Trap-neuter-release programs for community cats help protect human health. That’s not just because altered cats are less likely to fight and roam, thus creating fewer opportunities for disease spread. It’s also because TNR programs routinely vaccinate their feline patients against rabies, a disease nearly always fatal to humans.
Infectious diseases are the single biggest threat to keeping shelter animals healthy during their
shelter stay. Data — boring facts, figures and statistics — is the best tool you have for getting on
top of disease outbreaks.
Are your local community cat programs based on data, or habit? Do you know what proportions of your outdoor cats need to be spayed or neutered to stabilize or reduce the population humanely?
Want to avoid stressing shelter cats unnecessarily? Consider changing how you draw blood for medical testing.
Stress is a major cause of the high rates of illness in sheltered cats, particularly upper respiratory infections. One tip to cut down on both stress and disease? Instead of taking the cat and his or her bedding out of a cage in order to clean it, spot-clean around the cat instead.
Would you like to get a sneak preview of early data from the Maddie’s® Purdue FIV Study? Then join us tomorrow evening, Thursday, April 18, 2013, at 9 PM Eastern Time, when Maddie’s InstituteSM presents Update on FIV: What Every Shelter Needs to Know.
Are low fat diets the right choice for managing chronic feline diarrhea? A recent study of two therapeutic diets suggests they’re not.
How tough is it to fight diarrhea in shelter cats and dogs? For most pets, it’s not tough at all, as long as you keep it simple. Dr. Elizabeth Berliner outlines the basics in this video short.
The annual University of Florida Maddie’s® Shelter Medicine Conference will partner this year with Best Friends Animal Society at the No More Homeless Pets National Conference being held in Jacksonville, FL, this fall.
A New York-based program dedicated to keeping pets and families together, known as Pet Food Stamps (PFS), has gone nationwide.