Cats are some of the most loving creatures out there, and they deserve all the love in the world. If one ever finds its way into your house, be it a stray or an adopted cat, you must know how to properly take care of it. Janet King and Dr. Alice Jeromin talk all about it with Dr. Linda Schoenberg, a cat veterinarian and immunologist. Together, they discuss the most practical way to bring a cat into your home, especially if you already own dogs or other cats. Dr. Linda also shares valuable advice on adopting adult cats, treating cats with various health issues, and providing them with a nutritious diet to keep them healthy at all times. This discussion is a must-listen even if you do not own a cat – who knows, you might be getting one soon!
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Taking Care Of Cats With Love With Dr. Linda Schoenberg
This episode is all about cats with our cat expert extraordinaire Dr. Linda Schoenberg. Linda is the former owner of Just Cats. She’s revolutionary in that she is really a pioneer in a woman-owned cat-only veterinary practice very early on and I give her so much credit for that. She’s also a PhD Immunologist and as I said our go-to person for anything about cats, cat health, kittens, senior cats. It’s going to be full of fun and information. Even if you don’t own a cat, you need to read on because I’m telling you, including you dog people, you’re going to have a cat someday! A cat will find you and you’ll need all this information. Welcome, Dr. Linda Schoenberg.
Yes, let me just interject something. The people who blew me away the most while I actively owned Just Cats were dog owners that said, “I could never imagine having a cat in my house.” The cat somehow got into their lives and it was like, “How did I live without a cat in my life?” You can have both a dog and a cat because the people that feel that dogs and cats can’t coexist in this world, and our world is really in big trouble right now, it is true that dogs and cats can love one another, sleep with one another and it’s just unbelievable.
They groom one another. I think it is so cute. Now Janet is slowly evolving into that with Libby the Golden Retriever and her sister and brother cats, aren’t you, Janet?
Just the girl cat. The boy cat wants nothing to do. No.
That’s weird.
The girl cat, Isabelle, they’re friends. They’re definitely friends.
The dog is a female?
Yes. Linda, this is me with the boy cat. He goes like this. He doesn’t come near me. He goes near my husband and my sons.
I can’t tell you about the XY chromosome versus the XX chromosome. Why this male cat only seems to be able to bond with other XY’s is news to me. That’s very strange. Cats write the book! They write the rules.
They enforce the rules too.
Alice, Dr. Schoenberg is a three-peater.
Yes, and that makes you an honorary co-host, Dr. Schoenberg.
Do you mean because this is my third visit with you wonderful ladies?
Right, so you and Dr. Rustin Moore, Dean at The Ohio State University College of Vet Med, we have to give you the crowns for the honorary co-host, right, Janet?
On SNL, they give them like a smoking jacket.
That’s right. Before we get started, I want to see Linda’s sweater and I hear matching slippers.
Bring it on, Linda.
Okay. All you cat lovers out there, this is an old sweater but I love it and it’s so appropriate.
It makes me want to go like this, like a cat.
Not like this?
These are the slippers that a friend of mine got for me and I guess they said they can be washed because there was some discoloration on the bottom here and just for the heck of it, I went on Amazon to see if they had them. Even though these say on the bottom, “-so-comfy,” when you Google that on Amazon, it says, “-so-comfy” it has two other brands, the exact same slipper and I think they were $12, which is cheap and they’re quite comfortable and comfy-cozy.
It’s like little cat paws.
They’ve got little things on the bottom so that you don’t slip.
Linda, you have a big foot.
Seven and a half.
38 or 39 is what I wear. I’m a ten.
38 or 39 European is a 7 or 8.
Okay. I’m like a 40 then or 42 or some big one.
Whatever. You don’t go by the size, you go by the fit.
Preparing To Bring A Kitten Into Your Household
I agree. Size is only a number. Now, speaking of dogs and cats getting along, I have two Goldens, okay, 4 and 5 years old and Janet has Libby who’s about the same age, how would I go about bringing a kitten into the household, Dr. Schoenberg? What are your tips for that?
I think it’s like when you bring a new baby into a house. If the dog is really bonded to one individual, I would have another person hold the kitten while you come into the room and greet your dogs and “Nice puppy,” sit down and then maybe transfer the kitten into your lap and see if the dog approaches, you pet the dog, “Nice doggy. This is the kitty. This is whatever you name your kitty,” and they’ll probably sniff.
