Raw food diet for cats and dogs

I have been reading about cat nutrition lately and it seems like it's critical that everyone feed their cat (and dog) wet food. Cats get most of their water from the food they eat and it's unnatural for them to drink lots of water to compensate for a dry food diet. They usually end up somewhat dehydrated if they only eat dry food. Our house cats evolved from desert dwelling wild cats who rarely had water and obtained moisture from killing other animals and eating almost all of the carcass.

With that in mind, I started investigating raw food for pets. It makes perfect sense really: animals do not cook their food and their stomachs are evolved to tolerate a wide range of bacteria that humans cannot. Raw chicken? No problem.

But you shouldn't just feed your cat cheap meat from the butcher though. Cats also need nutrients that come from the entire carcass which are added to cat food mostly as amino acid supplements.

I bought a bag of frozen raw lamb patties, including organ meat, ground up bones, supplements, and a small percentage of fruits and vegetables (that in the wild they when they consume the contents of a prey's stomach) yesterday and defrosted some of them for Dusty. He ate one today and liked it (although this is a cat that will literally eat plastic, so he's easy to please).

I'm hoping that a 50% raw food diet for Dusty will keep him healthy, and, ahem, improve his behavior.

Men and Cats

Fans of this blog know that it started as pastime/chronicle of my summer off, then turned into a kitten blog about my beloved Dusty, and now it's just a bunch of random rants and political stuff.

Well, the NY Times has a piece about Men and Cats, and how there is a growing movement of men who ARE DEFINITELY NOT GAY who are obsessed with their cats. There's lots of Styles section pablum including quotes from professional upper middle class Manhattan women about how great cat-owning men that they've dated are, as well professional upper middle class Manhattan men with cats talking about how secure they are with their sexuality, and so on.

And of course there is now an obligatory blog about Men and Cats, Men and Cats.

Does every aspect of life need a blog? I guess so.

Dusty loves water

Not like, drinking water, but rather being in wet places. The kitchen sink. The shower. Next to the dog's water bowl with his head leaning against it or his tail sort of dipped in it. Around the plants after they've been watered. He is kind of a strange kitten, but to him it all seems perfectly natural.

He's about as cute as they come :-)

Should I change the blog focus?

Well, since I am technically not laying about at all any more and working from around 9 to around 5 everyday, it kind of doesn't make sense to blog about laying about. I guess I could blog about working, but my job isn't the kind that they make Discovery channel series about (and it seems like they will make a series about practically any job these days - what's that one about lumberjacks?).

So how about a kitten blog? Daily updates on Dusty's pooping habits and the like. I could see a huge market in the bovine "administrative assistant" demographic.

Could be a money maker. Is kittenblog.com taken?

Dusty's weird pooping habits

Cherie and I have a theory that the kitten thinks that Cherie is his mommy. Every morning when she is in the shower he uses his toilet-adapted cat box thing (see earlier posts). We thinks that he likes to, ahem, go in her presence. She is sort of freaked out by it, but I think it's hilarious.

He is really sweet to her as well and will sometimes just come up to her spontaneously and cuddle. Me, I am just this big giant who sometimes has food.

Dusty is using the toilet

So I got this plastic tray that holds cat litter in the toilet bowl, and damned if Dusty hasn't started using it! He sits at the front of the toilet seat and does his business.

After a while you decrease the amount of litter until it's just a see-through tray. Then you remove the tray, and the cat just...uses the toilet.

Pretty cool, right?

Dusty pics

This kitty is pretty damn cute. He kept fucking with my USB cable as I was trying to transfer these pics.

Dusty's doing great! Support the troops.

Hello dear reader (there must be one, right?). No more kitty diarrhea to deal with. Dusty's eating everything put in front of him and it's coming out fine (thanks Yesterday's News!) Our Jack Russell Ollie is slowly getting her head around the idea of a kitten in the house. She snapped at Dusty a little this morning, but all seems to be forgiven. Dusty isn't fazed by much.

By the way, the Net Roots people are going to be assembling a bunch of care packages for the US troops consisting of stuff that the goddam Republicans in the White House are too cheap to give them (or are they just outright evil? I don't know).

You can help here:

NetRoots for the Troops
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/23/113647/348/687/540375

Sleep deprivation

Had to set my alarm for 4am this morning because Dusty's been having diarrhea in the bathroom where he sleeps. Sure enough, I found myself cleaning up kitten shit in the middle of the night. Taking care of a kitten has got to be as hard as looking after a baby...they're worth it though, kittens.

Welcome to New York, Dusty

So we came back from a week in Fire Island with an extra piece of luggage containing a five month old kitten. "Dusty" they call him. He had been abandoned by some people, which seems to be, um, bad karma.

He's the cutest little monster in the world. Reminds me of good old Hank. So far so good.

Too many choices though! Should I go for the non-hormone, flax seed fortified kitten food? What about the litter? Is flushing the "flushable" litter really bad for the environment? I kind of don't want the answer to that question because like seriously who wants cat litter in their garbage all the time?

Went down to the little pet shop on 7th Street and Avenue A (the one with the big white cat they call Pretty Boy). Mikey (?) the owner was really nice and helpful, steering me to the appropriate kitty litter (Yesterday's News - oh, I get it, like recycled paper).

I had been tempted to this the PetCo or PetSmart or whatever it is up on 17th Street, then to just order everything online, but the prices are pretty low over on 7th Street, it's around the corner, and to my surprise it much easier to just ask someone who knows something than to wade through search results and spend lots of time balancing the conflicting answers you get.

All in all, life is good. Kittens are a lot of work though.