Q: We have a nearly 19-year-old cat in very good condition. Recently, she's become a rather fussy eater. It's not her teeth, as they've been checked out by our local vet, and she'll still occasionally eat dry cat food. She used to like certain flavors of canned cat food, but lately she wants only Gerber baby food _ the various meat varieties. Is there sufficient nutrition in the baby food? We do try to coax her to eat deli roast beef or low-sodium ham, and I'll poach a chicken breast, but she tires of that very quickly. She'll invariably hold out for the baby food, which she seems to love. What do you think?
A: Well, at 19 years of age your cat does not need to explain anything she does and it is obvious that she likes baby food to the exclusion of everything else. However, you are correct that food manufactured for human babies does not have the vitamins and minerals that a cat would need. Pet stores sell vitamin and mineral supplements for cats in various forms, and if she would accept that, then the problem is solved. However, if she is as fussy as you are describing, then I doubt that she would accept them.
I think the best solution is to take some of the dry food that you say she eats occasionally and grind it up into a fine powder with a food processor. Then just mix a teensy-weensy bit of the resulting powder with the baby food. If you do not add too much of it at first, then most likely she will not suspect any subterfuge. As time goes on you can gradually add more of it to the portion of baby food that she is eating. That bit of dry cat food she is ingesting with the baby food will round out her diet.
Q: We have two dogs. One is a silky terrier who weighs about 15 pounds; the other is a Maltipoo, also about 15 pounds. They are both about 3 years old, neutered and healthy. The silky was an only dog in our house and the Maltipoo is our son's, who lives in our house. The two dogs got along fine for a month and then something happened _ we cannot figure out what. Now they hate each other. We have since converted our home to a 2-family and now we have an ongoing problem. We have a gate that separates the two units. The dogs will charge at each other and then fight at the gate. The fights that happen when someone leaves the gate open are quite fierce. Can you give us any clue or advice? Neither dog is overly friendly with other animals but both love humans.
A: A question like this is a brutal reminder that no matter how much we love our dogs, they are, in reality, still animals, some of whom do not like each other and cannot resolve conflicts when they are evenly matched and forced to cohabitate.
A professional dog behaviorist may be able to help out here by putting muzzles on the dogs and allowing them to interact doing fun things in a neutral setting over a long course of time. If the dogs do enough fun things together and no longer have the opportunity to confront each other, then an uneasy truce may result. However, the situation will always be rather delicate, and you and your family will always be walking on eggshells around the dogs as a fight can still erupt. This may be one of those pet-keeping situations where you just wave the white flag of defeat and either resign yourself to the situation and keep the dogs apart or do your best to re-home one of them.
Q: I just returned from a week's vacation and left my two cockatiels with a friend. She fed the birds well but did not clean the cage out as I do. As soon as I got the birds home I noticed them eating something at the bottom of the cage, and when I looked closely I saw it was seeds that fell to the bottom and got wet and had started to germinate. I immediately cleaned out the cage. I am wondering if eating these seeds could have caused the birds any harm as the bottom of the cage was very dirty.
A: Seeds that have just started to sprout are actually a bird delicacy, and one of the most nutritious items that you can feed any pet bird as the sprouting process releases many vitamins and minerals trapped in the seeds that are otherwise not available when the seed is eaten in its dormant state. However, they are certainly not very good dietary supplements when eaten off the bottom of an unclean cage.
