In my last post over at Scratchings and Sniffings, we discussed the "Sensitive Cat Syndrome".

I attended a lecture given by Dr. Tony Buffington on this subject last week at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando. Florida. Needless to say this lecture had a big impact on me and got me thinking about cats in a different way. I guess you could say I've been thinking like a cat lately and for a dog person at heart I have an entirely new perspective. now.

It doesn't get better than this. PurinaCare® Pet Health Insurance has just created a "Groups Benefits Department" that will offer employers and associations group discounts for providing their employees and members with pet health insurance.

A bold, forward move that needs to be applauded, don't you think? I do. According to the press release I found via Google alerts, "Pet insurance is a coverage program designed to pick up the tab on the high cost of vet bills." Got it? The "high cost of vet bills"...which is another way of saying, a great way to take care of your dog or cat when he or she is ill with an on-going medical problem or in an accident that requires extensive surgery and/or medical care.

This is a very common question for many cat owners that are thinking about pet health insurance. They reason that keeping a cat indoors makes them less susceptible to infectious disease and less likely to be involved in a serious accident. For the most part, I agree with this logic and I'm an advocate of an indoor lifestyle for cats.

On the other hand I attended an interesting presentation last week at The North American Veterinary Conference that opened my eyes to the Health Risks of indoor living for cats. 

More feline health information from the NAVC. I attended an interesting talk on feline hyperthyroidism. This is a fairly common disease in geriatric cats. In fact, it's the most common endocrine disorder in domestic cats. Endocrine disorders are glandular problems and this one obviously affects the thyroid gland.

This weekend our local paper had a really great article on the pet friendly atmosphere here in the Denver/Boulder area. It wasn't news to me, I've been coming to visit for many years (before finally moving here) and I've experienced the way folks here accept pets, especially dogs, just about everywhere.

The author of the article, John Davidson, wrote, "The Denver area is a heavenly place to be a beast." Is that not a great opening? He also says, "In fact, [Denver] is among the top five to 10 places in the country for pets, according to John Snyder, vice president for companion animals at the Humane Society of the United States." Denver is cited as a good place for rescues and lower euthanasia rates.

Exercising a cat seems like the classic example of the oxymoron. We don't typically walk our cats like we do our dogs and cat behavior is different when it comes to exercise. In fact, most of us are more accustomed to watching our cats sleep than seeing them exercise. 

Tom and I are back from the NAVC (North American Veterinary Conference) and catching up on things. We had a lot of time to visit the exhibit hall and will talk about that a bit, later on. But, I do want to say we met our podcast professional, Dr. Bill, and we met Dr. Larry, and we met some other good Purina people, including Dr. Grace from Purina Veterinary Diets.

While meeting our Purina sponsors was a big treat, I have to tell you that the conference overall commanded most of my attention. As a former veterinary technician, I was fascinated by the modern marvels in veterinary science, and I was comforted by the usual veterinary practices I saw or heard about - ones that were still very similar to the kinds of things we did back in the day.

It's been a busy week at the North American Veterinary Conference and it's only Monday. I had dinner with Tom and Yvonne last night and we got together this morning at the Feline Health Symposium sponsored by Purina. I attended two really interesting presentations on Feline Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Managing Obesity in Cats.

The IBD presentation was given by Dr Debra Zoran an internal medicine specialist from the College of Veterinary Medicine atTexas A&M. IBD is a common yet somewhat poorly understood disease. It is often diagnosed by elimination, meaning we rule out diseases that are more easily identified until we arrive at a presumptive diagnosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. 

Continue Reading "Cat Health Week" »

Hi, from Orlando at the North American Veterinary Conference. Believe it or not, this is the first time Yvonne and Tom have had the chance to meet Dr. Larry face-to-face!

Here's Yvonne and Dr. Larry, with Michael Albo, in from the home office of PurinaCare in San Antonio:

We've been blogging and micro-blogging about the educational programs and other doings here at NAVC.

You can find today's wrap-up in my post over at Scratchings & Sniffings and some tweets Tom posted live during the Purina Symposium sessions on cat health issues under the hashtags #9CatLivesMyth #PVDNAVC #NAVC.

More coming up!

Tomorrow, Tom and I leave to attend the North American Vet Conference in Orlando, otherwise referred to as NAVC. I think Dr. Larry arrives today.

I have not been to a vet conference in many, many years. As Dr. Larry noted in his post yesterday, I'm sure to be surprised by all the amazing developments in veterinary science. I do know that more girls than boys (woman than men?) graduate from vet school, these days. It's definitely an attractive profession for women - albeit, a tough one.

I say tough because there is a lot of suffering that goes along with the care of animals. And yet, our pets rarely demand as much attention as their human counterparts. Pets are accepting of many medical issues - because they don't know better. To me, that's why today's improvements are so important. Creating that long and healthy life for our pets is every pet owner's desire. Isn't it?