2. In a food processor mix tuna, egg, flour, water and parsley until a dough forms. If the dough looks too sticky, add a bit more flour
.3. Dust a surface with flour and roll out dough to 1/2 inch thick.4. Use a bottle cap to cut out treats from the dough.5. Bake for 20 minutes on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.6. Let cool and serve to your cat.
From Kitten to Senior Cat Food: Cat Nutrition by Lifestage
Published byChristine O’Brien
Your cat’s age is something that needs to be considered when choosing the proper food for your cat, whether you’re searching for kitten food or senior cat food. Selecting one that provides your furry friend with the optimum nutrition she needs at each lifestage can help to ensure a long, healthy life.
When searching for a cat food check the packaging to see if it matches your cat’s lifestage. A cat requires different levels of nutrition at every lifestage, so it is important to choose one that matches her energy level, metabolic rate and other basic needs. Some times all this information can make cat food labels not easy to read, however, so it’s important to know what your cat needs and why.
As classified by the American Animal Hospital Association, there are six identifiable stages of a cat’s life, each of which requires its own smart pet food choices.
Newborn Kittens (Birth to 4 months)
Newborn kittens will stay with their mother for the first 8 or so weeks as they will rely on their mother’s milk to help them grow and fight off diseases that their immune system is quite equipped to deal with. During this time, they will do little else other than nurse and sleep.
When your kitten is at least 8-9 weeks old she will be ready to wean off her mother’s milk and come home with you. After she is weaned and ready to go home, you’ll immediately discover that she’s a ball of energy with a zest for life. At this stage, a kitten’s routine follows the pattern of eat, sleep, run around like crazy, repeat. She requires the right nutrients to maintain her boundless energy.
Now that she is weaned from her mother, whether from her mother or bottle-feeding, your new kitten food should be made with fatty acids, such as DHA (a common source of this nutrient is fish oil), folic acid, and taurine, an amino acid that aids in the vital development of the immune and digestive systems, heart functions and vision quality. Protein is another vital component of kitten food and comes from a variety of sources, including meat and grains. She is growing at an astonishing rate (this stage is equivalent to the first ten years of a human’s life!) and needs energy to keep up the pace. It’s important that these nutrients are always in the right amounts to ensure the best opportunity to be healthy as she grows. In addition to nutrition, don’t forget about other kitten care opportunities.
Junior Cats (7 Months to 2 years) and Prime Cats (3-6 years)
If your fur baby’s behavior changes as she approaches the one-year mark, don’t be surprised. She’s beginning adolescence and then moving on to adulthood, lifestages that correspond to the human ages of 12-27 (Junior) and 28-40 (Prime).
Technically, cats are considered to be adults at the age of one year and that will extend through year six, but age is not necessarily a deterministic factor in how active your cat will be. Many cats will be very lively well into their double-digit years. For this reason, one of your considerations for feeding a young adult cat should be activity level. An average kitty will need enough food for “maintenance” energy to go about her daily activities, but if your cat is extremely active and spends hours sprinting around the house, she’ll need a few more calories to sustain her. If your pet likes to laze in the sunshine all day, she might require carefully measured meals to keep her trim. Talk to your vet about your cat’s activity level, as they can help you determine if your cat needs more or less calories.
Adult cats require the right amount of fat and protein in their meals as well as other nutrients like taurine. Consider the Hill’s® Science Diet® line of cat food. These products, ranging from kitten food all the way up to senior cat food, provide balanced nutrition in a variety of options for adult cats of all ages, sizes and activity levels, including hairball, sensitive stomach and light formulas.
Mature Cats (7-10 years) and Senior Cats (11-14 years)
Cats in these two categories are placed firmly in the middle stages of life. In human years, these furry friends are in their early 40s through early 70s comparatively to humans. While your kitty won’t (necessarily) experience a mid-life crisis, she may become a little more finicky with her food choices, and you’ll need to ensure she gets the nutrients she needs while staying properly hydrated. Always make sure your cat has access to clean, fresh water.
