Note: the faint of stomach may not want to proceed with reading this post, which makes copious mention of fecal parasites and includes a cameo appearance by a dead rat.
So, one of my cats (either Shadow or Brodie, as I can tell their poop from the girls', but not from each other's) just tested positive for giardia, otherwise known as "beaver fever" (I remember being warned not to drink from streams in the woods as a kid because of this very same entity). The vet sent the results today and I'm supposed to talk to her tomorrow about treatment options, which will likely include medicating all the cats here just to be on the safe side.
Mind you, nobody has any symptoms at present -- the positive test was due to the appearance of a very tiny number of cysts in the fecal sample -- but now I'm actually beginning to wonder if giardia could be the root cause of Brodie's twitchy stomach. Mainly it manifests these days in the form of "gets the runs and exudes gas that could knock out a rhino if any amount of corn is consumed", so it could just be a wholly separate thing, but who knows.
(Cats can harbor the parasite for years and my guys will be 3 next month. Giardia also apparently can be tricky to diagnose as it is not consistently shed in the poo; all the kitties here have had poo tests in the past and all were negative, but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't something there.)
...but all that said, while kind of gross, I'm not figuring this to be worth panicking over. Again, nobody is currently symptomatic, and it's not like giardia is super rare in cats. If Brodie didn't pick it up as a kitten I'm guessing Shadow managed to roll in something out in the back yard. He likes to flop on the ground and cover himself in dirt and we do sometimes get neighbour cats visiting the garden who could be leaving, er, "presents".
OH and Shadow did actually catch a RAT recently during one of his (supervised) evening yard-frolics. Thankfully he didn't eat it -- I mean, I'm all for raw feeding, but NOT when the "food" might have been poisoned. It was kind of weird, as he didn't even "play" with it -- he just ran straight at it, did the neck-bitey thing, and then proceeded to bring it to me and drop it in front of the kitchen door. I guess he figured he'd done his job (and he did look SO pleased with himself!). Given the life cycle of giardia and the fact that I'm pretty sure it's not actually transmitted from rodents to cats this probably wasn't the root of the beaver-fever, but I was definitely VERY glad Shadow was up to date on both shots and flea/tick/worm-prevention meds when he displayed his hunting prowess.
Needless to say, though, I really want to get this treatment over with. I'll happily treat all the kitties if that's what it'll take, though I'm a bit concerned over what I've read thus far about giardia sometimes being really hard to effectively get rid of in kitties.
...and on another subject entirely, I'm also going to be discussing the matter of Nikki's kidneys with the vet. She's not officially in chronic renal failure at this point, though given her age (nearly 11) and breed (Siamese) it actually wouldn't be excessively surprising if she ended up with that diagnosis in a few years. I've done enough reading to know that this wouldn't be the end of the world, and since her numbers mostly look really good (her BUN/creatinine are perfect) I am not figuring much is due to be done in the short term other than step up efforts to keep her hydrated.
The vet's concern is due to a slightly low urinary specific gravity (which can indicate a diminished ability to concentrate urine) and a slightly elevated amylase reading. I'll of course take her recommendations into consideration, whatever they may be, but I am really hoping she doesn't try to insist on a low-protein diet right now. I know that used to be the go-to solution for feline kidney issues, but really it doesn't make sense to restrict protein in an obligate carnivore unless there is clear evidence that this will actually prolong health and life. And I'm pretty sure that unless a cat's kidneys are in extremely bad shape, protein restriction generally does more harm than good. (Though if anyone can point me at some good literature -- as in, NOT articles on some sort of "alternative new age happy health" site -- indicating either way, that'd be awesome).
Heh, the title of this post, now that I look at it, makes me think of the titles of the Berenstein Bears books I used to like as a kid (this being before the annoyingly fundamentalist offspring of the original authors took over the series, but I digress).
Ahem. Getting back to the all-important realm of cats, I am posting this both because I find medical-statistical values extremely interesting, and because (while I am NOT a vet and this should in NO way construe the proffering of medical advice) I figure I can't be the only one inclined to be searching around for comparison blood-test values for raw-fed cats. Which Cora and Shadow and Brodie have been for the better part of 2 years now.
So since Cora and Shadow went to the vet this past Saturday (Nikki and Brodie will go in for their shots and checkups next; it's just easier for Matt and I to wrangle two cats at a time as opposed to all four!) and the vet was kind enough to email me their blood test results, I thought I'd go ahead and post the data here (copied and pasted from the PDFs I received; I wasn't able to get the little "low-normal-high" bar things to render but you can tell well enough from the values what was what. Results appear below; note that reference ranges are in parentheses ( ).
------------------------------------------------------ Pet Name: Shadow Species: Feline Breed: Domestic Short Hair Age: 2Y Sex: CM
...so, overall, everything looked great! Both kitties were within reference ranges for almost everything, and the only values where they were "on the edge" were things that, due to their diet, would be expected to appear slightly high (creatinine, albumin). Protein-related values on a raw diet can be higher because raw-fed cats aren't generally consuming as many (if any) carbohydrates. Thus, it's important to factor in what's on a cat's regular menu when looking at his or her blood results, as the reference ranges have basically all been obtained from cats on a steady diet of commercial cat food, as that's what most people feed these days.
HCT (hematocrit) was also borderliney, but the vet said this probably wasn't a concern other than possibly indicating mild dehydration, which I wouldn't be surprised to see given it's been warm lately and my guys aren't big drinkers. They're accustomed to getting the vast majority of fluids IN their food, and since cats often don't feel thirst strongly, my guess is that they've not increased their liquid intake in light of the weather, meaning I should supplement their meat with some extra water during the summer months especially.
[Which I tried doing tonight and it was a total success...apparently if the water is meat-flavored they lap it right up (I know, amazing!).]
Oh and regarding Cora's platelets: initially I was confused as to why the number was on the low side, and why the vet had no concerns at all about this. But apparently the important part of the platelet value is actually the little comment that says "Platelet est: Adequate". Because they get the initial value using a machine, only the machine can't necessarily get the most accurate number, because platelets clump together and the machine is just taking an average from a limited volume of sample. So what the test lab people do then is smear some of the blood on a slide and then determine based on how that looks whether the platelet count is okay. And it was apparently fine for both cats.
Finally, I was also of course happy to see there was no evidence of parasites in their poop (they did a fecal analysis too). Shadow had tapeworms as a kitten and I could barely look at sesame seeds for months afterward (believe me, if you've ever dealt with tapeworms, you'll understand why!).
Brodie may be shy when it comes to meeting new humans, but he's definitely the boldest of all the resident felines when it comes to meeting new foods. And since kittenhood he's had this obsession with dried figs, of all things. For his meals he gets meat, of course, but it is very difficult to keep him from getting up in my business when I'm having a snack of any kind that contains figs! Thus, the above one-minute video, in which he can be seen enthusiastically gobbling up bits of my fig cookie (which is sort of a hippie version of a Fig Newton).
As I mentioned in my last post relating my joy at finding a cheap, suitably sized litter box, Brodie and Shadow are growing up to be pretty big guys. Sometimes it even seems like they might still be growing! Which is cool, of course. I've never understood people who get all disappointed when kittens grow up. Tiny babycats are certainly totally darling, but big strapping grownup cats have their own particular brand of awesomeness, and my guys have more awesomeness than you could shake a stick at.
