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11 posts about cats.
Three injections for a puppy, then one more at six months. It is not the vet being cautious. Why the early ones can fail, why the one at 16 weeks matters most, what every dog and cat needs, how often adults need boosters, and when a puppy can go out.
Slow to get up, lagging on walks, no longer jumping onto the bed. Much of what gets called slowing down in an older dog or cat is joint pain, and pain can be treated. The early signs, six questions for cats, and what actually helps.
Breathing that has quietly sped up in sleep is often the earliest sign of heart trouble in a dog or cat, well before a cough or a collapse. How to count it in a minute, what the studies say is normal, why your pet's own number matters most, and when a count means calling the vet.
Most limps are a cut pad, a torn nail or a knock that is better in two days. Some are a torn ligament that gets worse with every walk. How to check the paw yourself, which leg is which, what a cruciate limp looks like, what needs a vet today, and why "rest it and see" has to mean real rest.
You found a lump. Most are harmless, some are not, and you cannot tell which by feel. What the vet wants to know, the ten-minute needle test that answers most questions on the day, the lumps that should never be watched, and how to keep a lump map so that "has it grown?" has a real answer.
A cat that shreds the furniture is not being naughty and is not sharpening its claws. It is doing something it needs to do, in the best place it has found. Give it a better place and the sofa survives. What the post has to be like, where it has to go, and the mistakes that make it worse.
A cat in pain does not cry or limp. It jumps a little less, grooms a little less, and sits slightly differently, and owners put it down to age. The behaviours vets actually look for, the face scale anyone can learn in five minutes, and what can be done once you know.
The first seven days decide a surprising amount, where the kitten toilets, what it thinks hands are for, whether the carrier is a monster. A calm plan for the week, the shopping list that matters, and the mistakes almost everyone makes on day one.
About a third of cats over ten develop chronic kidney disease, and most owners hear the words as a death sentence. It usually is not. What the kidneys are doing, the stages vets use, the four things that genuinely slow it down, and what daily life with a kidney cat looks like.
Cats have a reputation for being the cheap pet. The routine lines are indeed lower than a dog's, but the surprises are the same size, and two of them are specific to cats. A line-by-line budget for an indoor cat in Europe, the first-year extras, and the three costs nobody plans for.
A cat that suddenly loves the tap, the bath, your glass, is telling you something. The four conditions behind most of it, how to measure what "more" actually is, and why this is one of the few cat symptoms where a week matters.
