Tag: Cats

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Pet Food Recall: Special Kitty Gourmet Blend

Mars Petcare is recalling bags of its Special Kitty Gourmet Bland dry cat food due to possible salmonella contamination. The bags of food were sold in Wal-Mart stores in:

  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • Massachusetts
  • Maryland
  • Maine
  • North Carolina
  • New Hampshire
  • New Jersey
  • New York
  • Ohio
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • Virginia
  • Vermont
  • West Virginia

Here is the information you need to identify the affected bags:

  • Best If Used By Date: AUG 11 09
  • Best If Used By Date Location: Back of bag
  • Production Lot Code: 50 XXXX X  (Found on back of bag just after “Best If Used By” date. Consumers should look for “50” as the first two digits of the second line.)

UPC code numbers can be found right below the bar code on the package.

  • 3.5 lb.    Special Kitty gourmet blend       81131 17546
  • 7 lb.       Special Kitty gourmet blend       81131 17547
  • 18 lb.     Special Kitty gourmet blend       81131 17548

If you have a bag of the recalled food, dispose of the contents in a covered trash can and return the empty bag to the store where you bought it for a refund.

Salmonella can cause serious illness in cats and dogs and there can be cross-contamination to humans causing serious illness in humans.  Here is good information on the symptoms & treatment of salmonellosis in dogs & cats. The FDA has information on how to safely handle salmonella contaminated pet food. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has a very informative page on salmonellosis in humans.

You can find out more about previous pet food recalls in the Pet Food Recall Archive.

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Reasons To Adopt A Black Cat Or Dog


Raven making faces

There are lots of humorous reasons to adopt a black cat or dog—

  • a black cat doesn’t need a costume for Halloween
  • a black dog goes with any decor
  • their fur doesn’t show on dark clothes
  • black dogs don’t show dirt

The best reason is more serious.  Black cats & dogs are much less likely to be adopted because—

  • they don’t photograph well
  • they aren’t distinctive like a calico cat or a dog with spots
  • they don’t stand out in a sea of black cats or dogs
  • some people are still superstitious

If they aren’t euthanized, black kittens & puppies tend to stay longer in shelters.  Then they are no longer cute kittens or puppies, making it even tougher to get them adopted.  It’s such a pervasive problem that shelters organize special adoption events just for black cats and there’s a whole organization dedicated to promoting the adoption of black dogs called BlackPearlDogs.com.

In my experience, black cats are like any other cat.  The can be sweet, silly, clever, feisty, loungers, or whirlwinds.  They are as beautiful as any other cat if not more so.  They aren’t identical.  And those of us who share our lives with them are very fond of them.

Black dogs are just as wonderful as any other dog.  And they are in such great need of adoption.  Bark has an article on the plight of black dogs in animals shelters and what’s being done to help them.  Black dogs aren’t identical either—they have a huge range of body types and characteristics.  The can be herders, retrievers, pointers, or sleepers.

Every pet adoption is a life saved, but in the case of black cats & dogs, you’re saving a life that’s at an even higher risk of being cut short.

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Video Of How To Give Your Cat A Pill

pills2.jpgCornell University College of Veterinary Medicine has developed a very good series of videos on how to give your cat a pill or capsule.

You can watch the whole video. It’s also broken down into segments:

  1. an introduction
  2. what to gather beforehand
  3. how to restrain your cat
  4. the finger method
  5. the pill-gun method

There are also a number of excellent tips:

  1. how to pill your cat without help
  2. what to do if your cat hides & how to keep the medicating of your cat from causing behavioral problems
  3. how to handle cats that are very difficult to restrain
  4. what to do if your cat keeps spitting out the pill
  5. what it means if your cat foams at the mouth after taking a pill

The tip to coat the pill in butter is a great one, especially for pills that are not already coated. I touched one pill to the tip of my tongue once when we were having a really hard time pilling a cat and that pill was one of the most bitter, lingering, awful things ever—blech. I would also add that you make sure you fingernails are trimmed short so you don’t jab the roof of your cat’s mouth when you push the pill to the back of its tongue. And finally, our cat, Raven, can wait a long time to swallow. We have found that blowing a puff of air in her face sometimes startles her into swallowing.

Don’t miss the instructional videos on how to trim your cat’s claws.

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