Observe below, as Shadow awesomely tries to get a head start on his dinner:
It's hard to convey a sense of scale unless photos are taken with the cat standing next to something of known and/or obvious proportions. The above photos do a pretty decent job of illustrating Shadow's impressive tallitude, though: note that the kitchen island Shadow's got his paws on here is 36" (about one meter) high. Meaning Shadow is that tall standing up (as in, measured from top of head to bottom of back feet). Clearly I'd better be careful what I leave near the edge of the counters!
Brodie went in for his shot boosters and check-up this morning (following his siblings' visit last week). As I'd sort of suspected would be the case, he took the carrier and car ride with a lot less angst than his siblings. Even though he's the most timid around visitors to the house, he actually seems to be the bravest when it comes to things like Adventures In The Car. It's really interesting seeing how complex the siblings' personalities are in that regard...like you can't just label them as over-archingly "the brave one" or "the scaredy-cat" because they're all brave and scaredy about different sorts of things.
But I digress. Per the vet, Brodie appears to be in lovely health. No heart murmur either, hooray! The only small area of concern is that Brodie actually does appear to have some (probably genetic) susceptibility to gingivitis. He eats the same stuff as his siblings, his gums just seem more sensitive and for some reason food seems to "stick" more to his upper teeth. So in an effort to stave off further problems I am going to at least attempt to start brushing his teeth regularly. I tried it today and he wasn't entirely happy with having a little plastic thing shoved into his mouth, but he was a very good sport about it and I managed to at least touch all the relevant tooth-surfaces with the brush. Next time I might try one of the little "finger" brushes I got a while back but never really got into the habit of using on the kitties.
Oh and Brodie weighed in at a nice 13.5 pounds. Which the vet seemed totally happy with, and which looks like a good size for his overall frame (which is long and squarish but not as block-like as Shadow's).
In any case, I and the kitties are very glad to have all that vet business over with. Next up on the catblogging agenda: more pictures, and possibly some videos of the youngsters working out a new puzzle!
This past Saturday marked the first trip to the vet in about a year for any of the youngstercats here. Coraline and Shadow went in for their vaccine boosters (rabies, etc.) and a general physical exam; Brodie will have his turn this upcoming Saturday (the "little guys" are no longer little enough to allow simultaneous triple-kittywrangling, so we had to make two appointments!).
In any case, I am pleased to report that Cora and Shadow are apparently in glowingly good health. Not that I'd expected otherwise, but I was definitely relieved to hear that Shadow's heart sounds normal, as both he and Brodie had low-level murmurs when they were babies. The murmurs resolved by the time the boys went in for neutering at the age of five months, and thus were not a sign of any worrisome illness, but it's still something I like to make sure gets checked now and then.
On another physical note, initially the vet suggested Shadow was "on the high side" weight-wise at 15 pounds, 2 ounces. She adjusted her appraisal, though, after I showed her how LONG he is. Shadow might look stocky when he's all scrunched up (he goes into this tight-crouch position when he's nervous) but when he stretches out it's really apparent that he's pretty much all lean muscle everywhere. He relaxed a little when I picked him up and thus I was able to unfurl him a bit; at that point the vet remarked that he actually did look like a 15-pound cat (as in, a cat who SHOULD weigh around 15 pounds given his length and frame). I agree, especially considering he's 38 inches long (including nearly 14 inches of tail) at a year and a half old and had a solid build even when he was otherwise tiny.
Cora, meanwhile, weighed in at 9 pounds, which (though absolutely unproblematic and healthy for her frame) surprised me a bit. Picking up Shadow is rather like picking up an elongated, silky brick, thus, in comparison Cora feels like air and fluff. She's also got rather kittenish proportions (or at least the effect of such proportions, given her fluffy cheeks and her big round eyes) to the extent that I continue to be surprised when I see her standing next to Nikki and clearly being longer and taller than her elder housemate. Of course Cora isn't liable at this point to get as big as her brothers but she's certainly turning into a grownup in her own right -- and judging from her demeanor lately, she knows it!
But anyway. One interesting aspect of this most recent visit was that the vet we saw was new -- well, new to me and the Wonderful Felines at least. She's been at the VCA clinic we go to since 2008, but I'd never seen her before. I really hope she sticks around, though, because so far I like her a lot. We started off seeing one vet when the kittens were babies and I really liked that one too, but she moved out of state in the middle of last year. So then we got assigned to a different doctor, and while she did a fine job caring for Nikki's battle wounds, she wasn't as much inclined to get down to the technical details of feline healthcare with me the way the previous vet was. Which made it a little harder for me to feel like I was actually communicating with her. But the new vet seems to have a similar analytical style to the first one and even apparently spent a number of years as a field biologist, which is just cool. I think she is going to be a fine doctor for my kitties.
I am also glad to have finally gotten the "so what are you feeding them?" discussion over with. This new vet didn't even flinch when I told her the younger cats regularly ate raw meat, and in fact seemed to be pretty well informed on the subject of feline nutrition. She just said to be careful about sourcing meat and was glad I wasn't feeding them pre-ground stuff (as ground meat has a lot more opportunity to pick up nasty bacteria before you even get it home, plus grinding allows oxidation which can destroy important nutrients like taurine).
Oh yeah. And the vet also remarked on how nice the kitties' teeth looked, which at least suggests chewing up gizzards, etc., is indeed conferring dental benefits. Yay! Of course Cora, Shadow, and Brodie are still quite young and many cats who are going to end up with dental disease don't show any signs of it until age three or so, but it's at least encouraging that they don't have any early-manifesting issues in that regard.
As for how the cats themselves reacted to their outing, it was very obvious that they were quite anxious in the vet's office -- as I mentioned previously, Shadow went into his fearful scrunched-up crouch posture and pretty much stayed that way throughout the whole visit, aside from when I picked him up to demonstrate his striking resemblance to Tacgnol. Cora also did a lot of scrunched-up wide-eyed staring but wasn't nearly as tense as her brother and did a fair bit more moving around during the whole affair, like she was clearly apprehensive but also curious.
Neither cat seemed to enjoy being in a carrier, especially when the car was in motion. Matt and I tag-teamed to get them into the carriers in the first place at home so that didn't end up being a major ordeal for us, but Cora and Shadow seemed absolutely beside themselves. :/ They both howled a fair bit, especially Shadow, for whom the carrier seems to represent All That Is Vile And Evil In Existence.
I had attempted to acclimate all the cats to the carriers by setting them up in the spare bedroom weeks ago, and putting treats in them, spritzing blankets with Feliway and laying those inside, etc. The first day I had the larger carrier (we have two: a big plastic one and a medium-sized soft mesh one) out of the garage, Shadow refused to even enter the spare bedroom. He spent most of the day hiding in the office closet! By the next day he was okay with the carrier's mere presence, though, and that seems to have stuck even post-vet-visit. I think he's figured out that the carrier itself can't just scoop him up like some sort of cavernous cat-swallowing monster, at least.
Cora was also clearly unhappy with the carrier situation, but made far fewer operatic Tauntaun noises than her brother. She was also in the smaller (soft-sided) carrier, though, which to me looks a lot comfier than the plastic one. Plus the soft carrier has a zipper opening on the top, which I was able to unzip a little during the car ride (enough to fit my hand inside and give Cora ear-scritches, which definitely calmed her down a lot). I would have put Shadow in that one given his generally greater carrier-angst, but he really needs the next size up, which hopefully I manage to acquire at some point. With four cats we really ought to have four carriers, but I didn't want to get that many before I got an idea of how big the boys were going to grow.