I’ve never done this. I’m just telling you what my mind tells me we should do. Let them sniff each other and hopefully, the cat is not going to freak out and the dog certainly shouldn’t freak out because it’s this tiny thing and it might even think it’s a funny looking puppy. I would make sure that the kitten is protected during the first couple of meetings or I don’t know how many days it might take.
When you get a second cat into a household, I would put the kitten in a cage so that the dog can get up close and sniff it and then make sure the kitten has time to navigate the house and where its litter box is, where the food and water is and then of course you also have to be in a position to make sure that the dogs are not eating the kitten’s food or drinking all the water so it has to be in places that are, in a way, protected or food goes down when they’re done eating, it gets picked up.
It’s not that cat food is harmful to dogs, it’s just that it’s higher in fat and protein and it might cause pancreatitis or give the dog diarrhea.
The cat needs to have its food. Just like in multi-cat households, there are some cats that are pigs and will eat up everybody’s leftovers and so you have one cat that is grossly overweight and other cats that might not be at ideal weight because they’re grazers. Canned food, in some instances, will offset that problem because I believe that many more cats will eat a portion of canned food rather than with dry food where they graze and then they walk away, come back, eat a little bit more. If you have a dog or another cat that likes that food, it’ll be gone. That’s what you’ve got to take care of.
Some cats are pigs and will eat up everybody’s leftovers. In a multi-cat household, one cat can be grossly overweight compared to the others. Share on XShould you pick up the food after they eat or not? Assuming there’s not a dog in the household, what’s your opinion on that?
If it’s a multi-cat household, you might need to do that if the other cat finishes off the food. If it’s a single-cat household, it’s safe to leave out. Certainly, dry food is safe to leave out all the time. Canned food, it’s not going to go bad after a couple of hours but I would prefer to decide on a portion that the cat will eat and then the next time you feed it, you give it another part of a can or if it’s a one of these three-ounce cans they might eat a whole can. It just depends on how big the cat is and the caloric requirements.
I used to leave my dry food out for grazing. Janet, what do you do with your two?
Ours is we leave it out, the dry food and the cats come and go and they also dine alfresco.
You put your food up so the dog can’t get to it.
Yeah, because of the dog. I’ll be in the other room and I’ll hear slurping sound and I know Libby the dog got into it so right now, it’s up. It’s always up high and they have a private space where she can’t go.
You have big dogs and so the point is that if you’ve got a Golden or a big dog, they’ll just put their paws on your countertop and they’ll lick off everything so you’ve got to be very mindful of exactly where you’re going to put the food so that the dogs don’t have the ability to eat it.
How To Pick The Right Rescue Cat For You
My family’s decided we’re going to get a kitten. I’m a family and we’ve decided we’re going to go get a kitten. What do we do? We’re going to go to the rescue place. How do you know which kitten? Should you get 2, 3 or 4?
You want to become a “cat-aholic”?
Be “catatonic”!
No. I always used to tell my clients that according to everybody that does behavior in cats, cats are solo creatures. Believe it or not, they really like to be by themselves. You talk to my clients and they say, “What? My cats love one another. They could not exist without having other cats in the household.” What people are experiencing and what is supposedly the truth about cat behavior don’t sync.
They also say, “If you’re going to get another cat, get so there are two cats so they theoretically could bond,” because once you introduce a third cat there’s always an odd cat out. Two of them will bond and one of them will be ostracized. Whether the cat even cares, who knows? But you don’t want to create more anxiety and stress in a household than you need to.
When you go to one of these wonderful shelters, I think what I heard most from my clients because the cats that came into my life were either hanging around somebody’s home and they couldn’t take it in. We had a client who had found two what looked like Siamese mixed females down by Case Western Reserve University and they bred it with a purebred Seal point somewhere east of Cleveland.
She had wonderful cats and my daughter went there and my daughter was a little kid and she picked out this kitten who turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ll tell you about it in a second. Anyway, I think when you go to one of these rescue places, there are cats that will come to the cage and they want to interact with you and they’ll put their head like that for you to pet them and they may even give you kisses. The staff there certainly knows which cats are the very friendly outgoing social cats and those are the ones that will get chosen.
