The Only Natural Pet Store (see link to the right and down) is holding a November discount sale. When you order, fill in the discount word: HOLIDAY.
If you want to find holistic products for your cat, including organic and herbal cat shampoos, treats, and even toys, visit the Free Shipping on Orders Starting at $60 – Only Natural Pet Store
Cat's Teeth
First, let’s look at what they are. Most domestic cats are descended from African wild cats. When the Egyptians first began to farm and store food, this drew mice. The mice drew the wild cats, and the partnership between humans and cats began. The Egyptians were so grateful to the cats for helping to preserve their food, that they revered them as hunters and even worshipped them. Killing a cat was punishable by death, and cats were even mummified, they were so respected.
Interesting history, but this tells about what cats need. They need to eat meat. That’s what they were made for. Cats are carnivores. Most cats in the wild lived on mice, rabbits, and small game. They ate the meat, the bones, and even the intestines, which gave them the proteins, fats, calcium, and minerals they need to live.
There is a lot of debate today about cat food — should cats eat dry food, wet food, home-make food, or even raw meat? People are very passionate about what they think about this. The most obvious answer is that cats need meat. Many cat foods are made up of plant protein and what are termed “meat by-products.” A good cat food, wet or dry, should contain at least 50% meat. Without meat, cats will not get the nutrition they need, especially taurine, an amino acid present in meat proteins, but lacking in vegetable proteins such as soy. Lack of taurine can lead to blindness, heart problems, and even death.
Cat and Cat Food
There are pro’s and con’s for both. Wet cat food provides more water, which wild cats get from their prey, as mammals are mostly made up of water. Even humans. However, wet cat food is more expensive, does not store as long as dry food, and can be more smelly. Especially in these economic times, if you have one cat food, then wet cat food can be a very healthy choice, but what if you have more than one cat? Also, there are some cats, like mine, that will not touch wet cat food, no matter how hungry they get. When I got her from the pound, she had been started on Purina Kitty Chow and dry food was all she will accept.
Dry food is cheaper, easier to store for longer periods, and helps prevent tooth and gum problems by helping to clean plaque from cats’ teeth.
Raw food would be most like what cats would catch in the wild, but there can be a problem with bacteria.
Make sure that it is mostly made from meat, not meat flavoring with mostly carbohydrates. Then, make sure your cat gets plenty of water.
For my cat, the best cat food I have found is from Wysong. Wysong Cat Nutrition
It is vet-created and vet-manufactured to be the closest thing to letting her hunt in the wild for her food. I have a friend who lives in the country. She has a cat that she locks up in the shed at night for protection and warmth, but she lets him out to hunt every morning. He came as a stray and will not live in the house. She took him to the vet last year when she took in her house cat, and they both checked out healthy. (She does put flea and tick medicine on him.) He lives on what he hunts and catches and is perfectly healthy. That’s the kind of diet cats are made to eat.
Getting the Best Cat Food
Wysong pet foods are created and manufactured by the family-owned company formed by Dr. Wysong in 1979. He employs pet doctorate professionals to create the best natural, holistic pet foods and supplements and manufactures them in his own facilities.
He has created a new kibble dried cat food called Epigen(tm). It is the first and only starch-free cat kibble diet. It most closely resembles a cat’s natural diet with 60+% meat and organs and over 60% protein. It also includes other things good for your cat, such as probiotics, vitamins, minerals, and is rich in omega-3′s and other essential fatty acids.
All Wysong foods are manufactured at their plant using only USDA- and FDA-approved domestic-source ingredients.
We buy cat trees because cats love to climb trees.
Cat Climbing Tree
When cats are allowed outside, they will climb trees. It gives them a good vantage point to watch for prey. It also gives them a safe place to rest, to avoid becoming prey for something bigger that may come along.
With their claws and natural agility, cats are born tree climbers. Unfortunately, they’re not always good tree get-downers.
One very hot summer day a few years ago, I was working at home on my computer, wearing shorts and a halter top. My neighbor, who had adopted a couple of feral cats who insisted on going outside every day, came over in hysterics because one of her cats had climbed too high into a tree and couldn’t get down. She wanted me to get it. The cat was about 30 feet up. I grabbed one of the lower branches that I could pull down and called to her. She climbed down from branch to branch until she got onto the branch I was bending down. When she got to within six feet of me, she decided she had found the safest and quickest way down — she jumped onto the top of my head and slid, claws out, down my back! Her grateful owner took me home and applied some kind of green tea cat claw mixture to my flayed back. It made for a couple of very uncomfortable days!
Of course, Sneakers was safe.
Those of us who do not want to go through anything like that would be much safer and healthier — and so would our cats — if we bought inside cat trees. Then our cat could follow her natural instincts and we could save our skin. Speaking from experience, the cost of the cat tree is worth it.
Michie with Drinkwell Pet Water Fountain
This is my cat, Michie, drinking from her water fountain.
As you can read on the About Us page, she developed struvite crystals and almost died. The veterinarian said that she needed to keep drinking a lot of water and said that I needed to get a “bubbler.” I finally realized she was talking about a water fountain.
I knew she loved to drink from the bathroom sink faucet, so I figured she’d go for it — which she did. She loves it.
It’s now been over a year, and her last vet check came out perfectly healthy, so we both love the Drinkwell Pet Fountain and highly recommend it to any cat lovers.