In any case, I could tell Cora and Shadow were very happy to finally get home on Saturday! Since they'd basically been babies last time they went anywhere in the car, I was thinking the whole time during this past visit that part of their obvious anxiety might have been due to not realizing that they'd actually get to come back to familiar territory. But of course they did get to come home, and after a day of sleepiness (from the shots) they both bounced right back to their usual level of activity. This Saturday will of course be Brodie's turn...then we shall be quite done with vet visits for a while, which I don't expect any complaints about from any felines here!
Good news! Brodie has been eating normally in the kitchen for the past few days, with only minimal staring at the front door. Some of this is probably due to post-Halloween anxiety wearing off, but I have also determined a few other factors coming into play and hence been able to adjust some variables.
One is that the youngstercats are probably pretty close to being full adult size at this point. This is somewhat related to what Matt was saying about the cats (and specifically Brodie) eating when they are hungry. Of course it is still important for cats to eat a proper amount of food (for their age, size, activity level, etc.) daily and cause for concern if a given cat refuses to eat at all for more than 24-36 hours. But for them to want food at less frequent intervals as they get older is pretty normal.
I've actually discovered recently, by way of offering dinner 1-2 hours later than I had been previously, that Brodie knows how to ask for food. His technique is to come up to me (especially if I am standing in the kitchen), gently brush my legs with his tail, and then jump up onto the mini cat-tree thing by the kitchen window and meow. Apparently there is a point at which he gets peckish enough to be more interested in his plate than in whatever is going /on outside the front door.
Shadow and Cora would have been fine keeping the old, earlier dinnertime (both of them have always been a tad more active than Brodie) but they've been good sports about switching, and the transition has been smoothed by my offering them some of their daily treat allotment before the meal proper. This way I get the logistical tidiness of being able to feed all 3 cats at once and nobody is in a position to be wondering why their sibling is getting food when they're not, etc.
Of course if I absolutely had to I am sure I could work out a way to feed folks at different times, and I am sure the cats would adjust fine to that given the opportunity, but I appreciate being able to just have a scheduled mealtime as that condenses the monitor-and-cleanup stuff into one small interval.
The other thing I've come to note is that Brodie seems to appreciate it if I guard the front door on his behalf. As in, he spends a lot less time looking up while eating and startles less frequently if I sit somewhere between him and the door. My house has a rather long, tunnel-like layout in which the front door leads straight into the living room, which in turn is open to the kitchen (and the kitchen opens to the back yard). So I can sit in front of the dining table or on the couch and from there be able to see the cats eating and monitor the front door as well. Works out pretty nicely! Though I have to wonder if this task (dinnertime door-guarding) is something Nikki would be interested in taking over...Brodie likes and respects her a lot, and she is Security Cat, after all.
So, yeah, for now, looks like we are back to peaceful and logistically easy suppertimes for all the kitties here. I've been told I "tend to over-analyze" things and perhaps some of this kind of writing will strike some people as evidence of an overfocus on minutiae, but the way I see it, there's no such thing as an irrelevant detail when it comes to cats! Plus I figure Brodie can't be the only sensitive dudecat out there, and thus perhaps someone dealing with a similar thing could benefit from reading what's worked in our household.
What do I mean by "sensitive" when using such a term to refer to a cat like Brodie? Well, mainly I mean that Brodie is keenly perceptive, hyper-alert to household goings-on, liable to seem "shy" (due to hiding when strangers come around), and very attached to routines.
(In the photo below, Brodie peers through the rungs of one of the dining chairs he likes to sit on.)
He is drawn to details (as a baby he very quickly noticed the string his dangly toys were suspended from and often found them more interesting than the object at the end) and has an extremely long memory...I've often seen him digging under the sofa cushions for toys lost there weeks previously.
He is also (as I've mentioned before) exceedingly polite and highly sociable with other cats. When Shadow first arrived home (three weeks after Brodie and Cora) it was as if the two brothers had never been separated...it took Cora much longer to adjust to yet another boy in the house. And when Nikki arrived this past January, Brodie was the first to greet her, an act which mainly consisted of him following her at a courteous distance and occasionally attempting to sniff her tail.
(Photo below shows Nikki and Brodie kittyloafing together on the sofa, sharing space across a small but respectful gap)
For such a young cat Brodie definitely seems to exhibit an uncannily high degree of subtlety and restraint. His presence in the household seems to provide a sort of harmonizing influence...I always get the sense that if he were absent (perish the thought) for any length of time, things would quickly descend into inter-cat chaos due to the other three resident felines having somewhat "flashier" personalities. Brodie, in other words, is the cat who sits between two other cats who aren't getting along, and suddenly all is calm.
So, certainly Brodie's sensitivity serves him (and the intercat dynamic at work here) quite well in a variety of circumstances. However, he also has his particular challenges, and one of those has had me doing a fair bit of head-scratching recently. Basically, he's had an upsurge in dinnertime anxiety over the past week or so. His appetite seems fine, and I can't see anything wrong with his teeth or mouth (and in general he's not acting "painy"), but he's become very fixated on the front door of the house.
For the past few days he's been going up to his food dish (I feed all three younger cats at the same time, but in separate dishes spaced a few feet apart in the kitchen), sniffing and perhaps licking once or twice at the contents, but then just standing there over his dish staring at the front door with his ears pricked up in "high alert" mode. And if he so much as hears any noise outside -- a bird rustling in the bushes, or a dog walking by -- he will run off and hide in another room.
Meanwhile, Shadow and Cora will have finished their food, and of course one of them (usually Shadow) will see Brodie's abandoned plate as open for the taking. This means I can't just leave it out for Brodie to come back to in his own time...Shadow would eat all day if I gave him the opportunity.
I've also had no real success trying to feed Brodie in a separate room with the door shut...I tried this thinking it might give him a greater sense of security if he couldn't see the front door, but all that did was confuse him because he's used to eating in the kitchen (plus he seemed alarmed at having been taken alone into another room in the first place).
Matt (the SO) thinks I'm worrying too much about this and that Brodie will eat when he's hungry enough. This could very well be true but at the same time Brodie is a large cat and I know that puts him at higher risk of hepatic lipidosis if he goes more than 24 hours without eating, or a week (give or take a few days) eating much less than he should for his size.
All that said, I actually do have a theory as to why the sudden obsession with the front door: Halloween. I tried to feed all the kitties before any trick-or-treaters showed up, and Cora and Shadow ate...but Brodie seemed to be able to tell something was "up", and refused. I had just put some decorations on the front windows and I think those made him nervous just because they looked different than what he was used to. Then we had a lot of trick-or-treaters, which meant people were coming repeatedly to the front door, ringing the bell, talking loudly, etc.
I left several closets open so Brodie could cave up in them if he wanted to, but I can imagine all that activity at the front of the house must have been like his worst nightmare. :/ And it makes sense that he'd still be worried it might happen again a week later. Hopefully this "thing" resolves soon, at any rate...in the meantime I will just make sure and offer him several kinds of food (in different rooms, so maybe he'll get used to eating places other than the kitchen) so that he's likely to eat enough each day.
(Warning: This post contains pictures of raw meat. Squeamish folks take note.)
I just realized it's been a while since I posted a raw feeding update, and now seemed like as good a time as any to write one.
