Hi I'm Diana Korten and I'm here today with Ben to talk about common cat illnesses. I've chosen Ben to do this segment with us because he gets urinary tract infections pretty easily. Basically you want to watch for things like loss of appetite. You want to check their fur and if their fur gets dehydrated. You want to pull on it like this and you see how Ben's just sort of pops back down. If you pull on it like this it will stay up if they're dehydrated and that tells you that something is going on. Hiding is another symptom. They are trying to hide their illness so they try to hide their whole selves. Fortunately we have some tools that can help us as well. If your cat is getting a little bit older you might want to consider using a diagnostic litter periodically just as a routine check to make sure that the cat is not ill. I'm just filling this box with the health check litter and what will happen is when the cat goes to the bathroom it will just be yellow. If the cat peas and it stays yellow then that is a sign that things are probably okay. If the color changes and you get a red, that usually tells you that there is a little urine in the blood and you want to get he cat to have it checked out. Ben is being very cooperative today and we're going to see how his urine comes out. It is looking very yellow and it is just looking very yellow so that tells us that Ben is doing very well today. If it changed color then that would tell us that we need to be on the look out and we need to take him to the vet. The reason why we are in the bathroom today is that for some reason cats are drawn to the bathroom when they're not feeling well. A cat with a urinary tract infection will often pea right over the drain so if you come in the bathroom and you smell a little cat urine odor or you see a little yellow around the drain that is a good sign that your cat might have a urinary tract infection and you want to rush him to Cat Care the vet because they can die from UTI's. Some ways that you can help your cat prevent from getting UTI's and kidney failure is to keep them well hydrated. I would like to advocate feeding your cat wet food which contains a lot of water. Cats are not natural drinkers. Occasionally you will get a cat who loves to drink a lot of water but most cats aren't really good water drinkers. They are originally a desert animal. Their ancestors got most of their moisture from their kill so giving them a wet diet means that they get a lot of moisture in their food like their ancestors did. From day one you want to take your cat in for an annual health check, even if there is nothing going on. Once your cat gets to be eight years old you really want to take that cat in once every six months to get a little blood work done, get these things checked out because a lot of things, there are a lot of illnesses that your vet can catch early that don't have to be terminal but if you catch them late, if you wait for your cat to point you to the symptoms, you may find that by that time it is really too late.