My Einstein, that was what my daughter named this cat, Einstein. My daughter named this cat Einstein and he was a Lynx point which means they have an M on their forehead, and the stripes. A snowshoe, meaning he has white feet, Siamese. He used to follow the sun around all the beds on my upstairs. When I would come home from work, even though he was her cat, he bonded with me.
I would go “Einstein, meow,” and I’d hear thud. That was him jumping off the bed and then you would hear him going thumping coming downstairs and then I would lean forward and put my palms on my thighs and I’d go, “Einstein.” He would hop onto my thighs, into my hands, then I’d lift him up to my head and I’d say, “Give me kisses.” He would kiss me. My father wanted to vomit!
Who sleeps in bed with their cat?
It was crazy. Every single every one of my cats except for the very last one that I owned somehow decided to sleep between my feet under the sheet. Isn’t that weird? I never invited them, I never encouraged them to do that. It’s just that at nighttime they maybe felt it was a safe place to be to hang out.
Clients have always told me that Siamese cats love fabric and they like to go in your sweater drawer or under the sheets like Dachshunds like to do.
All I know is that my Giant Schnauzer when my husband used to be on the road traveling for his job, we have a king-size bed and he used to come up and lay on not only my husband’s half of the bed but he would be at an angle and I would take my foot and push him over and he’d go, “Grrr.”
I’m curious, how old did Einstein live to be?
Not quite ten because like many Siamese cats, genetically, they have a predisposition for getting intestinal cancer. He had high-grade lymphoblastoma.
Linda, I lost my last cat, Little K, to intestinal cancer. He was thirteen and a half, I believe, and I noticed his abdomen enlarging. I had an appointment at the internal medicine specialist, this was like a Thursday, and she was getting me in on Saturday. The next day, his stomach got even bigger and that night, he just died in his sleep. I ended up aspirating some of the fluid because I had to know and it was full of cancer cells. He was just full of cancer. It was that fast and he really had no symptoms prior to that. He’d throw up occasionally, like maybe once every four months. When he’d throw up, it was usually hairball or maybe a little bit of bile but he really kept it a secret, if you will.
That’s the story of cats. Cats hide symptoms of disease until they have three and a half legs in the grave is what I used to tell clients. They mask it so amazingly well. The crazy thing with Einstein was that he responded really well to the chemo and in the two-week period between the end of the injectable chemo, it came back with a passion. It was it was terrible.
Quality of life. One of the hardest things as a veterinarian that we do is having these discussions. They’re not owners anymore, they are pet parents, about quality of life for not only the pet parent but for the patient because unlike people who don’t have a choice unless they live in Oregon or go to Europe, when the time is right, they should be able to go with dignity and not have to suffer. I’ve had so many clients throughout my career that said to me when it was all over, “I wish I didn’t wait so long”.
I agree with you. The other thing is I think the pet parent needs to know they’ve done everything they can, I want to say within reason. My philosophy is just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I always ask whether it’s my own medical situation or a pet, is this procedure, which isn’t an easy procedure, going to make a difference in the how I treat this patient or myself because this procedure is not without risks. If it’s not going to give me information, I say then let’s not do it.
Veterinary medicine has, for ages, I think it’s fair to say undercharged for the amount of service and quality of service that is provided. Now that’s changing and practices are trying to charge a more equitable fee so that their employees can get paid a decent wage and it’s a for-profit business. People say, “But you love animals, so why aren’t you just giving it away?” Sadly you can’t just give it away.
For ages, veterinary medicine has undercharged for the amount and quality of service provided. Share on XFor people who don’t have the money, I think it’s so important to say to them, “It’s okay. It’s okay because look at how far this pet has gone. You’ve been such a good parent for all these years. Look at what the fine job that you’ve done. If whomever upstairs makes the decision that things are changing and not for the better, you can just say, ‘I accept it but I want my cat or dog not to suffer.’”
Treating Cats With Herpes Virus
The other sad thing, just like you, we always we help out rescues and you see these kittens with this horrible viral facial herpes. The eye infections are so bad that sometimes they have to have their eye surgically removed. What is your advice? Let’s say someone adopts a kitten from the shelter and you know how contagious this herpes virus is and they bring the kitten to you. What can be done about that?
