So it was with great hope that here in Australia we awaited the arrival of Purina’s new food designed to reduce human allergies to cats and kittens. Imagine the possible benefits if it works:

• More people being able to enjoy the company of cats
• More cat rescue and less rehoming
• Better relationships for allergic partners of cat owners

But could it also be too good to be true? If it encourages people who can’t keep cats to get them, surely this will be a backwards step instead. I found my first Devon Rex in an animal shelter where she’d been dumped for just this reason.

I’m going to take you through the science behind Purina LiveClear® as impartially as I can. By the end, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect if you try it.

How Purina LiveClear Works

It starts with the major cat allergen of humans: Fel d 1. This complex protein is found in the saliva, sebaceous glands, skin and fur of cats. It’s very stable, and can easily become airborne, from where it causes all the usual signs of allergy in people: sneezing, runny eyes, asthma etc

Cats probably spread most of the Fel d 1 around by licking their coat. So the people at Purina thought: what if we developed a food that blocks the Fel d 1 from the saliva?

It’s actually very clever.

They expose chickens to cat allergens and collect their eggs. These then contain high levels of anti-Fel d 1 antibody. The egg proteins are sprayed onto cat biscuits so that cats end up having antibodies to their own allergen in their saliva. Theoretically then, when they groom themselves, the Fel d 1 is taken out and inactivated.

As an aside, it’s worth noting that in the trials the food was fed continuously, which makes sense when you see how it works. However, as any vet knows, it can be hard to do this without having a fat cat.

Does Purina LiveClear Reduce Allergens?

According to Purina’s own research, cats who eat LiveClear have a 47% reduction in allergen on their coat. And this is true, if a little oversimplified.

The reality is the graph here. It shows the same cats divided into four groups based on how much allergen they had in their coat. You can see that the top 25% have a lot more than the rest. You can also see that the actual levels vary for all of them week by week.

In fact, a look at the original paper shows that even these data points are averages of substantial individual variation.

Of course what matters most is how this translates to its effect on people. Is an average 47% reduction enough, and does the weekly variation make a difference?

Does LiveClear Reduce Human Allergy?

To give Purina some credit, they could have stopped here, but they went on do do human trials. They exposed people affected by cat allergy to blankets from cats fed either a control food or LiveClear. The study was double-blind, meaning that neither the researchers or test subjects knew which was which.

In other words, a high-quality piece of work. Sadly for Purina and cat allergy sufferers everywhere, the results were disappointing.

The following table shows the P-values for each symptom. Values less than 0.05 are generally regarded as significant. As you can see, there were no significant differences between reaction levels to blankets from treated or untreated cats.

Difference Between LiveClear & Control Food In Allergy Symptoms

Hang On- Purina Said It Worked!

Actually, there were differences found when the results were compared with earlier known exposure (i.e. no longer blinded). This should be yet another demonstration of the enduring power of the placebo effect. And yet that’s not what was said.

While I honestly think that LiveClear will help some people, using an unblinded allergen exposure as a comparison is not the way to find the proof.

Well, you might say, if the subjects felt better, does it matter whether it was a placebo effect or not?* That’s an ethical discussion for another day. What we really need is a good blinded study using cats in their own homes to get closest to the real world scenario.

So Is Purina LiveClear Worth It?

The evidence so far suggests that Purina LiveClear is an unreliable way to reduce cat allergy symptoms in the home. I certainly would not recommend that allergic people plan on having cats based on this intervention alone.

Despite this, I applaud the company for such an innovative approach, and I’m not writing the food off completely either. For just as some cats will produce unacceptably high Fel 1 d levels, others are likely to respond well, especially combined with other approaches. You won’t know unless you try.

If you already live with a cat, but are allergic, or have an allergic partner, then there’s not a whole lot to lose. LiveClear is clearly as safe as any other cat or kitten food. If it doesn’t help, all you’ve done is bought a more expensive version!

Related: The Shaky Evidence For Feliway In Cats | Other Ways To Reduce Household Feline Allergens

* Strictly speaking, this is a nocebo effect, where the known allergen exposure is likely to have increased the subjects’ perception of symptoms. Then compared to the lower tested levels later, a significant difference appears. Clear? No, I didn’t think so!

Sources

Bonnet, B., Messaoudi, K., Jacomet, F., Michaud, E., Fauquert, J. L., Caillaud, D., & Evrard, B. (2018). An update on molecular cat allergens: Fel d 1 and what else? Chapter 1: Fel d 1, the major cat allergen. Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology, 14(1), 1-9

Pezzali, J. G., Smith, S. C., & Aldrich, C. G. (2018). An overview of the effect of diet on the allergenicity of cats to susceptible humans. SOJ Vet Sci, 4, 1-9

Ramadour, M., Birnbaum, J., Magalon, C., Lanteaume, A., Charpin, D., & Vervloet, D. (1998). Cat sex differences in major allergen production (Fel d 1). Journal of allergy and clinical immunology, 101(2), 282-284

Satyaraj, E., Gardner, C., Filipi, I., Cramer, K., & Sherrill, S. (2019). Reduction of active Fel d1 from cats using an antiFel d1 egg IgY antibody. Immunity, inflammation and disease, 7(2), 68-73

Wedner, J. H., Mantia, T., Satyaraj, E., Gardner, C., Al-Hammadi, N., & Sherrill, S. (2021). Feeding cats egg product with polyclonal-anti-Fel d1 antibodies decreases environmental Fel d1 and allergic response: A proof of concept study. J Allergy Infect Dis, 2(1), 1-8

Important Note to Cat Owners: This page was written early in the treatment of FIP, when knowledge and access to drugs was scarce. Today, your own vet is fully capable of administering the treatment and saving your cat. For the best up to date information on treatment protocols and drug availability in Australia, please visit the page of Turramurra Veterinary Hospital.

