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It’s a Cat’s Life- Or Is It?- An article about idiopathic cystitis.
How many times do we hear the people say they would love to come back as cat? We see them lounging in the sun without a care in the world- or so it would seem. The fact is that our cats live in situations they would naturally find quite stressful. We put them in busy houses in places where there are lots of other cats (and often dogs too) encroaching on their territory and sometimes bullying them. In the wild they would have about 500 square metres of territory all to themselves. They would eat little and often and do all their ‘business’ in a clean spot every time. I saw a gorgeous cat this week that was constantly straining for a wee and only passing small amounts of urine. Her owner said they had moved house fairly recently and there were more cats in the neighbourhood than she was used to before. This is something we see more and more and is called ‘idiopathic cystitis’. It is a fancy way of saying an inflamed bladder for no apparent reason. Chronic stress damages the protective lining of the bladder and urine attacks the bladder wall causing bleeding and inflammation. Many cats also do not drink enough because they don’t like tap water and hold onto their urine for long periods of time because of soiled litter trays, making the urine concentrated and irritant to the bladder wall. There are a few things we suggest to make your cat’s life even more easy- going. Honestly, they don’t know their born! 1) Use a Feliway diffuser. This is a pheromone that calms and relaxes the cat. They act like any plug- in and seem to help some cats tremendously. All you have to do is change them when they run out.
2) Have one more litter tray than you have cats (if you can’t let them out) in discreet places and change them frequently so they always have somewhere clean to go to the toilet.
3) Provide a drinking fountain indoors or mineral water instead of tap water to drink.
4) If at all possible, give him access to the outside. This is a much more natural environment for cats to toilet in and allows access to rain- water to drink.
5) Feed wet food as at least part of the diet to encourage water intake and keep the urine dilute.
6) Use supplements such as ‘Cystaid’, available from your vet. This is a very natural product and provides high levels of the proteins necessary to restore and maintain the bladder lining.
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