Hopefully the shelters are being more responsible in testing and medicating before releasing pets that have these issues. Also, if you’re going to be using certain eye medications, they are not cheap and they’re not always readily available. Is it the responsibility of the shelter or whatever agency it is that is trying to rehome these to provide the medical care for these pets as part of the deal? Do they need to wait? The question is herpes is the gift that keeps on giving. It will go undercover and when there’s stress in a household, it will reemerge. Just like people with fever blisters. They’re always there. When a human being gets stressed out, their fever blisters can reemerge. New treatments for herpes include an antiviral and doxycycline together as well as antiviral eye ointments.
I think shelter medicine has come a long way. Back in the day, when you graduated vet school, “What are you going to do?” “I’m going to work in the shelter.” It was it was like, “Ugh, I’m going to work at the shelter.” Now it’s so vital that we’re getting these rescued animals that are hit by cars and the policemen bring them in and shelter medicine is like ER times 1,000 because there’s no money there, you have to stabilize these pets. It’s tough. It’s a big “thinking on your feet” type specialization of our profession.
Way back in the day, I think when a physical exam was performed on any age pet, I don’t know what a lot of veterinarians did, but if they don’t look at the inside of the eye, look at the retina, open up the mouth, flip the lip, look at the teeth, palpate the abdomen, always palpate the neck to feel for thyroid tumors even if a cat is young. It’s amazing the number of cats that you palpate that can have a little thyroid blip. I can’t remember how many people would come into the practice, especially when I opened up the mouth. “That was never done on my cat before.”
I know, or can I say this, look at the butt. I’d always explain to them even though I did Derm, we’d flip the cat around and I’d look under that tail, in the mouth, etc. A FULL PHYSICAL EXAM!
If something was waving at you, hello, tapeworm.
Especially with cat allergies,, a lot of times that rectal area was so inflamed and they’re rubbing their butt just like dogs do with their anal glands. I agree with you, a thorough physical exam isn’t stressed enough. Right away, they want to go to CAT scan or MRI. You’ve got to put the animal under anesthesia for that. Not everyone makes it out of anesthesia. A good physical exam is worth its weight in gold.
Since you had a specialty in Derm, we had a very fine flea comb and I was called the finger of the flea. I am determined if I had a feeling and you can have a feeling about every cat because it’s not a bad feeling to comb and comb and get one flea.
That’s all it takes.
That’s all it takes. They said “Oh my God.” I said “I’m Dr. Flea,” because it is so crucial. A lot of people don’t have the patience to be thorough. The other thing which is changing is the recommendation and it depends on a practice to do blood work. Even though it can be expensive. What’s the value of blood work because there are times when you can pick up a problem early on or if you do it every year once they get to be a certain age, you get to see trends.
What age do you advise to start doing blood work?
At Just Cats, I believe the age is seven. Any animal that’s undergoing anesthesia for a dental or if they have a little growth or something, they should have blood work done. My feeling is I’m just saying to my client, “We can have something we can compare. We have a baseline. If it changes, then we know something is cooking and we need to figure out what it is that’s going on.”
How To Take Care Of A Cat With Thyroid Problems
Now when you’re talking about the thyroid nodule, what age do veterinarians need to check for that? A cat parent should say to the vet, “Would you check on that for me?” they shouldn’t have to ask. First of all. What age do you normally see a thyroid problem and what is the thyroid problem in cats?
In the late ‘90s, I believe, all of a sudden, they were finding many cats that were eating like there was no tomorrow and losing weight. Every woman’s dream. You don’t have to work out. You just eat and the weight just comes off of you. What they found was that cats get a condition called hyperthyroidism. It is a benign, which means kindly, it’s not malignant, hyperplasia which means an increased number of cells of the thyroid.
In the body, you have pituitary, the master gland in your brain. The pituitary regulates a number of different hormone syntheses that go on in your adrenal glands, in your reproductive system, in your thyroid. What comes out of your pituitary is a stimulating hormone. It’s called TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone. There’s also a feedback mechanism that when the thyroid hormone level is appropriate, it shuts down the cells that make the stimulating hormone.
That’s what keeps everything in check until the thyroid has an issue. The issue is that regardless of what’s happening, the thyroid stimulating hormone is still getting pushed out and making the basal metabolic rate of the cat go up, makes the appetite go up, it also can cause some muscle wasting and it can affect the kidneys by causing the kidneys to have an increased filtration rate and it can mask underlying kidney disease.