Back at the start I supported you when you were breaking the law. I even put my reputation on the line and stood up for you against threats of prosecution. My attitude was “let them try; they wouldn’t dare.”

For back then if it wasn’t for you, many cats with FIP would have died. You provided an essential link between desperate cat owners and an illegal, yet life-saving drug. You allowed vets to offer their support without having to procure the drug themselves and risk their careers.

For this I will always be grateful. But there was still the problem of the law.

The issue with GS being illegal wasn’t so much the risk to vets or cat owners. It was that not enough people would ever hear about it. Most cats with FIP were still dying, because neither their owners nor their vets knew any different.

I was flat out treating FIP cats back then, but I knew I was seeing only the tip of the iceberg. There’s nothing heroic in saving only a few when you know the rest are missing out. But it was the best we could do.

That’s why I was ecstatic when some very clever people developed a legal alternative: compounded TGA-approved remdesivir. Australia may have even been the first, all thanks to them. Suddenly we could talk freely, share our experiences and read about FIP treatment in national vet publications.

Update: We now also have access to pharmaceutical-grade legal GS- 441524 tablets. These are around 2/3 the price of remdesivir injections, and easier to give for most cats.

At the time I thanked the providers of GS such as you, and bid them farewell. With all gratitude, your job was done, and a brighter future dawned of treatment for all. At least this was what I hoped.

At the same time I feared the opposite: that your enterprise would have too much momentum, self-belief and financial commitment to just shut up shop. And this is what has actually happened. What was once a blessing has become a curse.

Now every time I start a new cat with FIP on treatment, I have the same discussions. Once cat owners get given the diagnosis and start researching, they still find you. Except now you say things like:

• GS works better than remdesivir
• GS is safer
• GS is cheaper

None of these, by the way, are true. New survival rates are at least as good, costs much the same, and the BOVA remdesivir we use stings far, far less. The best that can be hoped for with GS is equivalence, which itself is big ask for a drug that has no quality control or oversight. And one which still requires owners to break the law and hope no-one notices.

You who were once happy to work with vets have made yourself into our opposition. You appear to want FIP cats to be split off from the veterinary mainstream. And judging by your Facebook posts, you are quite successful at doing it.

It’s not just that your treatment is no better. Owners of newly diagnosed cats need tremendous levels of hands-on support to learn to give the injections effectively over the 84 day course. You cannot offer that. Your drug cannot be claimed back on pet insurance either.

I don’t know if you have a financial incentive, but I hope not. And before I get the understandable accusation of hypocrisy, hear this: I am in the possibly unique position of having had a significant drop in my income due to remdesivir. After all, I was probably the only Adelaide vet working with cats on GS, and now everyone uses remdesivir.

By continuing when you should have stopped you are fighting the future and defending the indefensible. Your law breaking is no longer excusable now that it’s not in the best interests of cats or their owners.

You need to end this. Preferably while I can still remember that gratitude.

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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

Note: this in no way is a criticism of the use of GS in countries without a reliable and economical supply of remdesivir. I am happy to engage in an open online debate in the comments section below but not via private messages.

It’s called a staring coat.

What Is A Staring Coat?

A staring coat is when the tips of a cat’s hair start to stick together, probably due to a buildup of grease. The hair doesn’t form a smooth ‘shell’ any more but is separated into rows or tiny clumps. It gives the coat a spiky, clumping appearance.

A staring coat happens very quickly when a cat stops grooming adequately. Every cat owner knows how much time their cat spends licking themselves, plus rolling and dust bathing. What they may not know is just how important these behaviours are.

While the staring coat isn’t a major health concern in its own right, it significantly reduces the insulating effect. It will also be associated with a buildup of dead hair, and increased parasite numbers in untreated cats. When this happens even a simple flea infestation can be serious.

The main issue with an ungroomed coat is that it might be a sign of something worse.

Why Do Staring Coats Occur?

There are six reasons why a cat might not be grooming enough:

• Sickness: any illness will reduce the amount of effort a cat can put into their coat, often before other signs occur
• Pain: musculoskeletal pain will reduce a cat’s flexibility, which is why a staring coat is a common sign of arthritis
• Dental disease: a cat with a sore mouth will not groom as effectively
• Stress: unhappy or anxious cats don’t spend time on ‘luxury’ behaviours like grooming (so you should be flattered that Tibby always wants to lick herself all over when she gets on your lap!)
• Age: good grooming habits sometimes take a few months to develop, and so some kittens under 6 months old can have staring coats despite being in good health
• Obesity: I’ve written before how dandruff is often associated with obesity, and staring coats are just the same: excess weight causes an inability to groom properly

What To Do If You Cat’s Hair Is Spiky Or Matted

If your cat’s coat looks like any of these pictures, ask yourself if it has always been this way. If it hasn’t then you need to get your cat a checkup.

