1.Couldn't muster up sufficient disdain if all nine lives depended on it!
2.Teeth and claw marks all over your now-empty bottles of Prozac.
3.No longer licks paws clean, but washes them at the sink again and again and again...
4.Doesn't get Garfield, but laughs like hell at Marmaduke.
5.You realize one day that the urine stains on the carpet actually form the letters N-E-E-D T-H-E-R-A-P-Y
6.Has built a shrine to Andrew Lloyd Webber entirely out of empty "9 Lives" cans.
7.Spends all day in litter box separating the green chlorophyll granules from the plain white ones.
8.Your stereo is missing, and in the corner you find a pawn ticket and 2 kilos of catnip. Later! Cappy
Abraham Lincoln loved cats. He had four of them while
he lived in the White House
Just like with people, diabetes rising in pets
But 'Catkins' diet, Weight Watchers-type programs and new meds can help
By Kim Campbell Thornton
MSNBC contributor
Kim Campbell Thornton
The 9-year-old Australian Terrier was drinking a lot of water and urinating frequently. So his owner took the little dog to her veterinarian, John Hamil of Canyon Animal Hospital in Laguna Beach, Calif. A urinalysis and blood work revealed that he had diabetes.
As with people, the incidence of diabetes in cats and dogs is increasing. Not so much of a problem in decades past, diabetes now affects as many as one in 50 of the animals, some statistics show, especially pudgy pets.
“There is no question from what I know that is published in the literature that obesity is on the rise, No. 1, and No. 2, diabetes is on the rise right along with it,” says veterinarian Robin Downing, hospital director of Windsor Veterinary Clinic in Windsor, Colo.
Diabetes results when the body doesn't produce enough insulin, a hormone that processes glucose (blood sugar), or properly use it. As a result, the body's tissues cannot use glucose for energy, and the sugar builds up in the blood and urine.
Veterinarians say that while obesity clearly is linked to diabetes in pets, it appears to contribute to the disease differently in cats and dogs.
Fat cats are prone to diabetes because they develop insulin resistance, meaning their bodies don't effectively use insulin. As a result, the pancreas pumps out more insulin as well as another hormone called amylin. “When you get too much insulin secreted, you get too much amylin secreted as well, and that tends to aggregate and destroy the insulin-producing cells,” says veterinarian Richard W. Nelson, a professor at the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine in Davis.
With dogs, obesity is associated with an increased risk of pancreatitis — an inflammation of the pancreas — which can then lead to diabetes because the body doesn't make enough insulin, according to a report by Jacquie S. Rand, a diabetes expert at the University of Queensland’s School of Veterinary Medicine in Brisbane, Australia.
'Catkins' diet and other aids
Not every dog or cat that develops diabetes is fat, but any way you look at it, obesity and diabetes are linked. The good news is that obesity is preventable and reversible, and oftentimes so is the diabetes.Go here to read the rest
Elusive lynx make comeback in Colorado
State biologists are raising, releasing cats after they went extinct there
SOUTH FORK, Colo. - Volunteers opened the metal animal crate in a campground here. A lynx, its footsteps soundless, sprinted from a nest of hay and vanished into the snowy Weminuche wilderness, its fur a perfect match for the winter-deadened landscape.Researchers released four Canada lynx early this month, another step in a reintroduction program started in 1999. Biologists hope lynx being reintroduced will repopulate a species considered endangered in Colorado and threatened in 47 other states.The Colorado Division of Wildlife plans to complete the release of 218 Canada lynx to the San Juan Mountains by the end of April. While the reintroduction program cannot be classified as successful yet, researchers said there is definite progress.Lynx, brown and gray wild cats similar to bobcats, weigh between 18 and 44 pounds, and have tufted ears. Their broad paws -- a trademark feature -- act as natural snowshoes and help them move through the winter landscape. Trackers describe the cats as shy, elusive animals who enjoy living in dark timber. Go here to read the rest of the story
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A cat that fled a house fire is back home in Albuquerque, N.M., after turning up some 240 miles away. The black and white cat named Miko disappeared in December, on the night of the fire.
About two weeks ago, Miko's owner got a call from an animal shelter in Pueblo, Colo., saying her cat was safe.
Officials at the shelter speculate that the cat, trying to keep warm, hopped a tractor-trailer and rode it to Colorado.
When they found her, her collar was missing. But shelter officials scanned the microchip in her neck and came up with her owner's name.
source:
MSNBC NEWS
