Tag cats
My Adorable European Burmese Is Like A Dog
I apologize for the poor audio quality. It was shot with my Android phone. You can still see how cute my cat Kazu is though!
My Blue Burmese LOVES Hugs And Kisses
I never realized how few people have bonding experiences with cuddly cats. I also guess I am lucky to have had several of the most affectionate cats. My blue Burmese absolutely loves to be hugged, and he adores kisses. It is rather common for me to pepper his cute little forehead with a barrage of kisses, which I know most cats would never tolerate.
Tenshi has gotten to the point that he expects and demands hugs and kisses from his humans. If I don’t hug and kiss him hello, he gets grumpy! Check out my video of him getting kisses.
This Is What $54 Worth Of Good Cat Food Looks Like…
For the past several weeks, I have been re-training my European Burmese cat Kazu to eat moist cat food so that she will lose weight. She is a very fussy eater, and it has been a guessing game, trying to determine which foods she will eat. My conclusion is that Kazu will only eat food which has had little to no processing, and is considered “human grade”. This little lady is insisting on a whole food diet, which is fine with me, but the kind of food she likes is expensive!
Today I decided to stock up, so I went to C&C Pet Foods (great place for discounted pet food in Burbank) and purchased 32 three ounce cans, 6 three ounce pouches and 1 six ounce can, which came to a total of $54. That’s pretty pricey if you ask me! However, Kazu has refused other brands of foods, so I have to stick with a small handful of brands (Tiki Cat, Weruva, and B.F.F.) which are not available at stores like Petco or PetSmart.
If you have a finicky pet, I would HIGHLY recommend these brands of pet food, because they are high quality and quite palatable to most pets.
My Cat Needs A Body Transformation
For the first time in the thirty years that I have had cats, I share my home and my heart with an obese cat. My six year old European Burmese Kazu is of small stature, and her normal weight should be somewhere around nine pounds. She was nine pounds until just under a year ago, when her weight began creeping up. I noticed instead of walking down the stairs like she used to do, she hopped down the stairs, mainly as a result of her increasing belly girth and her short legs, both of which interfered with normal transit.
One day in May, my roommate remarked that Kazu was rather stout, then began asking questions about her. Since my roommate was new to the household, she could clearly see that my cat was overweight. Was she constipated? Well, yes, Kazu has had bouts of constipation since kittenhood. Did Kazu drink enough water? Yes, I think she does. Does Kazu overeat? Honestly, I really don’t think so. Kazu doesn’t usually beg for food, and she normally doesn’t like moist cat food or people food. Out of concern for my little girl, I took her to the vet, who told me that my cat was fat and that there was nothing I could do about it. I then got a second opinion which was the same. I then addressed the constipation issue by trying glycerin suppositories, but there wasn’t much of a change in Kazu’s bowel habits, and neither of us enjoyed the process.
By early August, Kazu’s weight shot up to twelve pounds, which prompted me to take her to a third vet. Thankfully, that vet (Dr. Lavely at Limehouse Veterinary) was willing to take the time to chat at length about the problems which I had regarding switching the household to scheduled feeding times (erratic schedule, often not home, greedy male cat who eats everything, Kazu’s finicky palate). It’s been about a week since we visited Dr. Lavely, and the feeding has definitely been very erratic, which is why I still have dry food out at all times for the cats to eat. I keep trying to give Kazu people food and moist cat food, but her response is inconsistent. On some days, she readily accepts the food I put out for her, while on other days, she barely even sniffs the food before walking away. I am hoping that Kazu begins to accept the offerings I give her, because that is the only way she will lose weight. I even bought a very expensive moist cat food which has human grade ingredients in hopes that she transitions over to moist food. My goal is to get her to lose three pounds in a healthy way over the next year. Kazu is relatively active and plays with her siblings frequently. She also plays toys and is the only cat out of the three who knows how to play fetch and even initiates games of fetch on a regular basis.
I guess Kazu is my first feline body transformation client!
Feeding Time
My tubby girl Kazu
Over the past year, my European Burmese cat Kazu has put on considerable weight, and is now rather tubby at 11.5 pounds when she really should be 9.5 pounds. Since I have never had an overweight cat before, and also since my other two cats are rather svelte, I am wracking my brain trying to figure out a solution which would get Kazu to drop weight. When I took Kazu to the vet to investigate her sudden weight gain, the vet told me that all I could really do was to address her chronic constipation via dietary fiber and glycerin suppositories. When I tried feeding Kazu wet food with fiber mixed in, she refused it, but I wasn’t surprised since she isn’t a fan of canned food. On the one occasion in which I decided to try a suppository on her, neither she nor I were happy about the experience, and though I think the treatment helped to move things along a bit that day, I am not convinced that the mild boost in bathroom activity warranted me torturing my poor cat on a regular basis.
I feed my cats a low calorie, high protein, grain-free, dry formula to which they have free range all day. This is partially because I have always done that with the cats I have had since 1986, and because I am always so freakishly busy that I am gone for the entire day and unable to accommodate scheduled feedings. Kazu’s breeder suggested that I consider a timed feeder, but that wouldn’t work in our household because my American Burmese boy Tenshi is so food-motivated that he would chomp down all the food in the feeder, leaving none for the other two cats to eat.
I think at this point, I will try to add fiber by another means, and will measure out food so that about 1/3 cup of dry food is allotted per cat per day. I will have to portion the food out in the morning before I leave and just keep an eye on how much Kazu is actually consuming, though I know she isn’t a big eater. In addition, I have been trying to get Kazu to exercise more, even though she is relatively active. All three of my cats play “grab-ass” (my favorite terminology for the rough-housing they all do) on most days, and Kazu loves playing fetch with socks and toys, so I will try to encourage as much play as I can when I am home. It isn’t exactly easy to put a six year old cat on an exercise plan, but if I can do it for humans, I am certainly up for the challenge with a feline!