This kitten looks fine, right? That’s true from the front, but his coat is the one in the earlier photos. He’s actually fighting a respiratory infection.

Almost all cats with staring coats have something that needs attention. Anxiety is very treatable, as is weight control, as is arthritis in cats.

Some might be normal, but we won’t know this without a physical or possibly blood tests. The purpose of this article isn’t to tell you what’s wrong, it’s to tell you there’s an abnormality and it needs investigation!

To finish up, here are a few more pictures taken all within a few days. Staring coats are everywhere when you look. However, I still don’t know why they ‘stare’- any ideas?

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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here. The information provided here is not intended to be used as a substitute for going to the vet. If your pet is unwell, please seek veterinary attention.

Fast asleep he may appear, but as soon as a door or window opens, up comes his periscope head. If you aren’t quick enough, or the lock doesn’t click, he’s gone. Next thing, the whole family is out with torches (not the flaming kind but it feels that way) until he’s found and returned.

We do this because outdoor cats run a high risk of road trauma, fight abscesses and FIV infection. But sometimes he’s impossible to find. So I’ve always been interested in smart tech to help me, and recently I invested in an AirTag.

However, it may not be the best option.

Cat Tracking Options

Here’s a summary of the cat trackers available in Australia and their pros and cons. Please note that microchips do not have any tracking ability and must be actively scanned by a hand-held reader.

GPS Cat Trackers

These are devices that use satellites to fix your cat’s position to within metres. The signal is then usually sent back to your phone via a sim card and mobile phone connection. Therefore you need to make sure that anything you buy will work in the country where you live.

Pros are:

• Work anywhere there’s mobile reception
• The only reliable way to get real time information

Cons are:

• Require an ongoing subscription to pay for mobile telephony
• Relatively expensive (from $100)
• The heaviest option (from 30g)
• Require frequent recharging (every 5 days or so)

Bluetooth Trackers e.g Tile & BlaqWolf

These trackers use a downloadable app and the bluetooth signal on your smartphone to locate your pet. The tracker is located in one of two ways:

1. If it’s within bluetooth range, by using the app on your phone
2. When someone else with the app comes within range

Pros are:

• Lightweight and can be attached to collars in most cases
• Less expensive
• Good battery life (around a year)

Cons are:

• Limited range but probably more than AirTag
• Once the cat is out of your bluetooth range, you are relying on other users of the same system to be near it

Apple AirTag

Apple’s tracker also uses bluetooth. It shares the same pros and cons as Tile and other bluetooth trackers, with one important exception: there are many more users. When marked as ‘lost’ it is picked up by iPhones within range using the Find My feature and a signal is sent back to your phone.

AirTag can be used with non-Apple phones as well. An iPhone user who finds it can also tap it to reveal contact information.

Here are my personal experiences:

• Its bluetooth range seems very short; inside the house I only get around 10 metres before it is unfindable, or 20 metres outside.
• It weighs 18g including holder which is probably heavier than Tile but seems well tolerated (more on this later)
• I left it on a park walking track and received a message about every 10 minutes with its location but this will depend on the number of passers by
• In real life many notifications will be out of date by the time you receive them as your cat will have moved
• It does not work when in motion; your cat needs to have stopped to be located
• It only pairs to one Apple ID (this is a key difference with app-based Bluetooth trackers); other devices can use the FindMy feature as long as they are logged in as you
• It uses a CR2032 button battery, which are extremely toxic if swallowed (this hazard would mainly apply to dogs)
• The shiny side gets very dirty (or do I just have a dirty cat?)

Update 2 Months Later…

My cat has escaped once. The AirTag pinged off a neighbour’s phone. However, until I marked him as ‘lost’ the notifications were only if I opened and checked the FindMy app.

He didn’t ping again and waltzed back home an hour later. The AirTag didn’t help find him but did confirm that he had escaped. So a partial success.

An Apple update since release means that AirTags now beep at a random time between eight and 24 hours when separated from an iPhone. This is to prevent them being used for stalking, but it has the unintended consequence of your cat beeping unexpectedly.

How much this bothers them I cannot say but I would definitely warn anyone who looks after your cat while you are away, especially cattery owners.

Apple are also releasing an Android app later in 2021 so that the tags can be detected by non-iPhone users.

AirTag Cat Collar Attachment

I bought the ‘Belkin Secure Holder with Keyring for AirTag’ for $20. The supplied keyring is too big so I replaced it with a small one and it hangs well at my cat’s neck without too much swinging.

The holder can be written on but writing tends to rub off. I plan to lightly engrave the plastic with my phone number and address instead. I’m avoiding engraving the AirTag itself until it’s out of warranty (Apple offer free engraving but only four characters or emojis).