I will start by noting that via my research over the past few months, it has become even more apparent to me that some raw feeders tend to be very...ideological about the whole thing. Lots of these individuals consider commercial food to be, in general, a bad thing. Personally, though, I'm not really a fan of ideological approaches to diet, whether for cats or humans. It seems like the more one venerates ideology, the more one diverges from the scientific and/or pragmatic. And I don't see any point to any kind of dietary regimen unless you're doing it for practical, reality-based reasons.
That said, I definitely think that my and my cats' particular circumstances quite nicely lend themselves to a number of practical, reality-based reasons for feeding raw to whichever cats will actually eat it. I don't claim that what's right for me and my cats is right for every human or every cat, and none of this is meant to be "moralizing". So hopefully it doesn't come across that way; in general I aim to be informative and expository when I write about this stuff, not political and certainly not ideological.
In my last update (way back in August!), I noted that the youngsters were eating about 80% raw / 20% commercial. I've since further reduced the amount of canned and dry commercial food Cora, Brodie, and Shadow are getting, which means they're probably close to 90% raw-fed. Nikki is still on commercial stuff but frankly given her pickiness I'm just glad she hasn't been refusing her wet food lately.
The youngsters still get a little bit of canned commercial food -- maybe 1 ounce each daily, if that. They enjoy it as what amounts to a gravy-like condiment with their raw food. They also get some dry food (EVO or Orijen) as "treats" -- I might toss a few pieces across the floor for them to chase, or into the air, or tie some into a tissue "pinata" hanging from their cat tree, etc. They all love these activities so I figure it's not a big deal, so long as I don't accidentally feed them too much (but that's pretty easy to avoid by measuring out a small quantity of crunchies in the morning for the day's treat allotment).
As for what their raw meals are comprised of, probably the largest percentage of what they eat is chicken, simply because they all love it and it's relatively economical and easy for me to get. Most of the organs (liver, kidney, etc.) they eat are from chicken as well. However, I wouldn't want to feed them JUST chicken, seeing as in the wild cats generally aren't going to get all their sustenance from a single protein source (plus, exposing them to a greater variety of proteins at a younger age can supposedly help prevent them from developing allergies).
Quail is another favorite around here and I am very happy to be able to get whole (aside from heads and feet) quail in six-pack format for a good price locally, seeing as even a smallish cat like Cora can eat pretty much every bone in a quail.
Once in a while I'll get turkey thighs but since the bones are huge it's not really practical to get it all the time. I tried getting turkey necks once but those were ridiculously hard to cut and too massive to serve whole, so I'll probably not get them again.
Lately I've also worked in beef, which everyone also seems to be a fan of -- I figured they should be eating at least one land animal that wasn't a bird. And while I don't feed a lot of seafood, I figure a bit of fish is probably a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids and such, and hence I've included smelt in the past few batches of food I've made. Smelt is a small fish meaning it's less likely to have high levels of pollutants and supposedly it's quite nutritious as well.
As for how I prepare a "batch" of food...usually I dedicate a few afternoon hours once every 2 - 4 weeks to this. The recipe I usually refer to for basic proportions is this one from catnutrition.org but I don't stick absolutely strictly to it. E.g., I ALWAYS add taurine even though I also always add heart meat, and I never grind meat or bones (all the youngsters will happily consume whole bones, so long as they're of an appropriate size).
I start by breaking 2-4 raw chicken eggs into a bowl and mixing this with some vitamin B, vitamin E, and taurine supplement. Then I chop the liver and smelt to a fine mince and mix this with the eggs and supplements. Note that the liver and smelt are the ONLY things I chop finely. Whole smelt are apparently scary -- none of the cats will eat them unless I turn them into unrecognizable mush, so I do, figuring at least that way they get their dose of fishy nutrients. As for the liver, I discovered during my first forays into this endeavor that too much liver in any one meal tends to lead to poopsplosions, and the chopping enables me to better distribute the stuff.
Also, a tip for anyone inclined to try this: liver is MUCH easier to chop when partially frozen. I find it almost impossible to chop when thawed because it's so squishy...the knife just seems to compress and push it around all over the cutting board, which is about as logistically obnoxious as it is disgusting. And it IS disgusting. Thawed liver also smells really wrong and horrible to me -- I know the cats like it but good grief. Part-frozen liver isn't nearly as pungent.
Once the egg-supplement-fish-liver glop is well mixed, I stick that in the fridge. I then get all the "main" meat, wash it (to remove at least some of the surface bacteria) and then cut it up into approximately mouse-sized chunks, bone and all (if applicable -- the beef I get is boneless, but the chicken generally isn't). For the chopping I use a meat cleaver (a fairly cheap one -- I got it for about $8 -- but so far it seems to be working fine) and occasionally kitchen shears if I'm dealing with a ridiculous amount of chicken skin.
The chunked meat all gets put into a huge stainless steel mixing bowl and mixed with the eggy glop. The result is an utterly horrific-looking medley of chunked-up animal parts. The mixed-meat medley is then partitioned into freezable plastic containers and/or zipper-closure freezer bags and put promptly into the freezer.
To serve, I simply take out a container of frozen food, thaw overnight (or all day) in the refrigerator, and present to the kitties at breakfast and dinnertime (they get two main meals a day with some treats in between). At that point it's really no more logistically difficult than giving them canned food, which was a nice discovery!
Below is a picture of the finished product, thawed and ready to serve. Looks pretty vile to me, but the kitties love it! Oh, and the really nasty-looking yellowish stuff is mostly liver, egg yolks, and fish guts:
...and here are the youngsters demonstrating their enthusiasm for this horrid-looking concoction:
As for how much raw food I feed the cats...I've never weighed the portions I give them, I just try and feed them as much as they'll enthusiastically eat in a sitting, and figure if anyone looks like they're gaining or losing an unhealthy amount of weight I can adjust accordingly.
So far Brodie has stayed stable at 14 pounds for the past few months (a good thing -- he was rather waistless for a while there, whereas now he's grown into his mass somewhat), while both Cora and Shadow have gained slightly. They're also all really solid and muscular...especially Shadow, who when I hold him feels like he's filled with bricks!
In terms of general health, as far as I can tell everyone is still doing great. Soft, sleek, shiny coats and bright eyes are the norm around here.
On the gastrointestinal front, initially I was kind of terrified about salmonella (and I am still really anal-retentive-obsessive about cleaning prep surfaces and tools and wearing gloves myself) or other contamination, but so far I've seen no evidence whatsoever that that's happening. Neither Matt nor I nor any of the cats has gotten sick.
In fact, in nearly 4 months of raw feeding we've only had two instances of Feline Regurgitation Theatre -- and I don't mean two per cat, I mean two, period. And I'm not even sure which cat it was (other than "not Nikki", as Nikki was either outside or in a separate room on those occasions), seeing as it happened in the wee hours of the morning both times.
Even when the youngsters eat grass now (I bring them in a little bunch of it every now and then so they get some roughage in their diet, and just because they love it) they don't puke. I suspect the additional fat they're getting the way they eat now has cut WAY down on hairball potential, because this is seriously unprecedented.
As far as things go at the end that doesn't meow, litterbox conditions are about as pleasant as it's possible for litterbox conditions to be. The cats poop maybe once a day, perhaps once every other day, and it barely smells like anything. They pee more than I'm used to cats peeing but that's to be expected given they get a lot more water in their diet by eating raw, and it's also healthy for them to have more dilute urine (less likely to form crystals that way).