It was so prolific and until things really made it into the journals and not every veterinarian read their Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, cats were being euthanized because your cat is losing all this weight and guess what, it’s not leukemia positive. That was always the big killer until we got leukemia vaccine. If your hands were not super accustomed to palpating an abdomen and reaching up all the way up and feeling for two kidneys that were more or less the appropriate size and going down the intestine and not feeling a big lump there that wasn’t a soft bladder or something like that, they were missing cancers.
The thyroid, in my opinion, the more frequently we have the opportunity to go down the side of the neck and feel for whatever, the better off we are. There were many times that I would feel a thyroid slip, the way they’re referred to as and the value of the thyroid was still normal. What you need to do is you need to put it together. First of all, you’ve got to weigh the patient. Every time a cat or dog is seen, they should be weighed because they do not determine that they’re not going to look good in a bathing suit this summer and lose weight.
If their parents don’t feed them, obviously, they’ll lose weight. If they’re getting the same amount of food that they’re accustomed to getting and all of a sudden, the weight drops, you know there is something wrong. In a cat, the most common thing, and we typically see it when they’re eight and above, the older they get, the greater the risk of developing hyperthyroidism is. That’s why you should always feel it. Better you should learn how to feel a little slip that is not active, than not feel it and wait until it’s already causing problems.
How do they diagnose that their thyroid is off? They feel the lump and…
They do a T4. Part of a senior blood panel consists of a chem screen, a complete blood count and differential and a thyroid blood test. It’s called a total T4.
I got that right, blood work. How do they treat that? Does it involve a pill.
There are a number of different ways in which it can be treated. The gold standard is when it’s not just slightly elevated but it’s a decent amount, they do what’s called radioactive iodine. They give an injection of radioactive iodine and wherever there is thyroid tissue, it will suck it up and it’ll kill the cells. Typically, the cats don’t become hypothyroid and need to get thyroxine supplementation. Now when I say it goes everywhere, because interestingly enough, thyroid tissue, even though it’s supposed to be right up here, sometimes migrates. It can be found in other parts of the body, which is why this particular form of therapy is really good.
However, it’s over $1,000 and the cats stay at a facility that administers the medication. It used to be 5 days, it might be 3 days now. After that, when the cat comes home, they say, “Do not let the cat sleep over your neck,” because the radioactivity can affect their pet parents. They don’t want them sleeping over your genitals because if you’re still thinking on having families, you don’t want to have anything mutating because of the radiation that’s there.
The radioactive material comes out of the cat’s body I believe it’s a good four weeks post-treatment. Every time you clean the litter box, hopefully you’re using clumping litter. You’re putting all of the urine balls, all of the stool into a garbage can that is kept in your garage and then it sits there for a total of three months and then the radioactivity has declined so that when the garbage men pick it up and take it off to wherever the garbage goes, they have radioactive scanners at the dump sites. If they get a buzz, they’re going to find the garbage and then they’re going to come after the person who did it.
I had no idea about that.
That’s the gold standard, radioactive iodine.
If I can’t afford that, what’s my other option?
The other option is a drug called Methimazole which blocks the combining site on the thyroid cell so it refuses to let the thyroxine get in and make that cell work hard. Very rarely there can be some problems with Methimazole and cats can develop an autoimmune hemolytic anemia. I had one patient in all of my career that developed that.
It’s not real common.
Not real common, so you need to tell people to be on the lookout for some bleeding and the other thing with the medication is that you have to find the right dose. There is no perfect way of determining that given when you get the total T4. It could be sky high, it could be a little bit over the normal range and you want to start off with a small dose. Give it for maybe three weeks, have the owner come back in and we repeat the T4 and we also look at a renal panel.
Why? As I said, thyroid and kidneys coexist. The higher your thyroid output, the more it can mask underlying kidney disease and as the thyroid comes down, the kidney values can get worse. You have to be careful. Under ideal circumstances, you would like to have your total T4 to be at the high end of normal so as to cause fewer problems with the kidneys than all the way down where it’s very suppressed.
The thyroid and kidneys coexist. The higher the thyroid output, the more it can mask underlying kidney diseases. As the thyroid comes down, the kidney values can get worse. Share on XThis medication is for life. You don’t just put it on for a couple of weeks. It’s forever.