I have seen special cat collars with inserts for AirTag available online but have no idea how secure or comfortable they are.

Is The AirTag Worth Buying For Cats?

Although the AirTag is not designed for tracking cats and has many serious flaws, it is inexpensive and well-tolerated. As long as people understand what it cannot do, its great advantage is being detectable by the large number of iPhone users in your suburb.

If your cat goes outside regularly, and you want to know where they go, a GPS tracker would be a much better option. As a backup system for an indoor cat, my view is that it’s a worthwhile investment.

But my golly, how grateful will I be for your views (in the comments below) if you use any trackers!

Disclaimer: I’m no tech-head and could have made some basic errors so please don’t rely solely on this information! Perhaps I should stick to my day job instead…

Now read: Why Slamming The Door On Cats Is A Bad Idea

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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

I’m sorry that I do not have local information for cat owners outside of Australia.

Now read on!

The nightmare is almost over. Until very recently, a diagnosis of Feline Infectious Peritonitis was a death sentence. Either a slow, lingering decline or a decision to euthanase and spare the suffering. This happened to around 1% of cats, most of them kittens.

Then it was discovered that certain antiviral drugs could not only improve the symptoms, they could actually bring about a cure. But there was still a hitch.

These antivirals weren’t licensed in Australia, and therefore illegal to import and use. So the only cats who survived were those whose owners and vets were prepared to take the risk. My own veterinary association shamefully advised against their use, despite the evidence.

All that has ended for Australian cats.

We apologise that for legal reasons we are unable to assist outside of Australia.

Remdesivir: A New Hope For FIP

You’ve heard of remdesivir. It was rushed through TGA and FDA approval due to promising results in the treatment of COVID-19. What’s important about remdesivir is that it’s almost identical to those black market drugs like GS- 441524.

Except this time it’s freely available with a valid prescription, and has all the quality controls we expect from licensed drugs. Vets still need to warn you about ‘off-label’ use, but this is the same discussion we have whenever we pick up a human drug (which is often!)

Preliminary trial work in Sydney has produced excellent results. So now we have a drug for all. I estimate that less than 5% of cats with FIP a were previously being saved using GS. We should now see all owners getting offered the chance, and most taking it up, though cost issues still exist.

Costs Of Remdesivir Use In Cats

As you can imagine, it’s an expensive drug. A rough estimate is that a course of 80 days’ treatment costs around $8000 to $10000

However, dose for dose, this is very similar to the prices people were paying for black market GS- 441524 of unproven purity or efficacy. This time, if a cat is insured, the insurance company is likely to pay for it as well. Read a longer comparison of GS and remdesivir here.

Based on our experience, 84 days of treatment should bring about a cure in the large majority of affected cats. It’s administered as once-daily subcutaneous injections, but don’t be put off. Everyone can do it, and we are happy to show you how.

UPDATE: By late 2021, we had successfully treated around 30 cats, with only a single failure in a neurological case. Doses of remdesivir are now higher than initially recommended. We now also have access to pharmaceutical-grade GS- 441524 in tablet form, which is both a little cheaper and easier to use for some owners.

Protocols remain at 84 days. Those going onto tablets are recommended to start with injections for the first 4 weeks.

We are all thoroughly indebted to the work of Dr Richard Malik DVSc PhD FACVSc FASM and the feline research team at my alma mater The University Of Sydney.

We are also indebted to the volunteer groups who, by taking on the risk, have helped many cats back to health. Their job is done, and we’re grateful.

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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

Once you know it, a lot of other common cat illnesses start to make sense.

To understand the special nature of cat diseases, you need to look at how they began. So stick with me! What I’m about to discuss could be the most important health issue of cats.

How Diseases Evolve

The basic idea is simple: that all parts of nature, even bacteria and viruses, are governed by natural selection. The ones we’re talking about here are the harmful ones, which we call pathogens.

Just like animals, any pathogen will only pass on its genes if it can survive and reproduce. Therefore, it needs to adapt to its environment in order to spread itself the best.

If the environment is a cat’s body, it faces a challenge that human and canine pathogens do not: the semi-solitary lifestyle.

Infectious diseases of people and dogs jump around merrily from host to host because there’s always another new victim nearby. That’s why we both get diseases that don’t exist in cats, such as:

• influenza (canine flu has so far been kept out of Australia)
• whooping cough (kennel cough by another name)
• measles (a milder relative of distemper)

And the list could go on, nearly always of severe but short-term infections.

How Cat Pathogens Differ

Cat diseases needed to be trickier to survive. They evolved back when cats might have been at a density of only one per square kilometre. Under these circumstances, the ‘fast burn’ of dog diseases would have fizzled out long before they found another host.

To survive, feline pathogens needed two new skills:

1. Persistence for a long time in the host
2. Mild symptoms so the animal kept spreading them

And there you have it: the asymptomatic carrier. A cat that looks OK, even feels OK, but carries and passes on pathogens to other cats.

