BEHAVIOR

He believes that we should adjust our environment to our cats, rather than vice-versa. Make sure they have access to elevated spaces, he says. He suggests window inserts, carpeted cat posts with different climbing levels, ladders on bookcases, even plate-like cat shelves where cats can sit.

One of the indicators of an animals ability to think and demonstrate their consciousness is their ability to make choices between alternatives. In their book Cat Culture: The Social World of a Cat Shelter, sociology professors Janet and Steve Alger, PhDs, conducted an in-depth study of cats at a shelter.

Letters to Tufts Veterinarians - Causes of scratching behavior; eating inedible objects; a diagnosis that eludes various experts

Nothing is more appealing to many cat lovers than snuggling up with a beloved feline companion, whether its during some relaxing television time, reading an engrossing book or even turning in for the night. But what happens if youre a person who tends to wake up easily, in the middle of the night, and then ends up staring at the alarm clock for several hours before you need to get ready for work?

You wake up late, once again, and rush around the house to get ready for work. As you dress in a hurry, your cat brings a mangled catnip mouse and drops it at your feet as if to say, Its time for my favorite game! Lets go! Already late, you halfheartedly toss the mouse once - mostly to distract your cat for a moment - before you dash out the door a few minutes later.

Any cat is apt to display alarming behavior now and then - gnawing at her fur with a vengeance, for example, or racing madly from room to room with no apparent objective. Such fleeting episodes are normal and should be of no concern to her owner. But if the behavior is observed several times a day or, more alarmingly, several times an hour, it is possible that the cat is manifesting an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

When two cats who were formerly tolerant of each other or even mutually bonded suddenly start fighting with each other, the diagnosis is almost certainly redirected aggression. A typical scenario, sometimes witnessed by the owner, is that two friendly cats are sitting next to each other on a windowsill, looking at the wide world outside, when all of a sudden something scary - perhaps another cat or a dog - comes into their view.

A team of researchers at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences and NC State University has launched an ambitious effort to analyze the secret lives of outdoor cats with the help of tiny satellite tracking harnesses, a 3-D printer and daily feces analysis. This could eventually include miniature cat-mounted video cameras to detail behavior of outdoor cats.

Cats can be really good friends, says Nicholas H. Dodman, BVMS, DACVB, Animal Behavior Clinic Director at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. Two is company, and even three or more can get on.

The tendency of cats to scratch rugs and furniture often frustrates their owners. Cats do need to scratch, but they dont have to ruin the household furniture in the process.

Most people think of heartworm disease (HWD) as a disease that only impacts dogs. While its true that heartworm infection is much less common in cats than in dogs (the feline prevalence is approximately five percent as compared to 20 percent of the canine prevalence), cats most certainly do get heartworm disease.

Already under the lethal threat of poaching and habitat loss, tigers, lions and other wild carnivores are now falling victim to the canine distemper virus - which could eventually drive endangered populations to extinction.