This also is a time of life when cats’ nutritional needs shift, whether because of medical issues or simply aging. In some instances, too much or too little of any one ingredient may impact her health. During this stage, you’ll want to keep an eye on your cat’s weight as her activity level may decrease, which could lead to obesity. Avoid the calorie-rich food formulated for kittens and young adult cats; instead, look for foods that are formulated with her needs as an aging cat are kept in mind like Youthful Vitality cat food. Watching her calorie intake not only keeps her weight in a healthy range but also reduces the risk of diseases, such as kidney disease, certain cancers and osteoarthritis.
Geriatric Cats (15+ Years)
In her golden years, your fur baby may start to seek more attention from you, become more affectionate, and reduce her activity level. As her behavior changes, so do her meal time needs.
Much like the foods for adult cats, senior cat food should be low in calories and fiber. Another concern for elderly cats is being underweight. Hill’s® Science Diet® Adult 11+ Age Defying Cat Food is formulated with the right balance of necessary ingredients for geriatric cats with the added benefit of antioxidants that help keep her healthy during the aging process.
Both wet food and dry food provide your cat with the ingredients she needs, but there are upsides and downsides to each. Older cats often have worn or missing teeth, so she might appreciate something a little softer. Some pet parents try a combination of the two, or add just a little wet food — or even some fresh water — to dry kibble. Your cat certainly will let you know her preference, and the two of you can work together to find the perfect fit.
Where do cat treats fit into a cat’s meal plan? As just that: a treat. “While giving your cat an occasional treat is not generally harmful, they are usually not a nutritionally complete and balanced source of nutrition and should only be fed occasionally,” explains the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. According to Cornell, you also should avoid giving your cat raw meat (it carries the risk of toxoplasmosis and infectious disease), canned fish (risk of neurological disease) and milk (many cats can’t digest dairy).
In addition to a nutrient-rich food, your cat needs to stay hydrated in order to stay healthy. This is especially true for senior and geriatric cats, for whom dehydration can be a side effect of certain medical conditions.
There are, of course, exceptions for each cat lifestage if there are medical concerns or other issues to address, at which time you should consult with your veterinarian. Your vet can also help you determine the best feeding schedule for your cat including how much to feed at each lifestage as well as when to feed throughout the day. Choosing the best cat food for your best pal will help to keep her healthy, no matter whether she’s young or young at heart.
✨ Cat Nights begin on August 17 when Sirius the Dog Star is no longer visible in the night sky. This term harkens back to the days when people were afraid of witches. A rather obscure old Irish legend said that a witch could turn herself into a cat eight times, but on the ninth time (August 17), she couldn’t regain her human form. This bit of folklore also gives us the saying, “A cat has nine lives.” Because August is a yowly time for cats, this may have prompted the speculation about witches on the prowl in the first place. Also, nights continue to get longer. Cats, crepuscular creatures, are nocturnal hunters. Their superior night vision means that the nights belong to them. 🐾
This cat tent is super easy to make – you really just need a t-shirt, some wire hangers and a piece of cardboard. As a bonus, it really only takes five minutes, so if your cat ignores it you didn’t put too much effort in. 😉
Step 1: What You’ll Need:
a cat
a medium t-shirt
a 15 x 15-inch piece of cardboard (mine was 13×15 and a little wonky)
two wire hangers
tape
safety pins
something to cut the hangers with and help bend them – I used a large pair of pliers. 🙂
Step 2: Cut the Hangers
Cut off both squiggly ends. I untwisted mine and then cut, but that’s not really necessary.
Step 3: Shape the Hangers + Reinforce the Cardboard If Needed
Shape the hangers so they look like the above – try to make them smooth and pretty uniform. You want two graceful curves that will go from corner to corner of your piece of cardboard.
I also took this time to tape on a couple supports to the cardboard and tape all around the edges for a little more stability. This is really only necessary if you’re using a piece of cardboard with a crease in it.
Step 4: Poke a Hole in Each Corner
You should be able to use the end of the hanger to do this!
Make sure it’s at least a half inch in from each edge and not too large.
Step 5: Tape the Two Hangers Together
Cross the two hangers in the middle and make sure all the ends touch the surface you’re working on. Tape them together really well so they don’t shift.