Cat Diseases Spread By Carriers

Have a look at these diseases of cats carried by asymptomatic spreaders:

• Herpesvirus cat flu
• Calicivirus cat flu
• Feline immunodeficiency virus
• Feline leukaemia virus
• Feline coronavirus
• Chlamydia
• Plus many more gut and respiratory infections

As you can see, nearly all of the important pathogens of cats are here. And I suspect there are others we haven’t found yet.

Take for example, this very common new kitten scenario. Tiger might be living the comfortable life of a middle-aged house cat, but he’s in for a shock. Within a week of a healthy new kitten arriving, he’s got a fever, won’t eat and stays curled up on the bed.

What’s he got? Most of the time it doesn’t appear on our tests, but it certainly came from the kitten, who never looked sick at all. Tiger will get better, but no one saw it coming.

Signs That A Cat Is A Carrier

Cats carrying a contagious disease might look perfectly fine, but here are some clues you could see:

• watery eyes
• sneezing and nasal discharge
• coughing
• gingivitis and stomatitis
• intermittent diarrhoea
• stunted growth or reduced activity
• frequent unexplained illnesses

In other words, anything. But often he or she might just as easily look perfectly healthy.

Cat Breeders and Shelters

You can start to see why cats and kittens often come to you not right. Diseases adapted to spread well when cats are far apart will spread like crazy when cats are brought together.

This is probably why the neighbourhood stray has her kittens in the shed or under a bush, and rarely in the same place twice. There’s no chance of doing that if you’re a breeder or rescue shelter. The best you can do is reduce the problem.

Good breeders and shelters will attempt to minimise contact between cats, and identify resident carriers. Tests are available for every listed disease. However, I can tell you that some shelters and breeders clearly do better than others.

Cat Boarding, Cat Cafes & Hoarders

Now I also hope you can see why I’m so critical of some cat boarding. If cats are mixed, or even if they share a space without it being cleaned, they often come back with more than you bargained for.

The same goes for cat cafes. They can work fine if the resident group is stable, like the ones I saw in Japan. However, if there’s a coming and going of cats, disease is inevitable.

The worst of all are hoarders. These are the people that think they’re rescuing cats, but what they’re really doing is hoarding them, usually made worse by uncontrolled breeding. The cats in these dysfunctional groups have almost no chance.

But these criticisms aside, when I see kittens from a shelter or breeder with runny eyes or sneezing, I hold my tongue. I want you to know it’s not ‘dust’ or ‘allergy’ but I don’t want you to blame them. I see these diseases as the price we pay for adopting any cats that aren’t strays.

I just want you to know because usually there’s something we can do to help.

Treatment Of Carriers

Whether or not kittens with sneezing and runny eyes can be treated depends on which pathogen is the ultimate cause.

Bacterial causes have a strong chance of success. Chlamydia in cats is extremely common as a cause of chronic sneezing and weepy eyes, and this can usually be cured with a very long course of antibiotics.

Therefore, I usually start with four weeks of doxycycline, and even longer if I get a good response. Ideally I will do a respiratory PCR test first, but as this does not always identify the cause it’s optional.

Viral causes either get better by themselves or remain present for life. Symptoms should settle down with time if a cat’s health is otherwise looked after. It’s certainly annoying when I can’t get rid of the symptoms, but it’s not the end of the world. These kittens still live long and happy lives.

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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

Nearly any online guide only contains the positive information. A breeder only gives more of the same. As far as everyone is concerned, Scottish Folds are adorable and live long, healthy lives. That’s why so many good, kind people get them.

What Vets Say

My golly they are adorable, but that’s far from the whole story. Ask any vet who’s seen a lot of the breed, and especially any feline specialist. They’ll tell you that most Scottish Folds live in chronic pain, all because their looks have been given priority over their health.

The fact that there’s a debate at all speaks volumes about how bad we are at seeing pain in animals. There’s no doubt that just like I was once, many breeders don’t know what chronic pain looks like. Not the “ow, you stepped on my toe” of acute pain, the slow ache of joints that hurt to move.

The pain we’re talking about manifests as cats that just stay put. They don’t move as much or as far. They don’t even complain in any way you can tell.

Why Scottish Folds Have Health Problems

Folds develop joint pain and stiffness due to a genetic disease called osteochondrodysplasia. It causes the visible folding of ear cartilage, but also invisible abnormalities of cartilage and bone throughout the body. This is especially severe in the elbow and hock joints.

The picture at the start shows the typical appearance of the hocks (i.e. ankles) of a middle-aged cat. You can see severe arthritis, and thickened bone around the hock joint. The elbows look very similar.

Problems start early if recognised by astute owners. Just the other day I saw a Fold barely over one year old who had already become quiet and less active. Some may consider that normal for the breed but of course it shouldn’t be.

Just look at all the pictures of Folds in abnormal postures like here. We need to stop seeing this as cute and see it for what it really is.

These problems lead to others. Folds are truly lovely cats, but as a vet I’ll tell you they rarely tolerate blood sampling, probably because it hurts to hold their legs. They are also known as high shedders, which I suspect is due to their grooming being uncomfortable or difficult.

Can Scottish Folds Be Bred Ethically?

