Vet Care for Indoor Kitties
One of the most common questions asked of veterinarians is, "Why does my indoor cat need to see the vet?" Well, as it turns out, there are several reasons why your indoor cat should have regular veterinary care.
Plenty of cat diseases affect pampered, indoor cats.
Most of the illnesses that we veterinarians treat in our feline patients are illnesses that affect indoor and outdoor pets equally. They are not contagious diseases. They are conditions like heart disease, diabetes, overactive thyroid, arthritis and periodontal disease.
Medical problems faced by our pet cats are usually treatable, frequently preventable, and sometimes curable. However, if we don’t look for illness, we won’t find it, and we can’t fix that which we do not know is broken. That is why veterinarians stress the importance of having your indoor kitty examined at least once yearly. For senior kitties (those over the age of 7 years), most vets prefer twice yearly physical exams.
It is during the physical exam that your vet will hear a heart murmur, find an enlarged thyroid gland, notice stiff hips, or find painful tooth decay. Once the problem is identified, you and your veterinarian can form a plan to address the issue, improve your cat’s health, and extend his life.
My cat is acting just fine – he must be healthy.
This may be the biggest misconception among cat owners. Most cats are going to act “just fine” until the day they finally are so incredibly ill that they just can’t hide their symptoms any longer. At that point, the cat is usually so sick that treatment is complicated, expensive, and not usually effective.
Hiding illness is a survival mechanism that has been selected for through thousands of generations. In the wild, it is the slow, the weak, and the ill that are captured and killed. Your pet cat has been pre-programmed to hide signs of illness at all costs.
If your cat is not going to report symptoms of disease to you, her trusted human care taker, then how are we going to know when something is wrong? That’s right, through the physical exam. Your veterinarian is trained to check all body systems – to examine your cat from nose to tail. In my house call practice, the most common hidden illness discovered during a routine wellness exam is tooth decay. Cats accumulate plaque and tartar, and this bacteria-ridden build-up quickly produces painful, infected gums. The most commonly affected teeth are the pre-molars and molars – teeth hidden in the back of your cat’s mouth. I have met few cats who would tolerate, and even fewer cat owners who would try to perform, a complete oral exam at home. It is during the physical exam that I discover the decayed, loose, infected, even fractured teeth. These findings are typically a shock to the cat owner because the cat is still “acting fine.”
What’s this wellness testing all about?
Wellness testing, junior screen, senior screen, well cat blood work, yearly lab tests, that’s the jargon that you will hear. By the time you hear the receptionist suggest it, the vet tech discuss it, and the doctor recommend it, you may think we are all trying to sell you a used car! Well, technically, we are trying to sell you something – quality preventative health care for your cat. The reason that the entire veterinary team stresses it so much is because of how important we think it is. Remember what we just discussed? Your cat is pre-programmed to act healthy at all times. Well, that includes during the physical exam.
Veterinarians recommend regular lab tests because there are illnesses that can be hidden from both the pet owner and the veterinarian. Here is a typical scenario.
I’m seeing Mrs. Doe’s 11 year old house cat, Jane, for her senior kitty check up. My vet tech has asked Mrs. Doe all of the typical questions. How’s Jane’s appetite? How are her litter box habits? Is she acting normal? Mrs. Doe reports that Jane is “just fine.” Jane drinks a lot of water, but that is “normal for her.” During the exam, I find that Jane has lost a pound of weight since her last vet visit, six months ago. However, she was always a little chunky, so she doesn’t appear too thin. In fact, she looks good sans the extra pound. The remainder of her exam is normal – all seems well. I suggest wellness testing for Jane, especially in light of her weight loss, and my vet tech collects blood and urine samples. When the results come back from the lab, I discover that Jane is not “just fine,” as Mrs. Doe thought. In fact, she has chronic kidney disease. She is drinking more and losing weight because her kidneys are not working properly.
When caught in the early stages, before symptoms are noticed, many common cat conditions can be well managed. For example, kidney disease can be managed for several years, diabetic cats can go into remission, and thyroid disease can be successfully treated.
Indoor cats need vaccines.
Yes, your indoor cat needs to be up to date on his vaccines. Here are some reasons why.
#1. Herd Health. This is a term we borrow from our colleagues in large animal medicine – out there treating herds of cows and pigs and such. However, you can think of a city’s or county’s or state’s cat population as a herd too. (Same theory applies to a “herd” of dogs, or, for that matter, a “herd” of people!)
In order to protect the herd from a particular virus, usually 75% to 95% of the herd must have immunity to that virus. So, to protect all of the cats in the geographical area of Marion County, Indiana, about 85% of all cats need to be vaccinated. There are feral and stray cats who don’t have a person to vaccinate them (and our friends at IndyFeral have not yet found them!). Some cats are owned by people who do not understand the importance of vaccination, and so they aren’t vaccinated. Other cats have chronic illnesses or immune system problems and cannot tolerate vaccinations. Together, that’s probably approaching 15% of the local cat population (perhaps even a higher percentage). Therefore, all of the cats who are healthy and live with responsible pet owners must be vaccinated in order to prevent an outbreak. Vaccine programs only work if most of the population actually gets the vaccine.
#2. Public Health. Most of the diseases against which cats are vaccinated only affect cats. However, Rabies Virus affects people too. That makes vaccinating your cat against Rabies a public health issue. To comply with Indiana law, your cat must have a current 1-Year or 3-Year Rabies vaccination. The Rabies vaccine is safe, effective and inexpensive. Rabies is contagious, preventable and almost always fatal. You do the math.
#3. Your Cat’s Health. Are you really, positively, absolutely, certain that your cat will never come into contact with another cat or the germs from another cat?
No comments:
Post a Comment