How to Train Your Cat to Accept Cleaning

By: Ed Brancheau
Cats love to be stroked, so it is easy to teach your cat to accept brushing. Brushing your cat will help to remove loose hair and prevent kitty getting a fur ball stuck in his throat. It also helps to remove irritating prickles he may have picked up on his walks outside. You will be able to keep tabs on his general health if you brush him regularly, too.

Before beginning to brush your cat, make sure it's feeling calm and relaxed. Always have the grooming utensils close by so as not to upset your cat. Make sure you let your cat play with the brush and smell if he hasn't seen one before. If he understands, he won't be scared. Try to touch the brush handle a lot so he can smell your scent, which he knows is safe.

Once your cat has gotten comfortable with the brush, use gentle movements to brush your cat slowly. Make sure you brush in the direction of where the hair falls. If your feline grabs the fur brush, stop brushing him. This encourages your cat to stay still for future grooming sessions.

When your cat has settled, begin to brush him again. Using long strokes, begin brushing at his ear and draw the fur backward. Never brush near his eyes or whiskers since they are delicate and can be injured easily. Also take care not to pull hard on the knotted parts of the fur since this hurts them. If every time he sees the brush he panics because he remembers it being painful, your next session won't go as smoothly.

It sometimes useful to have a few different brushes for your kitty. Bigger, stiffer brushes are good for their back and sides, while for their more delicate areas, such as the stomach and tail, a softer and smaller brush can make things easier. It often helps to have a brush with slightly stiffer bristles for cats with long hare, and a comb can also be a useful in your grooming kit.


Ed Brancheau has now made it possible for you to have the frisky feline relationship you have always desired to have with your cat, by making available multiple articles (that even include other pets), a unique audio training course, and an enlightening ebook.

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Cat Nutrition - How Protein Rich Food May Harm Senior Cats

By: Haziga Slamil
We all know that cats are carnivores thus their natural diet should consists of protein rich meat such as beef, chicken, and fish. Cats require a significant amount of protein for optimal growth, repairing muscle tissues and as a source of energy.

Senior cats on the other hand, require less protein than their younger counterpart due to their weak vital organs. Senior cats, in general, are less active therefore vital organs, such as the kidney and liver, will start to deteriorate thus the need to reduce their protein intake.

When a cat consumes protein rich food, its digestive system will proceed to breakdown the proteins in order for the body to absorb the nutrients as efficiently as possible. The breakdown process will produce harmful toxic products, which the kidney and liver will remove from the cat's body via feces or urine.

Since senior cats vital organs have deteriorated, too much protein will cast a large strain to the kidney and liver, making it difficult for the body to flush out toxins during the breakdown process. Also depending on the senior cat's age, the kidney might not be fully functioning at all so the body will act upon this, by urinating more than usual in order to remove some of the toxins.

You should start reducing protein intake once the cat reaches the age of ten, cats at this age are considered as senior cats. You can purchase foods that are formulated specially for senior cats as this type of foods have low protein content, also consider purchasing a liver aid for your senior cat to help boost its liver functioning.

Please make sure that you consult the vet as well, so that he can assess your senior cat's condition, and prescribe the type of food and diet that is most suitable for the cat.


Haziga Slamil is a long time cat owner and currently owns 12 happy and healthy cats. Check out her website to obtain more tips and advice on topics regarding cat nutrition, behavior, grooming and health care. Visit http://www.bubucats.com

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Cat Health Care – Signs of Cat Flea Infestation and Prevention Tips

By: Haziga Slamil
Fleas are horrible little parasites that attack cats by laying their eggs in the cat's fur; the eggs will hatch into larvae and later will develop into fleas. Depending on the color of the cat's coat, spotting the fleas can be very difficult especially if infestation is light.

Excessive scratching especially behind the ears or around the neck may indicate that fleas are present and causing havoc to the cat's body. Another sign of flea infestation is when the cat obsessively grooms the base of its tail or along the spine. You might also want to take a closer look at the cat’s body, if indeed infestation has occurred, highly visible dark flaky specks can be seen particularly along the spine and the base of the tail. In fact, during heavy or severe infestation, you can actually see the fleas roaming all over the cat’s body.

Light infestation is not really a cause for concern and you can easily solve this by using a flea comb, this handy little grooming tool can be purchased at most pet stores. Now, heavy infestation on the other hand, requires more than just a mere comb. You need a flea treatment to get rid of all the fleas such as the Frontline, even the most severe infestation can be eradicated within forty-eight hours by using this powerful cat flea treatment.

You can purchase the best flea treatment available in the market but you can never achieve positive long term results, if you do not take the necessary steps to prevent flea infestation from occurring in the first place. After all, prevention is always better than cure. There are three simple things that you can do to prevent fleas from attacking your furry companion. Provide your cat with a healthy, well balanced diet, this will definitely help reduce the chance of flea infestation and at the same time, improve the quality of the cat’s coat.