I Just Had To Get A New Pillow
The combination of a poorly cooled townhouse (the result of an untimely coil leak in the central air conditioning), night sweats, cats who think it’s cool to use me as a natural radiator, aches and pains in my hips, legs, shoulders, forearms and hands, and a recurrent neck strain have all robbed me of sleep almost every night this summer. With the exception of the cat issue, I was determined to find solutions to all of the sleep robbing elements in my life.
The central air conditioning is finally going to be replaced within the next week (HALLELUJAH!), the night sweats have abated somewhat (due to better hormonal balance in my perimenopausal body), and the aches and pains have been better as a result of fantastic chiropractic work by Dr. Ryan Pendon and Dr. Ryan Chapman from Urban Med. I realized that the neck strain was aggravated by pillows which did a horrible job of supporting my noggin, so I figured I could buy new ones.
Since I always buy new pillows for my bed every year in the autumn months, and wasn’t quite due for a new set, I hesitated on making a purchase. But the pillows I had been sleeping on since November were no longer fluffable, and at night, my head would sink right onto the mattress. I could literally feel the mattress through the pillows! I will admit that I am highly sensitive to tactile changes, just like the princess who could feel the pea through 20 mattresses. So I toughed it out and figured that I would just somehow get used to having deflated pillows. Then I got one of those mailers from Bed, Bath and Beyond, with a 20% off coupon on any one item. After thinking about it for a week, I decided to buy one pillow at a 20% discount.
I ended up with an Isotonic® Indulgence™ Side Sleeper Pillow, originally priced at $59 but which I paid $47 and some change for after using my coupon. This pillow is for side sleepers, but isn’t as firm as some of the other side sleeper pillows I found. Since I always start out my night on my back, I can’t deal with a very firm pillow because it wrenches my neck into an uncomfortable flexed position. The perfect pillow has to be a perfect balance of support and softness, with some loft, but soft enough that it doesn’t feel like my head is resting on a Bosu ball. So far (it has been a couple of nights since I started using this pillow to sleep on), this pillow is doing the trick for me.
Now I only have to deal with one, or actually, THREE issues which interrupt my slumber. The cats rule the roost in our house and have free access to my room, which means that if they want to wrap their perspiration-inducing, furry bodies around me in the middle of the night, I am not exactly going to do anything to prevent them from doing so. However, it is a small price to pay for their constant and unconditional love!
How Shima Stole My Heart
I came across this piece when I was looking for something else in my files. It was written to honor my sweet cat Shima who is now 6 years old:
Back in early 2009, I was nursing a broken heart after my first American Burmese boy went missing. I had contacted a breeder and made arrangements the last week of April to drive to Northern California to pick up an Am Burm male kitten.
The Wednesday prior to my trip, I had to pick up kitten food for the new boy. It had been 7 years since I had lived with a kitten, so I needed to purchase kitten food. It would have been MUCH more convenient to go to a pet store closer to work, but for whatever reason, I decided to go to another store near my house. And I felt a compulsion to do this. I should have known something special would occur there.
I was in the store no more than 5 minutes when I heard mewing. Not meowing. Mewing, from a kitten who was clearly very young. Then a woman came down the aisle I was in, holding a pet carrier. From this carrier I heard the mewing again. I chatted briefly with the woman, who stated that she had heard mewing in her backyard, and found this abandoned kitten. She had come to the store hoping to get some advice on how to feed the kitten since she had never done such a thing.
I peeked inside the carrier and saw a 3-1/2 week old silver spotted tabby female whose ears had come up only a couple of days prior. I reached into the carrier and scooped her into my arms, whereupon she immediately stopped mewing and snuggled into my neck.
The woman was delighted and stated that it was the first time the kitten had stopped mewing. In the meantime, the store manager brought over some kitten formula and I proceeded to feed her. I promised the woman that I would care for the kitten and find a good home for her. Little did I know she would steal my heart and that the “good home” would be mine!
Suddenly my life was defined by feedings every two hours, little to no sleep, de-worming, weaning, and lots of attention to this little creature. Shima is now six years old, slightly shy, very affectionate, and a complete marvel to me. She still likes to sleep on my chest despite the fact that she is almost too big to do that easily! When she was very little I would wrap her against my chest like a little papoose. She’d nod off to sleep in that position.
Shima was probably born around March 25th, but I have set her birthday at March 18th, the same day that my first burmese boy had gone missing.
It was meant to be for us to meet that day…
My Lumpy Cat
I have three cats: an American Burmese male named Tenshi, a silver spotted tabby female named Shima, and a European Burmese female named Kazu. Tenshi is built like a miniature puma, sleek and well muscled, and he maintains a perfect weight despite being a complete pig and prone to eating ANY food that he can get his paws on. Shima is my slender girl, long limbed and with a long tail.
Then there is Kazu. Over the past year or so, Kazu has put on considerable weight, and it troubles me to know that in almost 30 years of having cats, I now have an overweight cat! She is a small cat, consistent with the size of most Burmese, but she weighs 11.2 pounds now. She should be 9 pounds.
I know you may be saying, “She doesn’t look overweight”, but trust me, this little lady has a midsection that is downright lumpy! The vet doesn’t have a good answer for why Kazu is overweight, and I can’t figure out what to do with her. One consideration is the fact that she has always been constipated, but I doubt that my cat is actually THAT full of crap!
Look at Kazu’s deep chest in the picture below. You can see that she has some mass to her and is a muscular cat, which is also consistent with the Burmese breed. Perhaps she is in her “off-season bulking phase”!
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