On the activity-level front, certainly nobody seems lethargic, and since the weather's finally cooled down, I've been seeing an upsurge in "run maniacally around the house" and "chase my siblings up and down the cat tree" games. So at the very least they're getting what they need to fuel their high-energy antics.
All in all, I would say the raw-feeding experiment I embarked upon back in July 2010 is turning out to be a rousing success. Not only do the cats seem to be thriving, they act like they've just won a free trip to Kitty Disneyland at every mealtime, and it's an utter joy to see them so happy. It seems as if they enjoy the process of eating a lot more, too...when they get a big chunk of bone-in meat, for instance, it's like a combination meal and puzzle game (since they have to turn it around, bite it from odd angles, etc., in order to consume it).
I am also, I should note, spending a heck of a lot less money than I would be to feed them solely high-quality commercial cat food, so it's turning out to be a perfectly feasible endeavor despite my being unemployed. (This is especially relieving seeing as there's really nothing at the grocery store in the cat-food section that Brodie could safely eat, given his problems with corn, etc.).
All that said, there are still some things I worry about, and I definitely want to make sure and get certain lab values checked by the vet the next time everyone goes in for a checkup. I know that it's possible for cats to look and act very healthy right up until it becomes obvious that they are, in fact, very sick, and there are a few nutrient combinations and ratios that can seriously mess things up if they go askew.
The main thing that I am concerned about in this regard is the calcium/phosphorous ratio. Meat contains a fair bit of phosphorous; bone contains both calcium and phosphorous. If a cat eats a diet consisting literally of whole prey (e.g., mice, small birds, lizards, insects) this ratio sort of takes care of itself, but when you're feeding smaller pieces of larger animals (no 15-pound cat in the wild is going to take down a cow!) you're faced with the task of having to cobble together something that hopefully provides the same nutrient balance.
Commercial cat food manufacturers do this by basically starting with rendered protein (which, due to how it has been processed, no longer contains sufficient amounts of nutrients cats need, such as taurine) and supplementing it in precise amounts.
When preparing raw homemade meals for one's cats, you generally aren't using many supplements, but rather trying to balance things on a more "macro" level. It's not impossible to do this, but it does take some vigilance.
I've used a kitchen scale to weigh out liver, for instance, and mix it with appropriate amounts of muscle meat, and in my earliest attempts I actually used bone meal powder rather than whole bone so I could measure more precisely. Now, though, since learning that Cora and Brodie and Shadow actually love crunching small bones, I will do things like try and include a few quail ribs in with each meal for a few days, or alternate one day of no-bone meals with a day of bony meals. I have a rough sense of what the bone-to-meat ratio in a mouse looks like so I just try and get as close to that as I can.
I suspect that, just as with humans, the net nutrient balance they get over time is more important than what they get in a single day. So in the end I guess I'm not THAT worried that I'm screwing this up...I just think it would be good to get levels of various things checked at some point to see if there's anything diet-wise that might need to be adjusted.
Well seeing as I referred to Shadow's Happy Food Growling in my last raw feeding update I figured I would post a video of this phenomenon.
It's embedded below (and in case you are unclear on what "raw feeding" means, I should warn that this is NOT something you want to watch if you are extremely squeamish about raw meat or the sound of bones crunching).
(Note that he did NOT catch the bird himself, it's from the grocery.)
Shadow is taking on about a third of a whole raw quail here (the torso section plus a wing, I think) and enjoying himself immensely. What's weird is that when I'm preparing raw meaty meals for the cats (which, in the case of the quail, basically amounts to "chop into thirds and serve") it seems completely disgusting, but as soon as I give it to the cats my brain flips into "ooh, Discovery Channel!" mode. Like I'm watching some nature documentary about miniature panthers or lions. Seeing those carnivore teeth and jaws in action is pretty astounding!
Well, we are now about four weeks into the raw feeding trial here. Again I am pleased to report that Cora, Brodie, and Shadow are still doing extremely well on their new diet (which is still, and likely to remain, in a state of flux, for variety's sake if nothing else). Nobody has grown wings or become telepathic or anything -- I am certainly not one of those who believes raw food is some sort of Miracle Serum, but everyone seems plenty active, playful, etc.
On the gastrointestinal front, I continue to be astounded at how little the trio's poops stink these days, and how even Brodie's, er, deposits have been so consistent in their consistency. Even on the grain-free regular cat food (which was far more friendly to his system than some of the early grain-based foods I tried) he often seemed to have intestinal gas. As in, I could hear his guts gurgling from halfway across the room -- which can't have been comfortable for him. That's possibly the thing I am most pleased/excited about in this whole endeavor...Brodie just seems to FEEL better to a degree he never could on anything else we tried. Yay!
We've had a mere one incident of puking in the past month. I don't know who it was, as it was one of those "woken up by the Hork Alarm, but cats are all arranged at opposite corners of the living room by the time I manage to get out there" affairs.
I am not super concerned about this, though -- anyone who lives with cats for any length of time tends to learn firsthand that the feline approach to reverse peristalsis borders on the recreational. Moreover, all the cats had eaten some grass (from the yard, during one of their supervised outdoor jaunts) the previous day and of course there's always the Hairball Factor to consider.
Truth be told, only one incident of Gastronomical Splatter Art in the course of a month is kind of amazing when you live with four cats! So whether it was grass, hairballs, or perhaps a tad too much liver (it's very rich and I've since been strictly portioning it out so nobody gets more than a dime-sized piece per meal), it doesn't seem to have been a sign of anything sinister.
So, I expect I'll be keeping this up. It's actually far more logistically easy than I ever imagined -- I mean seriously, plopping one-third of a whole thawed quail down in someone's dish isn't appreciably more complicated than setting out half a can of wet food.
That said, the kitties are still also getting some commercial cat food, though probably less than 20% of their diet is currently comprised of this. I know some raw feeders encourage a complete switch as soon as possible but as I am taking an evidentiary approach rather than an ideological one, I figure I should probably not rush things or even necessarily assume before I have more data that All Raw, All The Time is the Absolute Best Ideal Cat Diet.
I am convinced at this point that there are aspects of raw feeding that are truly awesome and ought to be studied/explored/acknowledged, and my cats seem to be doing great so far, but I see no reason to make a religion out of it.
But I digress. The trio take their supplemental taurine no problem when it's mixed into a spoonful of meat-byproduct-pate', and while their "crunchies" (dry food) have pretty much been reduced to "treat" status, they each end up getting some of those most days as well.
I find that the crunchies are very handy for "enrichment"-type games...like putting a few of them into a tall cup on the floor and seeing if they can figure out how to knock it over (yep, they can). Or putting them (the crunchies, not the cats!) into weird apparatusses (apparati?) like the one in my Informal Cat Cognition Experiment.
The youngsters also LOVE the "chase the crunchie across the floor" game, and Shadow has become incredibly proficient at catching his treats in mid-air (yet another thing he taught himself to do...I really must post a video of it sometime!)
I still haven't tried raw with Nikki and I am kind of afraid to. She is such a "Princess and the Pea" about food and pretty much everything (this isn't an insult...she just has extremely keen senses, even for a cat, and her sense of taste is particularly acute) that I suspect even a micron of raw chicken mixed into her Fancy Feast would set off her alarms. I would still like to try at some point but give how picky she is I am reluctant to risk potentially putting her off the only well-hydrated thing she will (at least when she's not going through one of her "I Hate Everything" weeks) accept.