Next, make sure that your cat’s surrounding environment such as the litter tray, basket, furniture, condo etc are clean, try cleaning them at least once a week, and also it wouldn’t hurt to keep your house clean as well. The cleaner the cat’s environment equals less chance of getting fleas. Finally, groom your cat regularly and give it a bath every four or six months. Bathing your cat too often like once a week for instance, is definitely not recommended, not only will it affect your cat’s health, it may also leave a psychological scar on your cat. Although you mean well, unfortunately from the cat’s perspective, bathing is excruciating so unless your cat is really dirty, stick to bathing two or three times per year max. Try using a waterless bath to clean your cat without the need for water, it cleans and freshens your cat and may also help to keep flea infestation at bay.

Cat flea infestation should not be taken lightly and depending on the severity, it can be life threatening especially to kittens because excessive biting by fleas can actually result in massive blood loss. Further more, your cat might accidentally consume some of the fleas while grooming which may result with infestation by another parasite, tapeworm.


Haziga Slamil is a long time cat owner and currently owns 12 happy and healthy cats. Check out her website to obtain more tips and advice on topics regarding cat nutrition, behavior, grooming and health care. Visit http://www.bubucats.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

Have your cat come when called

Submitted by: mikeray

In this article, I'll teach you how to teach your cat to come when called.To have your cat come when called by name is remarkably easy though it takes an understanding of the process.STEPS:1. Talk to your cat as much as you can. Encourage her to come to you, and regularly pet her and brush her. Bonding is very important, cat massage, baths and generally being on good terms is important.2. Pick a special dry snack that she likes. It must be different to her regular dry food and only used for this (don't give it to her at any other time until she's mastered this). Make certain it is nutritious. I suggest a dry, crunchy snack that is also good for the teeth.3. Pick a special word, such as "snack" or "treat". It must be a word she will associate only with the special snack. This is creating an "anchor" (a trigger).4. Use your special word during her next snack time. In her presence, place one piece of the food in her empty dish and say the special word.5. Say the word again (and be sure to say it in the same way as before) after she eats the first piece. Place another piece of the food in her dish and say the special word again.6. Walk away. If she is giving you "I am really starving" cries, say your word again and give her one more piece. Then walk out of the room.7. Repeat the procedure after about 4 minutes. Cats learn very quickly when they are motivated and have a strong bond with you.8. Follow this procedure for the next several days.9. Once your cat is coming every time you say the special word, start only giving the food treat every so often and instead give lots of attention (whatever she likes such as a pet) for a few minutes. Then let her go and repeat the process a few minutes later.10. If you've done the above right, and you've done the bonding exercises in the training manual, your cat should now be associating affection from you with the special word. Now you can use the word and she should come AND each time she sees or hears you nearby she will be more affectionate because she's reminded of all the affection you've given her in the past.Don't forget, it is to be a small snack, not a small bowl of dry food. Otherwise, your kitty might gain unwanted weight. Be patient and follow the above exactly otherwise you will confuse your cat. Use the special word daily, not only when you want to find the cat for a trip to the vet or when it is bath time. On those occasions, give her the snack and try to allow a few minutes before following through on your hidden motive.Another little secret is that if you can whistle, most cats will respond. Usually, a very loud high-pitched whistle (as if to say, "Here, boy"), repeated over and over until the cat comes to you is very effective. Eventually, your cat will come after only 1 or 2 whistles. However, again this is based on a strong bond being in place.It's important to note that the bond is most important because then your cat will WANT to come to you whenever you give it the chance. This is why some people find that if I want her to come to them, or sit on their lap, all they have to is pat their leg with their hand, and tell her to come, and she hops up on their lap or come to them.A way to do this is to show her the brush. (Assuming your cat loves to be brushed) because when you show it to her, she'll run over to you.If your cats are outside and you can't find them, if you shake their "dry food" jar and they may well come running right away. To make this more powerful, every time you feed your cat make the same "shake" noise in front of them or when they can hear, just before you feed them.How does the above work?Well basically what you are doing is conditioning your cat to associate two things. (The special word with the treat, for example). When this happens a few times, your cat learns that when the trigger happens, the other thing should happen. (For example, "when I hear the special word and I come, I get a treat").This means from then on you can say the special word and the cat will come running because it thinks it will get a treat. Once your cat ALWAYS does the desired behavior, (in this case comes when you say the special word), you can change the special word for their name, if you know how. I'll tell you more about that in a future newsletter.The basic structure of the above can be used with training your cat to do anything or be in any emotional state... excited, relaxed, affectionate etc.