Hello. I'm Professor Daniel Gunn-Moore, and my professorship is in feline medicine which means all I do is cats. I only look after the superior species of which this is one. This is Jerry. He's owned by some very, very good friends of mine and he used to be one of our blood donors, but he's retired now. What you need to know about cats is in a nutshell, they are solitary hunters, and they initially came from the desert. Small solitary hunters. So when I talk about hunting, what do they eat? They are obligate carnivores. That means they must eat meat. They can't help it. It's not their choice. It's what they have to have, if they have too much human food or too much dog food, then they'll go into liver failure. And their livers are really fragile, they're very very easy, very easy to make sick, very easy to poison. Too much onion for example in gravy or baby food or Chinese food. But also things like chocolate, grapes, paracetamol, lilies, all of those are incredibly toxic to cats, so you do have to protect them differently as you would a dog. Actually dogs mustn't have chocolate or grapes either, but we're not talking about them here. What else can we say, well he said small solitary hunters, they eat alone. It's very, very stressful to have all your cats eating in one place. They prefer to eat separately. And also in that, cats aren't adapted like most of the other species we know and love to actually work together. They hunt alone, which means that most cats would rather be in their own company, plus humans, plus dogs if they're adapted to that in their early socialization period, which is from two to eight weeks. If they've met dogs and things, then you know they'll get on with them, most of them anyway. And if they're used to a lot of cats at that time, they might get on with cats. Certain breeds definitely adapt to that, so Siamese and Burmese, they tend to like living with other cats that are related to each other. But a lot of cats aren't and particularly normal domestic cats don't like other cats, they don't want to share and they can get very stressed, sometimes even aggressive of other cats coming into their territory. What else can I tell you that is most important about them? Well, I mentioned that they initially came from the desert, and that's important because their food mustn't be held by their water bowl, because food can contaminate water, and in the desert that would be important. So better to give them that water away from where the food is. They'll be much happier and they'll drink more, and that's important to look after their kidneys. Also separate from the litter box of course, because who wants to have the litter box near their food or their water. And what about handling cats? What's so important as I said from the socialization period, so between two and eight weeks, they must be handled. All the things that are going to happen to them when they're older need to happen then for them to get used to it and to not be scared by it. So it's very important for your cat, and for you, and also for your vets finally that your cats are used to being handled. So if you look at a healthy cat, this is a very healthy cat. He's got beautiful, clean symmetrical face. Look at those beautiful eyes, got lovely ear tufts too, that's because he's a Maine Coon. So, clean eyes, clean ears. And you need to get used to looking at them. So getting used to having his ears checked regularly, so that if there are any mites or anything you can spot them earlier, or if they're getting really waxy. Get him used to having his eyes look at. Beautiful eyes. Beautiful eyes. Get them used to having their paws felt. A lot of cats are very shy about having their paws felt. So you need to feel them a lot when they're babies. And let's be honest, look at Jerry's feet. How gorgeous is that? He's got teddy bear paws. And you need to get used to them having the toes. See their nails, because particularly if they're an indoor cat, they're going to need to have their nails trimmed. And if you can do it for them, that's much less stressful than having to go to the vet to have it done. You need to check their coat for any signs of fleas. Needless to say his is perfect. What he's not perfect at is being groomed, because he wasn't groomed enough as a baby. And so he gets quite angsty when you're grooming him. It's really important that they're groomed regularly and it's made as a fun game, and then give them a treat afterwards, so that they see it as a positive thing so that when you show them the brush they run up and go, "Yeah, I want to be groomed." Get them used to that. And then if you get them used to being handled, that will really help. As a thing of stress, if a cat that is very anxious and obviously Jerry's not been in this room before, then if you give them part of their bed to sit on that can really help, and they prefer to have four paws on the floor. So let them sit down let them hold onto what they're holding onto and that will really help. The last thing I wanted to show you is opening their mouths. Now he's a big cat and I've got quite little hands. But if you can get them used to having their mouths open when they're babies. So you just put your fingers down like that and tilt the head right the way back and then go "ah". Clever boy, best boy. He's such a good cat. And so you get used to that when they're babies. Now he's had me do give us pills so often because he comes and stays with us. He thought I was going to give him a pill. I'm sorry darling. But get used to it. So if you do have to give them pills, then it's going to be much easier for them and for you. And then the last thing, just remember cats are cats, they're different from dogs, quite different. The social thing is so important. Cats don't like to be in big groups of cats. It's very stressful, and it leads to a lot of different disease. So cats must be treated as cats. And you know how to smile at a cat? Well, never look them face on like this. This is aggressive, scary. So you look at the slight side on, and go a slow blink. That's how you smile at a cat. Go on, try it at home. Find a pussy cat, chat to them and then just slight head tilt, slight down, and do a slowly blink. Bet you they'll do it back to you. Go on, try it now. Thank you.