A Healthy Diet For Cats With Thyroid Problems
Correct. It’s forever. They do make a transdermal Methimazole and you have to wear gloves to apply it to he ear flap. When you give the pill, you’re supposed to wear gloves. It’s got to be given just like the pills twice a day. You alternate ears and then you’ve got to wipe the residue off the stuff. You want to make sure that the skin is clean so that when you apply the next dose, it gets absorbed. What is also interesting is that Hills, I don’t even know at this point how many years ago, developed a food that is called y/d.
I don’t know why is it called y/d.
It’s because t/d was the tooth diet so they couldn’t use it for thyroid.
It’s yummy diet. We’ll just take y.
Y/d comes in dry and canned. There are many veterinarians who will not use it no matter what. They don’t believe in it.
I don’t understand that. I love to control a disease with diet.
Me too. Even though the canned version was never totally loved by cats, the dry was better accepted by many cats. It’s just like when we had cats that were allergic to a protein. There are a whole lot or were a whole lot of novel protein diets available. One of the common ones was venison. There was venison, there was rabbit and there was duck. Was there a fourth one?
There was venison, rabbit, duck and then there was z/d, which was hydrolyzed chicken.
Okay, but anyway. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a meeting. It was out West and it was at one of these ski resorts but it was held when it was summertime. I’m looking across the shelf and there was a food that was the preferred version of all of the duck diets that we used. My belief was if they make it for a cat, I need to have it available because cats are weird. They could eat somebody’s duck and reject somebody else’s duck.
In 3 days, they’ll eat something and not want to eat it after on the day 4.
Who’s going to make the choice as to what diet they’re going to eat? Not me, not you. The cat is making the decision. I said to somebody, “Why did they get rid of it?” “It’s because it wasn’t selling a lot.” I would say to a vet who was in a situation, “Did you ever try this food?” “No, we didn’t have enough room on our shelves to keep that one around.” Even if it would have been the ideal food, it got dumped because the veterinarian made the choice as to what foods he was going he or she was going to sell.
Anyway, the y/d, the dry food, I would tell somebody, “Try put a little bit down one day. If the cat eats it, put a little bit more down the next day, see if the cat eats it. Continue doing that. If you find that the cat likes it, the problem is that is the only food the cat can eat.” Why? It’s because there is iodine in practically everything else in the world. If it’s chicken, it’s got iodine. If it’s beef it’s got iodine. If it’s whatever, it has iodine and it’s got to be iodine-free in order for it to work.
We, not me, but a lot of people make decisions “My cat couldn’t just eat on just one food. He would hate it.” ask that of your cat and that’s not true. If the cat likes the food, he’s not going to say “What am I getting for my other choice?” That’s not even part of the game plan for them. What’s beautiful about the y/d is that unlike the pills, it has a saving effect on the kidney function. It is gentler on the kidneys than the Methimazole. The other thing, the beauty is if the cat’s eating the food, you don’t have to give it a pill. You don’t have to rub medicine on the ear. It’s a done deal.
As far as tips for changing foods for a cat, I always told my pet parents, “Whatever food you’re going to do, let’s say y/d, don’t put y/d down abruptly. You have to do it gradually.” They look at it and say “What’s that new food? What is that? I don’t like it.” You have to gradually go into it.
I would offer it to them also before you give them their regular food because if they’re hungry, they might be more willing to try it. It’s just a little bit you’re offering them.
You use the advantage of them being hungry, I agree. Having said that, you can’t let a cat not eat. With dogs you can say, “You don’t like that? You’ll eat it in two days.” You can’t do that. Why can’t you do that with a cat?
You can’t starve a cat because they will get hepatic lipidosis, which is a very nasty disease where fat infiltrates the liver and you have major problems. You can never make a cat do anything that it does not want to do and if you think you’re going to make a cat eat a food by not feeding it anything else, you’re creating the biggest crime of your life towards your pet because they don’t respond that way. They would rather die and not eat food that they don’t like. They don’t know that they’re dying but that’s what happens.
If you think you can make a cat eat a food by not feeding it anything else, you are committing the biggest crime of your life towards your pet. Share on XAll About Cat Allergies, Hydration Liquid, And Humidifiers
The longer they don’t eat, then that fatty liver, that hepatic lipidosis sets in, that makes them sick to their stomach, they don’t want to eat, so it just snowballs. Janet has her cats on LiveClear because she has allergic humans that live in her house.
LiveClear prevents the dander antigen from forming?
Forty percent reduces the allergenicity of the cat to her husband and sons.
