TheCompleteCat.com Blog

“A coward dies a thousand deaths; a brave man dies but once.” Our cat Der Doc proved that this applies to cats as well.

Caution was the watchword in Der Doc’s life. He was a grey cat, striped like a tiger but decidedly without the tiger’s courage. Daddy said, “He’s the original scaredy-cat.”

Der Doc had the run of our farm in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, and the farm had multitudes of opportunities for a diligent cat. The chief opportunities lay with barn mice during the winter and field mice in the summer. Der Doc regularly partook of these opportunities. Cautiously, (more…)

The Cornish Rex breed began as a happy accident of nature. A genetic mutation in a liter of kittens born in the 1950s in Cornwall, United Kingdom, resulted in kittens that had extremely fine and curly down for hair, not the typical thick coat like most breeds of cat. Even the whiskers were curly! Breeders were struck by this, and decided to selective breed this trait through inbreeding and crossbreeding. Many other breeds of cat were used during this period so the ‘coat’ on a Cornish Rex comes in many colors and patterns.

They (more…)

The Pet Food Recall of 2007 has brought an enormous amount of attention to pet food. With tens of thousands of pets affected by the recall and with the death of several thousand pets from tainted food (refer to the PetConnection Database), it is not at all surprising that we have questions. The surprising thing is that it’s taken us all so long to ask these questions.

What have we been feeding our pets all these years? We’ve all, including Veterinarians like myself, trusted the pet food companies completely. We believed they have always held our pets – and our – best interests to heart. But in the case of the large multinational pet food companies, apparently not.

What we’ve been feeding has obviously not been what’s best for our pets. What we’re seen is shorter life spans, more disease, and more cancer – not healthier pets. While genetics do play a role, our pets are just like us. Garbage in… you know the result.

Pet food company ethics aside, the ultimate question that needs to be answered is this: what is the best (more…)