Oh yeah. And the bone thing. Wow. I have never SEEN such enthusiasm at mealtime. Shadow especially LOVES his chicken and quail wings and legs and ribs, etc. LOVES them. Like to the point where he will stand up on his hind legs, paws on the kitchen counter (he is REALLY tall now!), shrieking at me as I portion out the carcass of whatever it is I'm preparing.
And then when he gets his Meaty Bone Of The Day he sits there gnawing on it and growling and making noises that literally sound like "OMNOMONONONMMNOM!"
Cora does this occasionally as well which just amuses me to no end because she's so little and sweet-looking...she is truly the epitome of badass adorable.
Brodie, meanwhile, tends to stand off in a corner (or, lately, under the dining room table -- he seems to prefer eating with a "roof" over his head) politely and methodically chomping away, then licking up the bits and quite daintily cleaning his paws when finished.
I've actually been having to put Shadow in a different room once he's finished his own meal, as he can be a bit on the pushy side and Brodie (the resident gentle Gamma boy) is more of a pushover. He doesn't challenge Shadow if said brother tries to steal his chicken wing...he's more liable to be all "Okay, bro, no problem...take it...backing up now, I'll just be over here..."). This is turning out to be a wholly manageable situation, though, and with the raw stuff I prefer to watch them eating anyway so monitoring isn't a big deal.
...is something I've actually gotten up the nerve to try recently. There will probably be several lengthy posts about this, but for now here is a picture of Cora polishing off a quail:
I should also note that I am not doing 100% raw for the moment...I am still learning about and evaluating what research there is regarding this sort of thing. But the younger cats have been getting around 50-60% of their daily diet in the form of raw meat, bones, organs, etc., for nearly two weeks now. (Nikki won't touch the stuff but that's no surprise -- for the moment I am just glad she is back to liking grain-free wet food.)
Briefly I will also say that:
- Nobody has gotten sick - Poop output and stink seems to have been reduced by at least half - Coats are getting softer and shinier - Brodie seems to have a lot more energy (which makes me wonder if he is just really, really bad, even for a cat, at getting any benefit whatsoever from carbohydrates, which even grain-free commercial cat foods generally have some of)
Hence, so far I would say things look very promising!
(And yes, I am supplementing with extra taurine -- technically cats "should" be able to get all the taurine they need from raw prey or prey-model food containing enough heart and dark muscle meat and such, but I don't want to take ANY chances with that particular amino acid.
One study in which two groups of cats were fed, respectively, a commercial diet and a diet of whole ground rabbit, resulted in one cat in the raw group suddenly dying of cardiomyopathy due to severe taurine deficiency. When examined, other cats in that group were also found to have signs of deficiency, so their diet was supplemented with taurine for the remainder of the study. So while I would guess tentatively that the process of grinding the rabbit was responsible for the loss of taurine, again, not taking any chances here.)
I also tried (in addition to the chicken, turkey, quail, and beef that the trio have been quite happy with so far) getting some frozen feeder mice at one of those pet stores that caters to reptiles. Yes, I know, kind of gross (and the mice were so cute despite being dead!), but in a way I sort of feel like feeding whole prey is a way for me to really come to terms with what a carnivore is. Store-bought kibble may come in cute little shapes reminiscent of children's cereal, but it still (if it's of any quality) contains dead animal bits and something in me finds it a bit unnerving to be so disconnected from the "source" of said animals. If that makes any sense at all to anyone.
In any case, so far only Brodie seems willing to actually eat the mice. Cora and Shadow played with them a bit, but didn't seem to recognize them as food. (Which I am sure Brodie is just fine with...he got what they didn't eat!).
Hooray! While she still seems to be "off" wet food, Nikki has eaten about her usual amount of dry food (including some of the EVO she was rejecting last week and some of the Blue Buffalo Wilderness which she'd never had before at all) yesterday evening and throughout today. She is back up to her normal (high) energy level, and was even running around on the neighbors' roof this morning!
(Image shows Nikki, patrolling the rooftops)
I do hope she eventually accepts some sort of wet food but for now I am just glad she is eating something with a reasonable amount of basic nutrients -- she certainly would not be able to live indefinitely on whipped cream and cheese!
In any case, I am compiling a list of things to try in case this ever happens again. So far that list consists of:
1.) Whipped cream (the Reddi-Whip spray stuff). NOT in large quanities, just a little lick off the finger. This type of whipped cream contains a bit of sugar as well so it might help resolve a glucose crash and inspire her to eat more before she starts getting heartburn.
2.) Shredded cheese (she is partial to the Mexican 4-Cheese blend). Again, only to be given in very small amounts. Provides a small amount of protein at least.
3.) Wellness brand Turkey & Salmon Jerky treats (as many of these as she wants -- they don't have the full litany of nutrients needed for a complete diet but at least they're meat)
4.) Purina Cat Chow Indoor Formula dry food. I don't like feeding her this as a primary diet (as it's basically meat-flavored cereal, NOT the best thing for an obligate carnivore) but it seems to be a "comfort food" for Nikki, sort of her version of saltines and ginger ale. And it is at least a source of taurine and other vital nutrients.
I would be quite curious to hear from anyone else out there who lives with a very picky cat -- what s/he eats when s/he will hardly eat anything, etc.!
Well, it appears I spoke too soon regarding Nikki's acceptance of the new-ish EVO dry food (the weight-management stuff). She WAS eating it just fine until earlier this week, but she's been turning her nose up at it for the past few days. She is also still rejecting the Fancy Feast, and hasn't liked any of the other wet foods I've offered recently. I still haven't tried the Whole Foods brand she seemed to like a few weeks back so hopefully I can get some of that soon, though I have a feeling she's just "off" wet food completely right now.
Anyway, the past few days have involved a fair bit of worry on my part, because I know cats who go on hunger strike for whatever reason are at risk of hepatic lipidosis if they go more than 24-48 hours without food. Nikki isn't fat (she weighs about 8 pounds) so she's less likely to develop liver problems than a larger cat would, but obviously it's still not good for her to not be eating.
She had a full workup at the vet's a few months back (they did a comprehensive "senior wellness" checkup, which is standard for cats over seven years old) and all her results were very good (vets often comment that Nikki, who will be nine in October of this year, seems "unusually healthy for her age") so it's doubtful she has any chronic or serious illnesses. And while certainly I would call the vet if she wasn't eating anything, or if she couldn't seem to keep anything down, or if she was having elimination issues, none of those things are true at this time, so I don't figure it's worth stressing her further with a trip to the clinic just yet.
For now I am watching her closely to note any changes in her behavior that might indicate either illness or that she's feeling better. I do suspect she's had a bit of a stomach ache this week, as she's spent more time than usual in the "hoverloaf" position (sort of an elevated kittyloaf, which cats will sometimes sit in when they feel fine, but which is also commonly engaged in by cats who don't feel well as it lets them partially lie down without their abdomen touching the ground)and has gagged even when offered some things she usually likes (such as the chicken-and-fish flavored hairball remedy gel I give all the kitties occasionally).
My tentative theory is that (due, possibly, to a recent ingredient alteration/less tasty batch of byproducts in her Fancy Feast) she went a bit too long without eating, which irritated her stomach, which led to barfing the next time she tried to eat, which led to further aversion to her usual food, which led to low blood sugar, which led to even less of an inclination to eat.
