What can I do for my cat’s asthma?

Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: My kitty has been diagnosed with asthma. I’ve been giving him prednisone for a short time but he is still wheezing. Is there something else I can do for him? ~Kelly Siouxsie: Asthma is a frightening illness, both for the cat and for the cat’s human caretaker. Thomas: As you’ve probably been told, feline asthma is similar to human asthma and is treated in similar ways. But vets haven’t found a 100% correlation between human and feline asthma. Dahlia: Basically, asthma is a condition that occurs when a cat’s respiratory tract overreacts to an environmental stimulus. The air passages in the lungs constrict, making breathing more difficult, and sometimes…

My kitten is suddenly acting sleepy and sad. What’s going on?

Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: Hi I have four 6 mo. old kittens I adopted. Their mom was a feral cat who adopted my son. One of the kittens seems to be sad, sleeping all the time (as of today, and not cat napping). He is not himself: He’s not playing or eating (but he’s still drinking water). He is suddenly not social. I haven’t been able to catch him going potty yet, so I do not know if anything has changed in that regard. He has no other symptoms such as runny nose, eyes, cough etc. When he does get up he moves slowly and I have seen him wobble a little. For…

Can I give a cat a suppository?

Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: Can I give a cat a suppository? ~Danielle Siouxsie: Danielle, the general answer to this question is no. But instead of just saying no, we want to explain why. Thomas: Unless your veterinarian prescribes a medicine specifically for your cat, you should not give it to him. Many medications designed for people can actually be harmful, if not fatal, to cats.

My cat’s licking her fur off. Help!

Greetings, kind readers. We’re letting Mama take a break from her NaNoWriMo efforts in order to help her write this week’s column. We told her she should do NaNo because it’s been years since she’s written a long work of fiction, and she’s been wanting to write a story to honor our beloved sister Sinéad (may she frolic forever in the catnip fields). Sinéad says it’s about time Mama got back to writing novels! But for now, here’s our letter of the week. Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: I’ve got a female kitty named Trinity who has recently been licking all the fur off her lower abdomen, tail and legs. I’ve seen this behavior…