Cat breeders often say that all we need to do is breed a fold to a non-fold cat, so that the offspring have only one abnormal gene. This is false. As long as a cat has a folded ear, by definition the defect is active.

The genetic mutation is autosomal dominant, and so carriers of one gene are still affected. The only benefit of such a pairing is that some kittens will not carry the mutated gene at all. These have normal ears and are often called Scottish Shorthair.

Due to the abnormality being much more than just visual, the Scottish Fold is banned by the British Governing Council of the Cat Fancy and the Fédération Internationale Féline. I never saw it in the UK, but it has taken off in Asia, the USA and Australia where no such restrictions occur. This is despite the clear stance of the RSPCA:

RSPCA Australia believes it is unethical to breed from animals with a genetic mutation that is known to cause painful deformities and disease.

Source: What are the health problems with Scottish Fold cats?

Treatment Of Scottish Fold Problems

Quality of life for most Scottish Folds improves dramatically with treatment. Therefore, do not despair or feel guilty. Instead, seek your vet’s advice.

They may see your cat and say everything’s OK. However, if a discussion reveals your cat to be less active than expected, treatment is likely to bring benefit.

Most Folds I see do extremely well on a very simple and inexpensive anti-inflammatory called meloxicam. It’s easy to give and usually well-tolerated. Once we start, we like to keep an eye on the liver and kidneys, however the most common problem is a gastrointestinal upset.

I know that in the USA meloxicam is only licensed for short-term use, but vets in Australia and elsewhere can use it for far longer periods. I have kept many Scottish Folds on it trouble free from youth through to old age. Not because I wanted to, but because they were clearly happier when I did.

If this isn’t possible there are other treatments that can work, listed here. It’s worth persisting simply because the results can be so good. Controlling a cat’s weight is important too. The Fold pictured here is distressingly overweight and once again I have to ask: ‘is this posture cute or troubling?’

Yes, I’m frustrated at how the breed is promoted, but I won’t take it out on you. Together, we can make your Scottish Fold live a life that’s just as happy as any other cat’s.

Related: My Views On The Munchkin Breed & Grumpy Cat

(And just a little update: the young Fold I mentioned earlier came back 2 weeks later a whole new cat. He was happy, back to his old self again, and would even let us hold his leg to take a second blood sample without complaint!)

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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

Like how many cats get it and how they pass it on. Or how to stay safe, especially if you are pregnant. And the disease itself in cats and dogs. We cover all these here.

The Toxoplasma Life Cycle

An understanding of the toxoplasma life cycle is essential to know how to prevent it in cats and people. The picture above, while a gross simplification, is a good place to start.

Toxoplasma gondii has basically two life cycles: one in cats that creates small egg-like oocysts, and one that creates tissue cysts in everyone else. It starts when an infected cat passes oocysts in their faeces into the environment.

These eggs can survive for months and end up being eaten by any variety of animals. In the new host, they hatch and multiply inside the cells until they form tissue cysts, especially in muscle and nervous tissue. There are three outcomes depending on the species involved:

1. If the eggs were ingested directly by humans they will cause infection and tissue cysts
2. If they were eaten by a human’s dinner (e.g. lamb) they might cause human infection too, depending on how the food is prepared
3. If they were eaten by a cat’s prey, they will re-infect the cat and could start another round of oocyst production

How Common Is Toxo In Cats?

Thankfully, any individual cat is extremely unlikely to be passing oocysts or be capable of infecting humans. Large studies of German cats have shown that only around 0.25% of lab samples are positive for Toxoplasma, or one in 400.

Even infected cats are low risk due to their fastidious cleaning habits. In one study, eggs could not be detected on experimentally infected cats seven days after they were passing millions in their faeces. This may be why it has been shown repeatedly that having a cat is not a risk factor for getting toxoplasmosis.

How Humans Get Toxoplasma

There is strong evidence for two main modes of transmission:

1. Eating tissue cysts from undercooked meat. This is probably the main way in developed countries.
2. Ingesting eggs from the environment. This is thought to be the most common way in underdeveloped countries.

A 2019 study right here in Adelaide found that the chance of toxoplasma being found in a portion of supermarket lamb mince was 43%. While we don’t have data for beef, pork, poultry, rabbit and kangaroo, we expect them to also be positive, but lower. It’s a simple fact that any animals that eat foods or graze pastures contaminated by cat faeces will regularly be infected.

How To Prevent Toxoplasmosis

Most humans who get toxoplasma will have few or no symptoms. However, if you are pregnant or have a weak immune system, the consequences could be devastating (see your doctor for more details).

You should do all of the following:

• Cook meat thoroughly to at least 67 °C (I understand this is considered ‘medium’)
• Wash hands, utensils and surfaces with soap and water after handling raw meat
• Wear garden gloves if digging, and wash hands well afterwards
• Wash vegetables before eating

Additionally, the following are sensible guidelines for cat owners:

• Wash hands after petting your cat before eating
• Feed cats only dry, canned or cooked foods*
• Avoid letting your cat hunt
• Empty the litter box every day (the eggs aren’t infectious for the first 24 hours)
• Get someone else to do it!