Last night I tried giving her a little bit of honey to address the possible blood sugar issue -- I put a tiny bit on her lips and paws and while she didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about this, she didn't gag and licked it all off. She seemed a bit sprightlier after that so I suspect she probably was getting a bit crashy (something I've experienced myself -- as a kid I would often refuse food to the point of hypoglycemia, and my parents would have to coax me for hours into nibbling on a piece of cheese, etc.).
This morning I offered her:
- Fancy Feast salmon again (she didn't gag, but ignored it) - Wellness Core Chicken and Turkey wet food (she ignored this too) - EVO dry food (sniffed it warily, picked up one piece in her mouth but spat it out) - Purina Indoor Formula dry food (her "old" food, which my parents left when they brought her over in January -- she ate some of this, albeit without enthusiasm) - Whipped light cream (she ran up to me meowing when I got the container out to put some in my coffee, and happily licked some off my finger) - Shredded cheese (she ate this enthusiastically) - Plain yogurt (I tried to trick her into eating this by putting some cheese in it but she just ate the cheese and ignored the yogurt, though she did lick off what I put on her paws -- I figured the "good bacteria" might help her stomach)
Given that litany of responses, I've concluded that she DOES have an appetite -- which is a relief. Not having any appetite at all is pretty bad for a cat, but being extremely picky is, well, par for the course for Nikki. She seems to have an extremely sensitive sense of taste and smell even for a cat, and goes "off" things very easily, so I expect this won't be the last time I'm dealing with a mass trial-and-error session. Of course she is completely worth the effort -- it's not even something I would consider NOT doing...she NEEDS to eat, and it's not like she's rejecting stuff on purpose. It's not a power struggle -- her sensory system is just set up in a way that means, sometimes, there's only a very limited selection of foods that won't trigger a nausea response. And she can't help that, so there's no sense in my getting upset or frustrated with her.
So, for the moment she's going to be getting occasional bits of cheese and whipped light cream, along with as much dry food as she wants (which isn't a lot right now, but at least it's something). I've been mixing the EVO with the Purina Indoor and while she's mostly eating "around" the EVO, she's at least not being so turned off by the smell that she doesn't eat the other stuff. I may try getting some more Innova Cat & Kitten (dry) food again since she seemed to like that a lot and it's far healthier than the Purina -- I've already had to feed her the Purina separately from the other cats so Brodie won't get into it, and that hasn't been a major hassle, so perhaps I should just accept that and not be so concerned about finding a food I can give to everyone here all at once.
(a) Most of the popular articles regarding that study made what looked to me like unwarranted interpretive leaps (sadly not much of a surprise there these days), and
(b) While the study itself read as more "neutrally investigative" and data-focused than the popular articles, it did not seem as if the experimental setup necessarily accounted for feline sensory modalities, and hence may not have permitted a true test of the cats' cognitive capacities in the area of physical causality.
So, in light of item (b) above, and in light of the fact that I had all the necessary components on hand to create a setup similar to that used in the aforementioned study, I decided to see if my own feline housemates might be interested in trying their hand (or rather, paw) at some string-pulling.
Of course I am not aiming to present my own "results" as Real Scientific Data; they were, after all, quite informally obtained from a tiny sample set. At the absolute most, observations presented herein might represent a sort of "proof of concept", i.e., how setups could be improved in future experiments to increase the likelihood of meaningful results. Overall, though, I mainly did this for fun -- for me, and for the cats!
BACKGROUND
Four cats were offered the opportunity to participate in this activity:
The three younger cats (Coraline, Brodie, and Shadow) were littermates, born into a feral colony. I adopted them when they were between 7 and 10 weeks of age. The elder cat (Nikki) is unrelated to the others, was born into a cattery, and lived with my parents until early 2010.
All four cats had lived with me for at least six months prior to the experiment, and since the experiment took place in my' home, they did not have to acclimate to an unfamiliar environment beforehand.
PREDICTIONS
Predictions going into the experiment were as follows:
(1) At least one cat (of the four) would demonstrate both motivation and ability to complete at least one task case successfully.
(2) Performance (in motivated cats) would improve when the treats were made more visually obvious, i.e., via use of color and size contrast.
(3) Performance might improve if a less flexible medium (i.e., plastic zip ties rather than string) was used, as this would provide faster feedback to the cats regarding their efforts and would be less likely to induce distraction (cats often find strings, and their movements, extremely interesting in their own right).
SETUP
The setup used in this exercise was based on the description provided by the study1:
The apparatus consisted of a box of base size 49 × 40 cm with clear Perspex walls on three sides and a wire mesh lid. The top of the box hinged off the base to allow access to the inside. The base was made of chipboard with a white plastic surface, and protruded from the box at the front by 9 cm, providing a smooth surface and good contrast for the strings. A 1-cm gap at the base of the front wall allowed the strings to pass from the front accessible end into the inaccessible part of the box. A clear Perspex bridge (base size 11 cm × 6 cm) was used in trials where there are two crossed strings to prevent the strings getting tangled. Every part of the set-up was visible to the cats at any time. The strings were blue rope (∅ 5 mm), with a length of 25 cm (long) and 10 cm (short). Cat treats were attached to the strings to act as rewards for succeeding in the task. The reward for each trial was approximately 10 g of mashed tuna or pilchards, or a small cat biscuit.
Some articles referencing the study also included a photograph of the apparatus used, which I attempted to replicate as closely as possible given available materials.
Main Structure
To make the main structure of the apparatus, I used several pieces of scrap, held together with blue painter's tape in a rectangular "frame" shape. To the bottom side of the frame I attached a sheet of thick white watercolor paper.
To the top side of the frame I attached a piece of Plexiglas with a grid pattern drawn on it -- however, upon closer reading of the study apparatus description (after I'd already completed my experiment), I noted that the original study had used a plain wire mesh on the top of the frame.
(Image showing main structure of test apparatus I built)
This meant that, contrary to my original (incorrect) impression, the cats more than likely would have indeed been able to smell the treats, as wire mesh blocked their physical access to the treats via the top of the box, but not the transmission of odors. If I were to try the experiment again at home I would use a piece of window screen or similar material for the lid of the box, rather than Plexiglas.
Another difference (albeit a deliberate one in this instance) between my setup and the referenced study's setup was the fact that in some trials I employed a central wooden divider that extended the interior length of the box (parallel to its left and right sides).
The purpose of this divider was to prevent the strings or zip tie mechanisms (more on that in a moment) from interfering with each other physically at all during "parallel string" trials, as I saw the potential for distraction if one string ended up touching the other while the cat was pulling on it, etc. However, in practice this divider turned out to be unnecessary, as when I removed it the cats' performance did not change and the strings/zip ties did not get tangled at all.
Treat Delivery Media
I experimented with two primary variables in terms of the treat-delivery media:
(1) Flexibility: In some trials I used actual strings (lengths of very flexible sisal twine), with or without a "treat container" at one end (see below):
In others I used plastic zip ties modified to include a small "cup" on one end to hold treats.
(Image shows one of the zip tie/treat cup mechanisms employed)
(2) Contrast: In the first few trials I used unmodified sisal twine lengths and simply tied a piece of dry cat food or chicken jerky to the end of the treat-carrying piece (see image below, note the lack of visual contrast):
In the second few trials I used yellow "cups" filled with a small amount of dry cat food attached to the ends of plastic zip ties.
