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?
