All about cats

The cat is a pleasant animal to have at home, as many Italians who have taken one have understood, and who have kept it as a life companion, sometimes for more than 10 years.

It is a cute, cuddly, a bit solitary but still affectionate animal, in its feline ways of behaving, even if, when you take a cat, you have to consider that we are taking a responsibility from which you cannot ignore it, for all its life.

Remember this: our cat depends on us, we can never forget it.

A cat, like any other living being, has the possibility to get sick and, as it happens for us humans, there are simple diseases, which pass in a few days, and more serious diseases that can remain without a chance of recovery even for a lifetime (chronic diseases of the cat).

In this list of ours, we have therefore collected a series of diseases that are, in our opinion, among the most common cat diseases.

Obviously it is impossible to make an estimate because according to the lifestyle and the environment in which it lives, a cat is also subject to very different diseases; a castrated cat who stays at home is much more at risk of obesity, and its consequences, compared to a cat who stays outside, perhaps more subjected to infectious diseases.

So here are the five most common cat diseases that every cat owner should know about.

Mouth problems

Problems with the cat's mouth are by far the most common problems, although they are often undiagnosed and little considered by owners.

The problem, essentially, depends on the fact that a cat in the wild would live much less than a cat living at home (average life span of a domestic cat is about 17 years).

The cat, in the same way, must first deal with tartar, which is impossible to prevent since we cannot brush our cat's teeth every day...

Let's say that from this point of view the kibble (dry food) than the cans (wet food) is more useful, because of the "clean" the cat's mouth.

But bearing in mind that a cat eats everything, sooner or later we will find ourselves dealing with this type of problem.

The food problem, however, is not the only one: there are, for example, scratches on the mouth, wounds and mouth ulcers, which can also be caused by some particular infectious diseases, as well as the dangerous eosinophilic granuloma, something similar to a tumor that is located in the back of the mouth.

All these problems lead to the cat not eating, not eating as it should, but often owners interpret these behaviors as "the cat doesn't like kibble".

This is sometimes the case, but it is rare, the cat is an animal that tends to eat regularly in general, so if it does not eat there may be a problem with the mouth.

Instead of wandering around pet shops for days, perhaps with the cat in your arms to make a choice, it is better to opt for a visit or even an X-ray of the mouth. Sometimes the solution is right there.

Fleas

Another absolutely underestimated problem is that of fleas, these small animals that walk on the cat's hair feeding on its skin, which they tear by sucking the liquid that comes out.

The problem, also, in this case, is that the owner is not aware of the fleas, because to the human eye they are very difficult to see, they are very fast and very small.

The ticks, you can see them well, maybe there is only one, and you get alarmed to go to the vet to have it removed.

The fleas, on the contrary, with the fact that they cannot be seen, it is as if they were not there, but the symptoms are well evident: the cat licks itself, scratches, sometimes has scabs, and can also have dermatitis due to the allergy to their saliva, which is not fatal but is one of the most annoying things possible.

Imagine that your whole body itches, simultaneously and continuously, without interruption.

In addition, fleas lead to another problem called Dipylidium caninum: it is a parasite whose larvae live inside the flea. The cat, at times, scratching itself swallows the flea (which jumps to escape) and swallows it.

It digests the flea but the parasite, a worm, is resistant and begins to grow; if you see it, it is equal to our tapeworm, so it is long and feeds on what the cat eats. So that the cat will lose weight, even at levels that can become very serious.

Fleas can be spotted by looking at the cat's hair: at the base are a series of black dots that are their excrements: if we see something like this we know that we need an antiparasitic treatment.

This, in addition to the cat, is done at home: yes, because fleas live at home, even if we do not see them, and if we treat only the cat but not the environment, the problem will return in the short term. Catademy strongly recommends being aware of this. 

Obesity

Obesity is the main problem of all castrated cats living indoors.

When a cat, in fact, lives in our house and has no reproductive stimuli, so it makes "the good life": it eats and sleeps.

This, however, is dangerous over time: in fact, if a cat does not consume the calories it swallows, these will turn into fat, which in the long run, leads to consequences that are difficult to eliminate.

The problem, essentially, is that fats (and also carbohydrates, which are reworked by the body to become fat) accumulate both in the adipose tissue, which is under the skin, and (and this is the serious thing) in the liver: this becomes yellow and greasy, and literally the fat drips out.

We talk about liver steatosis, and it is one of the situations that most endangers the life of the cat because the liver becomes so fragile that it can break down, even if the cat makes a jump.

A liver rupture leads to internal bleeding that kills the cat within an hour, and there is no surgery that can save it, it's a virtually instantaneous situation. In some breeds of cats, such as the Persian cat, you have to be careful that the cat does not ingest its own hair because this can cause cases of intestinal occlusion.

That chubby cat you love so much is at risk of his own life.

The FeLV

FeLV, or Feline Leukemia, is an infectious cat disease that is transmitted from cat to cat.

Unfortunately, transmission from sick cat to a healthy cat is very simple and very common, because the virus that causes it can be transmitted even if two cats rub each other's snouts, or if they drink from the same bowl.

It's a bit like our cold (very easy to infect), only you never recover from FeLV.

This disease affects the bone marrow and causes the white blood cells to reproduce more than expected, leading to leukemia, i.e. having too many white blood cells in the blood. These sometimes cluster and form neoplasms, i.e. tumors.

A cat suffering from FeLV, once it has contracted the disease, cannot be cured, but a series of measures can be implemented to limit the disease, such as keeping it at home.

If we castrate him to stay at home and he stays dry and well-fed he will not encounter cold, other animals, other cats that could hurt him and thus stimulate the immune defenses, leading to the production of white blood cells that, we said, are already too many and would make the problem more serious.

In fact, if we can keep it under control we can also keep a cat sick of FeLV for a very long time. Particular attention should be paid to not letting other cats come into contact with our sick cat because it would transmit the disease.

For FeLV at the moment there is a vaccine, which is protective but not 100%: in short, we can vaccinate the cat but there is a risk that she will get sick anyway, especially if she leaves home a lot.

To avoid this, we can unfortunately only castrate the cat before the disease occurs and make sure it stays indoors, thus avoiding contact with other cats and, consequently, the possibility that it may contract this disease.

IVF

IVF, or Feline Immunodeficiency Immunodeficiency, is another infectious disease similar to FeLV, less likely as transmission, but more severe as symptoms.

The virus is of the same family as the human HIV virus, and from here we already understand the gravity of the situation.

It is a very widespread virus for cats living outdoors, and very present in Italy. And there is no vaccine, at the moment, just as there is for HIV that infects human beings.

Cats transmit it, more than through venereal, by blood (with scratches and bites), however, always during the struggles for mating, and it is one of the reasons why castration greatly limits the problem because it induces the cat to stay calm.

IVF is not a fatal disease in itself, even if it can lead to FAIDS, the feline version of AIDS: the problem essentially is that the virus puts the immune system, the defenses, of the cat in a situation of inefficiency, which means that if even the banalest disease entered the cat's body the cat would not be able to fight it. With this mechanism, IVF can become fatal.

Unfortunately, there is no certain way to prevent it, even if castration or sterilization greatly limits its incidence, to keep it indoors, let it out as little as possible and feed it well.

A situation that puts him, therefore, in a position to have little chance of incurring other infectious diseases. effects the best we can do.