World Wide Whiskers

There are several diseases caused by an unbalanced diet: rickets, skin disorders due to lack of zinc or copper, urinary calculi, dilated heart … just to mention some, caused simply by poor quality food. Besides there are a myriad of diseases in which a poor diet aggravates the condition, unnecessarily exposing your pet’s life.

A cat that during the stage of development has not received the minimum quota of calcium can have lifelong complications. For example, if a female, the hip does not grow enough and could have serious complications when the time of delivery. For the same reason can reach six years old and have lost half his teeth. We have complicated half the life that remains, only for not having attended their nutritional needs.

Another advantage for the balanced, is that in no way can contract certain infectious diseases such as toxoplasmosis or TB, to quote the best known. Read the rest of this entry »

The cat is a “finicky drinker”. They are very sensitive to the cleanliness and taste of water. To encourage him to drink, you should have free access to water to pour into a clean glass, ceramic or stainless steel (avoid plastic materials that fix odors), and renew it twice a day. The ideal temperature is between 5 and 18 ° C.

Some cats have special habits: drink only from the taps, bath or showers …

When the cat does not drink enough, add a little milk to the drinking water is generally efficient to stimulate consumption. We can even add water to dry food. Some cats do not like, but some enjoy consuming hydrated. Read the rest of this entry »

The cat owners often wonder if their pets drink enough, especially when fed dry food.

Here are some recommendations to make to the owners.

Water requirements of cats

Drinking, helps offset the loss of water, which occurs in different ways: salivary – feces – urine

Salivary losses (licking) and respiratory diseases are not very important. When the temperature is 31 º C, panting induces a loss of water of less than 40 ml per day.

The amount of water removed through the feces depends on the nature of the food and its digestibility: the more fiber is in food, water loss is more important.

The water loss is urinary. Dry feed, about half the water consumed is eliminated in this way, with canned food 2/3. Read the rest of this entry »

How do you check the adequacy of the level of taurine?

To assess the suitability of a diet for the content of taurine, we measured blood levels of taurine in a cat has been fed for a while on this diet. The AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials), an organization that dictates the standard of manufacturing, distribution and sale of animal feed, requires measuring the concentration of taurine in blood supply twenty-six weeks elapsed on a diet test to include the heading “Maintenance” in a food.

For the heading “For All Life Stages” requires making measurements at six weeks of lactation in mother cats and ten weeks of growth after weaning kittens. Read the rest of this entry »

Cats that are fed a diet deficient in taurine can develop:

* Blindness: Taurine is essential for proper development and functioning of cells of the retina. If insufficient taurine, cells of the retina do not work properly and may die, which may cause difficulty in vision and even blindness. This process is called feline central retinal degeneration.

* Heart Disease: Taurine is also necessary for normal functioning of heart muscle cells. Taurine deficiency causes weakness in the heart muscle, which in turn can cause heart failure. This condition is called cardiomyopathy and can be fatal. Read the rest of this entry »

What is Taurine and why it is important for cats?

Taurine is an essential amino acid important for normal functioning of the heart muscle, vision and reproduction in cats. It is also necessary to form the bile salts that aid in digestion. Unlike other amino acids, taurine is found as free amino acid in body tissues like the heart and eyes, and is not part of the protein. Most mammals can synthesize taurine from other amino acids. However, cats can not synthesize sufficient and, therefore, must acquire an additional sufficient amount of taurine in the diet to meet their needs. In particular, cats need meat to satisfy their requirements, because taurine is found only in animal protein. Read the rest of this entry »

For a cat food to meet its goal to provide complete, balanced nutrition, it must contain a number of essential nutrients, the lack of which could lead to deficiencies with clinical manifestations or so early.

In recent years the scientific community has shown a growing interest in deepening the understanding of feline nutrition and have clarified many of the nutritional peculiarities of the cat. Current knowledge about feeding the cat show that this species has several features of their metabolism that result in some nutritional needs that are quite specific and quite different from those of the dog.

The cat is a carnivore, both from the zoological point of view as evolution, and thus reflected in their eating habits and anatomical structure. However, this does not mean you should eat only meat, but necessarily in your diet should include materials of animal origin. The cat’s natural diet based on hunting (birds, small rodents, reptiles, frogs, fish, insects, etc..) Of which not only consumes the flesh and bone tissues of the dam, but also swallowed the contents of digestive tract, often from plants. Read the rest of this entry »

Signs of aging

As decreases the ability to regenerate tissues, and are very slight wounds may take longer to heal than before, and reduced ability to fight infections and even increase the incidence of diseases like cancer.

The first signs that your dog is reaching old age are the graying, mainly in his mouth and his legs, the hair is thinner, like his skin, calluses are formed mainly on the elbows, chest and thighs from rubbing hard surfaces, your muscle mass will be decreased and thus their movements become slower and less agile, especially large breeds. Read the rest of this entry »

Health problems in old age classify as the system affecting the bearing as follows:

Digestive problems:

The first is the animal’s teeth, as if it has not had sufficient care or hygiene of the teeth, they began to fill with plaque which causes an inflammation and infection of the gums and can result in loss or affected teeth.

Digestion begins to be slower and less efficient because of the small muscles lose tone, which causes problems such as diarrhea or constipation.

It must be attentive to changes in your eating behavior, and distinguish whether due to aging or illness means you have to treat it on time. Read the rest of this entry »

There are factors involved in the aging process such as:

Nutrition for older dogs:

Obesity is a factor that reduces life expectancy in dogs, which at this stage is increased by an accumulation of fat due to a reduction in digestive capacity of the dog. The lack or decreased exercise performed also contributes to this obesity.

Loss of appetite and therefore weight either dental problems or illness is also a factor in aging due to reduced supply of nutrients, since the cells lose the ability to regenerate and fulfill their normal functions. Read the rest of this entry »