It works.
Did you ever try the first thing that was out to do that when they were kittens to take a couple of liters of distilled water and pouring it over your cat? You know this, don’t you? They used to recommend if there were people who were allergic in a household, when they first introduced a kitten, so that the first week, you would take the water, pour it over the cat and then in a little container, a little basket whatever, and then put the water again and keep doing it for a couple of times.
What that does is it elutes, which means to remove, the feline dander antigen from the kitty’s fur. You use new water each time, each day, not every time you do it but if you’re going to do it three times a week or whatever, you use a fresh gallon of water or liter of water to do it. I think somebody, maybe somebody at the VA, this goes back a long time, the one who talked about this, after maybe a month of doing it a number of times a week, you can go to once a week.
Maybe even after that, you only need to do once a month because it’s the feline dander antigen to which we are allergic and if we can get it off the fur, then it’s not going to get into the air. It’s very sticky, it’s not going to get onto the furniture, onto the walls and onto the carpet. This is a nice thing that this particular food has that option.
I think we should wash the humans with distilled water.
There’s other stuff that’s much worse than feline dander antigen that we are allergic to. People are constantly have drippy noses and they say, “I’m allergic 24/7, 365 days a year.”
I agree and they make it up but this cat food has worked wonders. It’s unbelievable.
Thank you for teaching me something new.
You’re welcome, Janet.
Also, tell her about the hydration liquid you’re using.
We Dr. Deb Greco, internal medicine, who talked about how cats don’t get enough water and so there’s this packet. I don’t remember who makes it. It tastes like liver and you put it in the bowl. When I put that out, it’s like I put out a martini.
That’s my drink.
Not for me. Those cats are like slurping it. Janet, there was just a study that was published that said instead of giving sub-Q fluids for a moderately dehydrated cat, that supplement was just as good.
It’s amazing and it doesn’t smell that bad. It’s Purina Hydra Care.
It is pricey, let’s put it that way.
How old is this cat?
Our cats are they’re going to be five in April 2026.
I guess the question is, and this is a hard thing to figure out, although I think maybe there could be a way but it’s probably not worth it. Cats that eat a lot of canned food get so much more moisture in their bodies than cats that do dry food. I’m sure there are people who are feeding canned foods who never see their cats drinking out of the water dish. The next question would be if you were maybe to look at it scientifically, if you do a specific gravity of the cat’s urine before you introduce this Hydra Care, then do a specific gravity and what specific gravity is it’s a physical chemical term that looks at the concentration of a solution.
The thing in urine that is responsible for that number is urea, which is a breakdown product of protein. That being said, if this additive affects the specific gravity of the urine, first of all, if the specific gravity is normal, should we even bother to supplement? If it’s not normal and we need them to drink more water, then obviously it would be an appropriate supplement.
I’ll tell you what the cutest thing is, when you get out of the tub, you have like a bath mat, it’s like a towel heavy towel thing. After you take a shower, you go back in there to get dressed or whatever you’re doing and you’ll see little footprints on that bath because they’ve gone into the wet tub to lick the water. Every day, we get those little footprints.
There are cats that will sit by your sink waiting for you to turn on the cold water faucet to a drip because they want fresh running water.
I love those little fountains you can buy.
People have to keep them clean. That is the biggest dilemma with those fountains. Mold and other stuff can build up if they’re not cleaned. I just read in Wirecutter about humidifiers. I have a humidifier in my bedroom because I live in a 100-year-old house and we have radiators. It gets very dry. I take it off all the time to fill it up and I know there’s like calcium or some crusty white stuff there that is hard to remove. I took soap and water and that’s what they recommended soap and water and wash it out.
I use white vinegar.
Yes, any acid should do it.
I wash ours every single week but I was going to tell you, the cat will put her face where the moisture comes out like a little facial.
A cold water facial.
Yeah, she loves it. The girl cat, not the boy cat. The girl cat will make purring sounds.
I just think humidifiers and jetted tubs are like a mold factory waiting to happen.
I wash my humidifier because we only use it in the winter because it’s so dry. I wash it every week and we change that paper filter every week. I order them by the case.
Mine doesn’t have it. This is a little small thing that sits up.
I have the one Wirecutter told me to get, whatever it is.
Mine doesn’t have a filter. Anyway, yes, I find Wirecutter very interesting. I love Wirecutter.
