Dr. Cassie handed me the carrier, she gave me the instructions for Shady’s after-surgery care. Fortunately, she didn’t require much. “Watch the incision for signs of swelling or redness.” “Are you sure? No pills, changing dressing, cleaning the wound. Nothing?” I ask a lot questions because I’ve been to vets who give vague instructions or none at all.

Shady shows off her incision after surgery to remove a tumor. ©2017 Dusty Rainbolt / DustyCatWriter.com

 

Years ago, on a holiday weekend I rushed Oliver, a six-month-old foster kitten, to an emergency clinic for drooling and severe dehydration. The pricey clinic diagnosed him with a lesion on his tongue and treated him with intravenous (IV) fluids. They released him to me with a self-adhering bandage wrapped around his front leg where they had given him the IV. There were no written instructions, so I took notes. The vet tech said the kitty should be okay and leave the bandage on his leg to prevent bleeding. She never said anything about how long the wrap should remain on the kitten’s paw. By the time I arrived home, the paw was swollen twice its normal size. I immediately took the wrap off and returned to the clinic. The vet tech said I should have taken the dressing off after I got in the car. I looked at my notes. She hadn’t said that. In retrospect, I should have ask how long to keep the wrap on the leg. That day I learned a very valuable lesson: Never be afraid to ask questions, especially about post-surgery care.

Tabby recovering from orthopedic surgery
Tabby recovering after having pins place in both left legs. ©2017 Dusty Rainbolt / DustyCatWriter.com

 

After-Surgery Care Questions

Request written instructions about any medicine and care you have to give your kitty. To provide the best after-surgery care possible, here are four topics you should ask before you bring Fluffy (or Fideax) home after surgery:

#1 Activity Restrictions

Can Fluffy immediately resume normal activities like climbing the cat tree and jumping on the bed? If he’s just been neutered, it’s a good chance he can, but if he had abdominal or orthopedic surgery, no way. Normal activities may take two or even six weeks.

  • Does he need to be confined to a cage or will a bathroom do? When can he have the run of the house?
  • When can he start chasing and leaping at his feather toy?
  • Can the kids hold him?

#2 Care Instructions

  • How long will he be tender or painful?
  • What do I need to do to care for the surgical site?
  • Does the dressing need to be changed?
  • What if the bandage gets wet or dirty?
  • What complications should I look out for? Swelling? Redness? Tenderness? Oozing? Vomiting? Foul odor?
  • Most kitties will want to lick the stitches. How long does he need to wear an Elizabethan collar? Does he need a hard plastic lampshade or can he wear a flexible one? Can I apply bitter apple to prevent licking?

#3 Medications

  • List medicines, doses and frequency. What does each medication do for my cat? What side effects or reactions could be expected?
  • Can I give all the medicines at the same time or must I stagger them?
  • Do I give them with food or on an empty stomach?

#4 Food issues

  • Are there any food restrictions?
  • How often should he eat?

When to Worry

Call your vet if:

  • Your kitty is losing weight
  • He acts lethargic
  • He stops eating
  • You smell a foul odor
  • You see redness or swelling at the incision site.

Did I leave anything out? If I did, please let me know in the comments section below.

Behavior, New Research

Research Concludes Cat Memory as Good as Dogs’

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Cat memory is more than a Broadway song. It’s a fact according to new research.

 

It’s long been believed Fideaux is smarter than Fluffy, but new research questions the validity of the canine propaganda. Last year, a study published in Current Biology concluded that dogs remember some details of past experiences. A just-published study shows that cats, too, can access memories of past events and even recall some of the details.

Cats can recall memories

A team of Japanese scientists observed 49 volunteer domestic cats to determine whether or not they could remember which containers they’d already eaten from. Researchers let the cats explore open food bowls and eat from some containers before removing the kitties from the room. Fifteen minutes later, when the kitties returned to the room, they spent more time checking out the bowls they hadn’t yet emptied. The study, “Use of incidentally encoded memory from a single experience in cats,” was published last week in the journal, Behavioral Processes. Scientists observed the kitties recall details of past experiences, and “utilize the ‘what’ and ‘where’ information.” The final conclusion: cats have episodic memory, meaning they can recall details of a specific experience. Episodic memory is associated with self-awareness.

Cat memory is no surprise to anyone who has set out a carrier prior to a vet trip or quicked a claw while trimming nails. Cosmo, a one-year-old Siamese-mix, had always cooperated whenever I trimmed his nails. That is until the afternoon I accidentally pinched his toe while cutting his nails. For the next 13 years he hid whenever I pulled out the the nail nippers. He never forgot that pinched toe. So cats recall traumatic or painful events, but what about pleasant experiences?

Cats may even be able to daydream. In tests about understanding human gestures and facial expressions the cats performed as well as dogs.

Better relationship is researchers’ goal

These experiments weren’t IQ tests, but rather an attempt to better understand how kitties store and retrieve memories of experiences. The researchers hope their conclusions will cat owners and their pets develop better relationships.

“Understanding cats more deeply helps to establish better cat-human relationships,” lead author Saho Takagi, a psychologist at Kyoto University, said in an interview with  BBC. “Cats may be as intelligent as dogs, as opposed to the common view of people that dogs are much smarter.”

Additionally she told BBC that cats performed comparably to dogs in tests about understanding human gestures and facial expressions.

So next time you watch the Broadway musical, Cats, and Grizabella sings about her glory days, remember that the aging puss may actually be able to recall details of what and where.

Tell me about your cat’s memory in the comments below.

About Dusty Rainbolt

Author Dusty Rainbolt is an award-winning veterinary journalist according to her answering machine. She is an associate certified cat behavior consultant and member of International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, as well as past president of the Cat Writers’ Association. Her books, columns, reviews and articles have been honored with more than 50 writing awards including three-time recipient of Friskies Writer of the Year. Her just-released cat behavior book, Cat Scene Investigator: Solve Your Cat’s Litter Box Mystery, is the consummate guide for dealing with a cat who sidesteps his/her appointed toilet. CSI, which provides science-based methods for determining the medical or behavioral causes of feline inappropriate elimination, teaches cat parents to view their cat’s litter box avoidance through the eyes of a detective to determine the cause and, ultimately, the remedy.