Push the ends through the holes you just made in the corners.
Step 6: Bend the Ends and Tape Them Down
Bend at least an inch on the bottom of each hanger so it sits against the bottom of the cardboard. Tape the ends down flat against the cardboard – make sure you tape it well so it’s nice and smooth and won’t snag the shirt when you pull it over!
Step 7: Check and Make Sure Everything’s Lined Up
At this point you can bend the wire so that it looks nicer – fiddle around with it and use the pliers if you need to straighten it out a bit. 🙂
Step 8: Create a Tent!
Pull the shirt over the tent frame and position it so the neck hole is in the front middle and the bottom of the shirt is trailing behind the tent frame.
Flip the whole thing up so the bottom is facing you and the hole is pointing upwards.
Fold up the excess from the bottom of the shirt and tighten it up so the neck hole is taut and safety pin the bottom in place. Then pull the sleeves tight and safety pin them in place too.
As you can see in the last image, it should be pretty tight over the frame. Keep tucking and safety pinning until it’s ready!
As you can see in the last image, it should be pretty tight over the frame. Keep tucking and safety pinning until it’s ready!
(Yes, I know it would make sense to cut it, but I decided to leave it whole and safety pin it instead so it would be easy to remove and wash. :D)
Step 9: Give It to Your Cat!
I put a paper bag inside as a floor since it’s been pretty hot here and a blanket would be waaaaay too warm. I also put a little catnip inside as a bonus.
Unlike dogs, cats do not have a sweet tooth. Scientists believe this is due to a mutation in a key taste receptor.[5]
When a cat chases its prey, it keeps its head level. Dogs and humans bob their heads up and down.[10]
The technical term for a cat’s hairball is a “bezoar.”[7]
A group of cats is called a “clowder.”[8]
A cat can’t climb head first down a tree because every claw on a cat’s paw points the same way. To get down from a tree, a cat must back down.[10]
Cats make about 100 different sounds. Dogs make only about 10.[10]
Every year, nearly four million cats are eaten in Asia.[9]
There are more than 500 million domestic cats in the world, with approximately 40 recognized breeds.[12]
Approximately 24 cat skins can make a coat.[6]
While it is commonly thought that the ancient Egyptians were the first to domesticate cats, the oldest known pet cat was recently found in a 9,500-year-old grave on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. This grave predates early Egyptian art depicting cats by 4,000 years or more.[8]
During the time of the Spanish Inquisition, Pope Innocent VIII condemned cats as evil and thousands of cats were burned. Unfortunately, the widespread killing of cats led to an explosion of the rat population, which exacerbated the effects of the Black Death.[8]
During the Middle Ages, cats were associated with withcraft, and on St. John’s Day, people all over Europe would stuff them into sacks and toss the cats into bonfires. On holy days, people celebrated by tossing cats from church towers.[8]
The first cat in space was a French cat named Felicette (a.k.a. “Astrocat”) In 1963, France blasted the cat into outer space. Electrodes implanted in her brains sent neurological signals back to Earth. She survived the trip.[8]
The group of words associated with cat (catt, cath, chat, katze) stem from the Latin catus, meaning domestic cat, as opposed to feles, or wild cat.[3]
The term “puss” is the root of the principal word for “cat” in the Romanian term pisica and the root of secondary words in Lithuanian (puz) and Low German puus. Some scholars suggest that “puss” could be imitative of the hissing sound used to get a cat’s attention. As a slang word for the female pudenda, it could be associated with the connotation of a cat being soft, warm, and fuzzy.[11]
Approximately 40,000 people are bitten by cats in the U.S. annually.[8]
Cats are North America’s most popular pets: there are 73 million cats compared to 63 million dogs. Over 30% of households in North America own a cat.[8]
According to Hebrew legend, Noah prayed to God for help protecting all the food he stored on the ark from being eaten by rats. In reply, God made the lion sneeze, and out popped a cat.[10]
A cat’s hearing is better than a dog’s. And a cat can hear high-frequency sounds up to two octaves higher than a human.[1]
A cat can travel at a top speed of approximately 31 mph (49 km) over a short distance.[1]