* As toxoplasma is killed by temperatures below minus 12 °C it is probably still safe to give chicken necks if they have been frozen first.

Toxoplasmosis In Dogs

Toxoplasma can’t create eggs in dogs so there’s a very low risk of their faeces being hazardous unless they eat cat poo. Probably an equally low risk is dogs rolling in cat poo and having the eggs on their coat.

Clinical toxoplasmosis as a disease of dogs is exceedingly rare. When it occurs, it usually affects the nervous system with vague signs such as behavioural changes, tremors, weak legs, or paralysis. However, in a young dog, especially with muscle wastage, it’s more likely to be caused by another parasite called Neospora.

Help! My Cat Has Toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasmosis in cats is a very different disease, with the following possible symptoms:

• Severe and generalised illness
• Trouble breathing
• Neurological signs like wobbling or a head tilt
• Eye infections
• Liver infection and jaundice
• Abdominal infection

Particularly at-risk groups are newborns, and cats who catch it after being immunosuppressed with cyclosporin or chemotherapy.

Diagnosis of Toxoplasmosis In Cats

The problem with such a range of possible symptoms is that almost any sick cat could have toxoplasmosis. This is made worse by the difficulty in getting an accurate diagnosis.

The only certain diagnosis is made by finding the actual organism in tissues or fluids. However, this is very difficult. Therefore, vets often make a tentative diagnosis if the cat has:

• a high IgM titre
• two IgG titres showing a four-fold increase
• exclusion of other diseases
• a positive response to treatment

Treatment of toxoplasmosis is via a range of unusual drugs such as clindamycin, pyrimethamine, toltrazuril or fluconazole. None work very well in severely unwell cats.

Vets will often use clindamycin when toxo is suspected, just to be sure. But most of the time, the problem is probably being caused by something else.

That’s because actual illness caused by toxoplasma is rare. Just like humans, most cats who get toxoplasma show no signs, and make a rapid and full recovery.

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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

If your cat only eats dry food, she is likely to be getting less nutrition than a cat eating wet food. Many low-quality dry foods contain a lot of fillers.

Throwaway lines like these are typical of the overly simplistic advice you find online about feline nutrition. The truth takes a deeper look. To know whether wet, dry or both are best for your cat, we need to talk about:

• nutritional adequacy & completeness
• fillers in wet & dry cat food
• the risk of obesity
• diseases associated with wet & dry foods
• other alternative cat diets

Let’s dive in!

Complete vs Unbalanced Cat Foods

The main reason why the opening statement misses the point is that more than half of available wet foods are severely lacking in essential ingredients. I’ve listed Aussie examples here and shown you how to tell from the packaging. Therefore, while plenty of good, balanced wet foods exist, if you feed the others, your cat risks suffering a nutritional deficiency.

Dry diets, on the other hand, are almost always balanced for all essential nutrients. If you then feed an unbalanced wet food with these, it generally doesn’t matter so much. And yes, for nutritional completeness you can just feed a dry diet. But that still isn’t the whole story.

Fillers In Cat Food

Now let’s clear up some myths about fillers. By this, most people mean carbohydrates from grain sources. Here, three things are clearly true:

1. High levels of carbohydrate in cat foods are not natural
2. Despite this, most cats tolerate high levels of carbohydrate
3. Many wet foods are as bad as dry foods

I have written before about the problematic levels of carbohydrate in cat foods, and I’m not going to make any excuses for the companies. However, despite being a vet who regularly trials sick cats on low carbohydrate diets, it’s actually rare that I get a positive response.

Similarly, there’s no evidence that high carb levels are by themselves dangerous to cats. And before going on, I want you to notice that most dry diets sold as grain-free have just swapped the carbs out for another source, such as sweet potato. This is marketing, not nutrition.

So let’s relax a bit about carbs. While not great, they’re mostly a minor evil. If you still want to feed a low carb diet, and why wouldn’t you, I’ve made a list of carbohydrate levels in Australian wet cat foods. There’s an online calculator you can use if your food isn’t listed.

Do Dry Foods Cause Obesity?

If you research the risk factors for feline obesity, you’ll find that dry foods don’t get a mention. So the answer is ‘no’. Instead, it’s much more important how you feed.

The reason dry foods get such a bad name is that they are so often left out for a cat to ‘graze’ on. This whole concept of free feeding is severely frowned upon by vets, because very few cats can be trusted to regulate their food intake.

Click here for advice on converting a free feeder to accepting timed regular meals. Once you do it, you’re at least three-quarters of the way to fixing feline obesity.

Disease Risks With Wet vs Dry Foods

There are only two evidence-based risks based on the food type.

Firstly, lower urinary tract disease in cats is more common on dry diets. These are the cats that get cystitis regularly, or have urinary obstructions. If a cat starts showing symptoms, I will always recommend a wet-only diet. However, as less than 5% of cats experience this problem, my opinion is that this advice doesn’t need to apply to all cats.

Dental disease, on the other hand, is more common on wet foods. However, the difference, while real, is small. Where it gets significant is when you choose the dry dental foods made by Hills or Royal Canin. These can be extremely effective in preventing tooth and gum disease.