In the third round of trials I went back to using the sisal twine, but attached the end of a white plastic spoon as a treat container.
The goal here was to see what, if any, impact visual contrast had on the cats' ability to correctly identify the treat-carrying piece (thus distinguishing it from the "dummy" piece). One major criticism I had of the original study was that (inasmuch as I could tell from the description and photos available) it did not seem as if the treats were sufficiently visible to the cats.
Since, as I noted in my prior post, cats have fairly poor close-range visual acuity for fine details, I surmised that the treat holder needed to be significantly larger/wider than the end of the string (or zip tie) in order for them to be able to distinguish it properly. I also figured that it would be helpful for the treats themselves to stand out color-wise against the background of their container or cup.
TRAINING
I did not employ a formal "training phase" as the study described doing. However, I did present the treat-delivering string and zip tie pieces to the cats for inspection (prior to inserting them into the puzzle box). During this activity some of the string/zip tie pieces contained treats and some did not.
I also left the apparatus on the floor for several hours prior to starting any task trials, so that the cats would be able to investigate it at their leisure and not be distracted by the sheer novelty of the equipment when the task trials began.
RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Participation Variation
Of the four individual cats presented with the test equipment, two (Coraline and Brodie) completed various task cases successfully. Shadow was very interested in watching his siblings but declined to participate himself, and Nikki seemed totally uninterested in the activity.
Having lived with these particular cats for some time now I am not surprised by this outcome, given their respective personalities and predilections; Coraline and Brodie (Coraline especially) have always been the most mechanically inclined of the group, whereas Shadow is more inclined to solicit favors from humans (i.e., he'd rather meow at me to GIVE him a treat than try and get one himself).
Nikki, meanwhile, just tends to operate on an agenda all her own, and while at some point I can see her getting interested in a string puzzle of some sort, she wasn't interested on the day(s) on which I ran trials.
I should note that I do not draw any conclusions (negative or positive) about the non-participant cats' understanding of physical cause and effect based on their non-participation in this particular exercise. Since neither of the non-participants even attempted to complete the task, all I figure is warranted in terms of conclusion is that the materials and situation failed to inspire their interest, which of course says absolutely nothing about their capacity to cogitate about string and its uses.
Social Factors
By "social factors" here I refer to the presence/absence of multiple cats near the apparatus setup during task trials. Initially I tried testing one cat at a time, however, for the younger cats this proved impossible. No single cat would participate or do anything with the apparatus at all when separated (via a closed door in the house) from his or her siblings. Instead, the lone cat would wander around looking for his/her siblings, while the sibling cats would scratch at the door.
Once I let all the cats wander about freely, though, the three younger ones were plenty interested in the apparatus and two of them participated consistently over the course of three days. To me this suggests social factors might be more important to cats (especially related cats who get along well) than many would necessarily suspect. Having all the cats accessing the setup simultaneously did make certain aspects of the experiment more difficult to organize but it was certainly a better situation than zero participation, as I had when I attempted to test a single lone cat at a time.
As for Nikki's non-interest in the setup, social factors may have played a role her as well -- she tolerates the others but does not seem to like being very near them. I may try taking the apparatus out to the patio at some point and seeing if she might show more interest there -- she seems to be a lot more inhibited indoors, will only play with toys in the yard, etc.
Basic Observations
Again, as this was an informal/fun exercise and not an Official Scientific Experiment, I did not keep a precise count of how many times a given cat solved a task -- since I was the sole person setting up and running everything, it was not possible to carefully track every variable. However, I did note whenever a cat was able to solve a particular task case 2 or more times, and I considered that to be my basis for "success".
As expected, none of the cats completed a task in which a treat was tied to the end of a string. They all seemed vaguely interested in the strings as strings, but did not appear to even realize that one of them had a treat attached. I expect that this effect was compounded to a degree not necessarily present in the referenced study due to my use of plexiglas rather than wire mesh (which they'd have been able to smell the treats through) as a box lid. Unfortunately I did not get any video footage of this phase.
During the zip tie trials, Brodie and Coraline both consistently solved the parallel case. Their success was independent of "position habit", meaning that I was able to switch what side the treats were on and/or move the apparatus to a different room in the house and they still knew what zip tie to pull on to get the treats.
Brodie solving parallel zip tie task (room #1, treats on left side):
Brodie solving parallel zip tie task (room #2, treats on right side):
Cora demonstrates her zip tie prowess here:
(This one is actually an "amusing out-take" candidate -- I had not yet properly secured the apparatus to the floor before this trial, and Cora got her claw stuck in the treat container after she pulled it out, so we had a bit of a treat explosion! Her brothers, of course, were pleased by this turn of events.)
I did not end up doing a "crossed" case with the zip ties, because I discovered that the ties were too thick to fit under the 1 cm gap at the front of the box when stacked on top of one another. Refinement of this task would definitely account for this issue.
In the "string and spoon" phase (in which the treats were placed into the end of a white plastic spoon attached to one of the pieces of sisal twine), again, both Coraline and Brodie were successful at the parallel strings task. Unfortunately (due to disorganization and logistical wrangling difficulties on my part) I did not get a video of Brodie doing this but I got two of Coraline:
In the "crossed strings" case, Coraline had no trouble with this at all. I don't think she went for the "wrong" string even once. Brodie did not do as well here, however, he has always been very interested in string as a toy, and it seemed like when the strings were crossed it was a lot more fun to play with them than try to figure out which one had a treat attached to it.
The video below shows Cora easily solving the crossed-strings case:
(To me it certainly LOOKS like she knows darn well what the function of the string is, but I am not sure how to quantify this observation!)
CONCLUSION
In conclusion I note that my predictions (1) and (2) turned out to be accurate inasmuch as I could tell. Two out of four cats-in-residence completed at least two types of task each, which to me suggests that their performance was unlikely to have been the result of "random luck". However, of course in a formal study many more data points would be taken and results might differ.
As for the contrast issue, while again more data would be a good thing to have here, it really did seem based on what I observed that if the cats could clearly see the treats, those motivated to obtain them had no trouble doing so.
As for whether the zip tie mechanism improved performance (due to it being easier to physically manipulate than the string), it did look like this was probably the case, at least for the parallel task. Again, physical constraints of the apparatus prevented me from trying a true "crossed zip tie" case.
Finally, I find myself really wishing there were some way to quantify or better express what looks to me like "purposefulness" in Cora's performance on the crossed strings task. Perhaps, though, the difficulty of quantifying such impressions is why well-designed experiments employ numerous trials through which many data points are obtained, so that one is not relying upon subjective impressions, but rather, probability.
And all that said, I do have to say that trying this experiment (fumbling as my attempt was...) definitely turned out to be highly enjoyable, both for me and for the participating (and spectator) cats. I've since been strongly inspired to come up with ways of feeding them more creative than just dumping food in a bowl, as they seem to greatly enjoy "outsmarting" their food, which I suppose is quite appropriate for a small carnivorous predator species!
1-Whitt, E., Douglas, M., Osthaus, B., & Hocking, I. (2009). Domestic cats (Felis catus) do not show causal understanding in a string-pulling task Animal Cognition, 12 (5), 739-743 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-009-0228-x
I am a small piece of the universe observing itself. In this capacity, I am an engineer, science geek, sf/fantasy fan, amateur artist, cat appreciator, hyperlexic infovore, and maker of various and random quasi-functional objects.