Janet, we got to wrap it up.
There is so much to talk about. We love having Linda on.
How Can Cat Shelters Improve Adoption Policies For Adult Cats
Do you have any final advice for someone who wants to adopt an adult cat from the shelter? God knows, nobody wants an adult cat.
Nobody wants the older ones. I love the adult cats.
Here’s the dilemma. Owners don’t always tell the truth. Pet parents don’t always tell the truth. They can relinquish a pet because, “My child suddenly became allergic,” “We’re moving,” whatever. If the cat has a behavioral issue, they’re not going to say, “My cat pees on the bed or my cat scratches the furniture.” Whatever it is, they will not reveal that because, no brainer, nobody’s going to want to adopt a cat that has a behavioral problem.
I think the question is the first thing you do is you see how friendly the cat is with you. I don’t know whether the shelters had any policy where if you say, “I will take the cat on condition. I will keep it for a minimum of you name the number of weeks because I don’t know whether 2 weeks is enough or 4 weeks is enough. If in this time period, this cat does not adjust to living in my house, I have the right to return it.” You don’t want to make pet parents unhappy and you don’t want to subject a cat or a dog to abuse because it’s doing something that it’s been doing for years that the previous owners were unable to deal with.
The sad part is, too, if they adopt the cat and it’s not working out, they may be too embarrassed to take it back and then they just abandon it and that’s so sad.
Yes, that’s worse, and I also encourage people, if they can, to keep their cats indoors. We’re not Europe, when not Great Britain with a belief in letting them out because all of the things that they can get into are harming. A friend of mine, she lives up near Wilson Mills and they heard this incredible crazy sound one night. They looked out and there were coyotes. I said, “A puppy or a dog or a cat, or a kitten, they’re fair game. They don’t have a problem eating them.”
I really encourage people to give their animals, their pets a lot of love. Try to find activities that are safe to do inside the house. I love the cat dancer because they can’t swallow it. My cat used to pick up the wire in his mouth, bring it on top of the bed lie on it so that the thing would arc around and then he tried to kill it with his hind legs. You can find things to engage your pets so that they get some physical activity and some interaction. They always say if you going to use one of these lasers and if your pet does what it’s supposed to do with it, always give it a reward. It’s important to reward them for doing what they need to do.
Discussion Wrap-up And Closing Words
Right, because if they catch the laser point, they need to reward. They need some satisfaction. You’re right. Janet, we’ve got to wrap it up. Did you learn something in this episode?
I always do. I love talking to Dr. Schoenberg. I always get really good tips and the explanation of hyperthyroidism, I think, is excellent because any pet parent with a cat eight years and older needs to keep their eye out for that.
Any cat that’s eating and losing weight has a problem. Sometimes, they will howl at night because it causes hypertension.
Any cat that is eating but still loses weight has a problem. Share on XThank you so much and I hope it warms up in Cleveland.
Thank you, Dr. Schoenberg. Janet, thank you as always.
Pleasure.
Everyone out there, give your cats a nice big hug and kiss. They’re just wonderful to have around. They do us a lot of favors. They see a lot of little rodents that are in the home that shouldn’t be there.
That’s their job. Not all of them want to kill them.
That’s part of the interview process when we get kittens. “Are you killers? You’re in.” Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Don’t forget to like us, share us and follow us. We appreciate you. Thanks for reading.
Important Links
About Dr. Linda Schoenberg
Linda Schoenberg graduated as a VMD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 and with a PhD in Immunology in 1976. Following graduation, Linda worked in a variety of human medical settings, including Jefferson Medical College, Metropolitan General Hospital, and Veterans Administrations Hospital in Wade Park. In 1980 she began working in veterinary hospitals in Rochester, NY. She became a diplomat for the ABVP in Feline practice in 1997.
Dr. Schoenberg opened Just Cats Hospital in South Euclid in 1988 after having spent 8 years in companion animal practice in University Heights. She retired in 2016 and sold her practice to Dr. Jessi Pizzuli. She served as president of the Cleveland Academy from 1983 to 1984 and from 2008 to 2009.
Having been an avid runner and fitness junkie she currently teaches Senior Fit to active senior adults and teaches bodyworks, abs and aqua classes to the general membership at L.A. Fitness. Dr. Schoenberg still works part-time at Just Cats Hospital. She also loves to dance and read.