30 Vets Share The Best Pieces Of Advice They Wish All Pet Owners Knew

Supplement with some cat grass, it's helpful for their digestion and avoiding hairballs. But meat is absolutely necessary for their health.

Came here to say this. Cats are OBLIGATE carnivores. They need meat to survive. Dogs aren't much more flexible, but they can get by with some.

Except my 15-year-old cat, who likes the occasional potato chip.

And if they don’t, they die. Cats REALLY aren’t herbivores in any way, shape or form.

No. Veggies generally make up a part of a cat’s diet, too. Cats are obligate carnivores in that they must eat meat. But, they are not strict carnivores in that they eat only meat. Even large, wild, cats like lions also eat vegetable matter, usually by consuming the stomach and intestines of their (usually herbivorous) prey. The only strict carnivore seems to be the Komodo dragon. They have been seen in the wild shaking their prey’s digestive organs to free them of vegetable matter before eating them. No one should be feeding their cats and dogs a strictly plant-based diet, though.

My cats food is a single protein (turkey) blend with pumpkin to help his sensitive tummy. Other vegetables that can be included with meat that is actually good for them are chopped carrots, peas, frozen corn, broccoli florets, beans, zucchini, lettuce, spinach, and winter squash. They should also be steamed first.

I agree and I do feed my cats meat every day but my youngest goes crazy for beans though :D

Humans can go blind too from massive malnutrition btw, I think it has something to do with Vitamin B15

But bad pet owners. Vegan #1: Hey honey, let's get a cat! Vegan #2: Sounds great. *Gets cat* Vegan #2: Ew. We have to feed it meat or it will die. Vegan #1: I never knew a carnivorous animal required meat. Let's get rid of it.

Why the f*ing f*ck did my comment get downvoted?

Here, have one on me 🙂

Mine enjoy a piece of bread every now and then.

Also, some breeds have huge health issues, e.g. Frenchies that can't breathe properly, miniature Chihuahuas with deformed teeth, giant dogs with hip dysplasia, double merle health issues... maybe don't place aesthetics above health and condemn animals to lifelong suffering because it's "cute".

The problem is people think "purebred" dogs are anything other than inbred mutants and paying hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to buy a designer dog.

Yes my sweet dachshund with very cute long ears does get lost following his nose every time we go outside.

That's so cool! What issues were you having with her? And what were the DNA results? I love hearing about rescue mutts interesting DNA results. I only have cats of the inherently mutty European shorthair variety so unfortunately a DNA test would tell me nearly nothing about them. I would love to do one for myself also but they're so expensive :'(

I would upvote this a million times if I could.

....or stupidity. Evil is causing harm intentionally. But for the pet, it won't make much of a difference what caused it -the outcome will be the same.

Well said. Thank you.

Dear Rens, you are a wonderful person. Hope you and your furry family are safe and fine now.

Yeah, me too. I've always felt like they've had a look that said " I've had enough, it's time". And I've always been there and held them and talked to them as they fell asleep. It's so hard, but it's not all about me.

I really worry withy cat's arthritis (17 years old) as it's so hard to judge quality of life with chronic pain. I have chronic pain & wouldn't wish it on anyone. I also have her mum so thinking if she goes first the kindest thing might be to call it then. She'll be absolutely devastated & can't imagine how she could cope with the emotional pain as well as the physical pain. Obviously it would be the worse time for me, but it's not about my feelings.

I've only had to be the one to make that decision once so far and it was heartbreaking. Our cat Bo was literally the sweetest cat I've ever seen, he was happy to let you do anything to him and would just lovingly purr and enjoy the attention. He somehow f****d up his eye, probably outside, so it had to be removed. 2 weeks later he got so sick he was basically dying but aggressive antibiotics made him pull through. Then 2 weeks after he was recovered he stopped eating AGAIN and we found a growth in his neck that the vet determined to be very aggressive cancer. These 3 things even though they happened right after one another, were completely unrelated and the vet said if she had known about the cancer he could have just lived out his days without the eye surgery and all that mess and it would have saved him so much effort and us a lot of vet bills too :/ When we made the decision to let him go the vet and the vet tech were right there weeping with us which I really appreciated.

That made me tear up. That’s exactly the look. Bless all of ya 🧡

😢

I'm sorry for your loss.

It's not even just about if you'd want to put your bare feet on it...they lick their feet to clean them, so if they walk on chemicals, good chance they'll be ingesting some.

Cat declawing is illegal in many countries in Europe, including the UK, as well as Brazil, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.

It is illegal in California and some other states. It should be illegal worldwide

there's places in the US where landlords DEMAND all cats in their property be declawed! Appalling cruelty!

My state (NY) was the first to ban declawing. It really should be a federal law.

🇨🇦 For my fellow Canadians: Declawing has been banned by the Veterinary Associations of nine out of ten Canadian provinces: Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Quebec and Manitoba. My brief search found no info on the territories.

It’s so illegal here in Sweden it’s not even funny. But then it’s not a thing here and it never really was.

Some people just don't know how to handle a cat, and what it implies to own one so it thrives. Hence they will end up with problems like being scratched or having their funiture torn apart. When facing those problems they look for a solution and come across this "quickfix" and find it tempting. They probably do not understand what an important tool the claws are for a cat, and how it will end up handicapping the cat to remove them.