Any other diseases you might read about are only in the author’s overly fertile imagination. That includes diabetes, liver, gastrointestinal and skin diseases. And in all the years of performing wellness blood testing, I have yet to find a healthy cat that’s dehydrated just from eating dry foods.

Alternatives To Commercial Cat Foods

What about following some of the advice that says you can make a raw diet for your cat instead?

When I read this I get very, very cross. Cats aren’t little dogs. There’s almost no way a normal person without specialised training and equipment can make a reliably balanced cat food.

You can either have a cat literally eating wild foods, or you have to accept the safety of manufactured cat foods. The only in-between might be found on my recipe for a wild-type cat diet which takes a bit from each. However, like all compromises, it won’t satisfy everyone.

So Are Wet Or Dry Diets Better?

The reality that for most cats, a 100% dry diet will be perfectly adequate, and no reason to feel guilty. I recommend spending as much as you can, as it’s clear that urinary problems go down as quality goes up. I also need you to understand feline water needs.

Dry foods are incredibly convenient, which is why I rely on one for my kitty (that’s him here). However he also gets cat grass, a raw chicken neck a day, and as you can see I keep his weight under control. All these factors increase my sense of security.

You may feel guilty and want to add a tasty wet food, and in theory that’s OK. My complaint is that when people who already choose a high quality dry get a wet food, it’s often a low quality one. That’s because wet foods need to be bought frequently, and so most people get them with their supermarket shop.

In the end, if the quality of your wet and dry cat foods are similar, it makes very little difference which one you choose.

Related: Supermarket vs Pet Store: What’s The Difference?

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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

It is:

• a genuine need of cats
• a significant source of concern for cat owners
• a leading cause of surrender to shelters
• the excuse used for surgical declawing of cats

What you see here is typical of veterinary science. Pick a rare disease like arterial thromboembolism and you’ll find lots of good science. Pick a common, everyday, practical problem and it just doesn’t get the same attention.

Finally, I have something to tell you. For the first time, two recent studies have looked at scratcher preferences in kittens and adult cats. They offered cats choices and measured which ones they chose to use more often.

Before I get to that, it might help to know why they do it.

Why Do Cats Scratch?

Although there is very little evidence, most experts agree that cats scratch objects for three main reasons:

1. To sharpen their claws by removing the old outer nail sheaths to expose new nail
2. To mark territory using both scratches and scents
3. To stretch themselves out – this last one is important later on

Cat Scratcher Preferences

So which objects do they prefer to scratch? In wild and outdoor cats, you most often see the base of a tree or stump being used. Our job for indoor cats is to choose a suitable replacement so they don’t feel the need to use something else.

Here’s what the two studies found: Cats and kittens consistently preferred cardboard or rope over other scratching pole and scratcher types.

In the kitten study, the preferred scratcher is a horizontal cardboard scratcher. You can view it here. You’ll see that it’s very similar to my cat’s favourite scratcher pictured earlier which costs $5 from K-Mart.

In the adult cat study, cats preferred vertical scratching poles covered with rope or cardboard. They avoided fabrics and carpet, and this time did not use the horizontal cardboard scratcher so much.

Based on my own experience, there may be two reasons for this that were not captured by the study:

1. At only 45cm long. I suspect the horizontal scratcher was too short given that most cats like to stretch out while scratching
2. Adult cats may have become accustomed to traditional vertical scratching posts by the time of the study

So let’s put this into some concrete recommendations.

What Is The Best Cat Scratcher?

It’s important to start good habits early. Kittens should be offered both horizontal scratchers and vertical scratching posts in either rope or cardboard. Since scratchers are cheap, it’s worth buying a few, spreading them around, and looking for the most popular type and position.

If you haven’t already noticed this, you often have to ‘teach’ kittens to scratch by getting down and showing them. You’ll feel ridiculous, but it works!

Adult cats should be given a choice, but pre-existing preferences are also important. Once again, rope or cardboard should be chosen, but the cat’s larger size and weight must be taken into account.

Help! My Cat Scratches The Furniture

We’ve all faced it: the prized household item being slowly destroyed by cat claws. It can drive you mad.

If you look online, you will see that most answers to the problem involve making the scratched object as unpleasant as possible. However, I suspect that many cats scratch the furniture because their own choices aren’t up to scratch (hehehe!). Commercially-available scratching poles are often:

• not the best material
• too small
• not stable enough

Now we can add a possible fourth fault: not horizontal. I was amazed by how much Grendel prefers to stand on the thing he’s scratching. Until now he didn’t have the choice.

He’s only one example of a bigger concept: cats don’t all like the same thing. Only by trying out different scratching poles, posts and mats can you find the one your cat prefers. With these two new studies, perhaps we now have a head start.

Have something to add? Comments (if open) will appear within 24 hours.
By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

Further Reading

Zhang, L., & McGlone, J. J. (2020). Scratcher preferences of adult in-home cats and effects of olfactory supplements on cat scratching. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 104997

Zhang, L., Plummer, R., & McGlone, J. (2019). Preference of kittens for scratchers. Journal of feline medicine and surgery, 21(8), 691-699