As cat owners, we all want our cats to be healthy and to be around for a long time. The great news is that you can give your pet cat a healthy lifestyle that will boost her lifespan and overall health.
The best lifestyle for your cat involves a peaceful, kitty-friendly environment, indoor living, daily exercise, and the right diet.
Crate training, daily coat care, teeth care, and frequent visits to the veterinary are also important in helping your kitty to live a long and healthy life. More so, cat owners are usually advised to find a vet that practices a philosophy that they are comfortable with.
This may be a conventional or holistic veterinarian or an integrative veterinarian who does not aggressively promote veterinary drugs, vaccines or pest preventives at every visit.
Below are five tips to help your cat live a long, happy and healthy life:
1. Keep kitty indoors
Although being at home all day isn’t what your cat might want, still, it is the safest way to help them live longer.
ndoor living is not an entirely natural environment for your kitty, but allowing her to play around outside without a leash puts much more risk to your cat’s longevity and health than keeping her indoors at your home.
When cats are given free access to go outside as they please, they will be more exposed to harm and other parasites and pathogens that cause severe health problems.
They can also eat what isn’t good for their system, or become prey for coyotes and other animals like dogs.
Fighting with other outdoor cats is also common, and someone will lose such a fight (usually, it is the cat who does not live outside and has not mastered his street-fighting techniques).
Cats who are allowed to run out during winter are likely to look for warmth in deadly places, like under a parked vehicle or a wheel well.Cats may also run out into traffic while being chased by another animal or after being startled.
Just because your kitties live inside does not mean they cannot go outside on supervised daily trips to ground their claws, bask in the sun, and exercise. Outdoor excursions are good for cats when they are safe.
2. Feed your cat the right diet
Feeding your kitty with the appropriate diet is one of the easier ways to give her a long, happy and healthy life.
That is why it is important to know that some cat feeds are metabolically stressful. Examples include processed cat food (dry or canned) containing feed-grade ingredients, all dry (kibble) formulas, and diets containing potatoes, grains or any other starchy food.
The nutrition that produces the lowest volume of metabolic stress for cats, regardless of their age is their old diet (raw, whole, organic unprocessed and non-GMO all in their natural forms). Animal meat must always be added to your cat’s diet.
If you cannot feed her fresh food (gently cooked or raw), an alternative diet is the dehydrated dried balanced diet with a lot of broth or water in it. Your cat's liver and kidneys, however, can be stressed when fed with this type of diet. Therefore, bear in mind that all meals served dry could affect your cat in the future.
More so, serving your cat’s meals in their natural states will be best as they will contain the needed moisture and give a high level of digestion and biologic assimilation.
This means feeding a species-appropriate, nutritionally balanced and antioxidant-rich diet that contains omega-3 essential fats, like krill oil.
3. Keep your cat at the right weight
Unfortunately, most kitties around the world are obese or overweight. The obesity-related diseases of overweight kitties inevitably make them unhealthy, unhappy and even shorten their lifespans as well.
If you want your cat to be around and be comfortable for up to 20 years, one of the best things you can do is to ensure that she stays at a healthy weight.
The first step to help keep your kitty at the right weight is by feeding him with the right diets. It is equally crucial not to overfeed your cat. It will also be good to calculate the kilocalorie needed for your kitty's weight.
Measure your cat’s food portions with a measuring cup and limit treats (ensure to add treats to his daily calorie count).
Feed 2 portion-controlled meals per day, 1 in the morning hours of the day and the other in the evening hours. This meal routine works excellently for most kitties and fits perfectly into the schedule for most families.
If you stay at home during the day with your cat, you can feed her several tiny meals instead.
4. Ensure that your cat exercises daily
Daily exercise can boost your cat’s lifespan and overall health. Exercise and at least 15 minutes of intensive activity can help your cat increase muscle tone and burn a lot of fat in the process.
Try to provide her with objects to climb on, such as a multi-level cat tower or tree. Get a laser toy (which is very cheap), or buy a more sophisticated toy, like a running toy mouse.
Think like a kitty and choose activities and toys that can answer her need for pouncing, stalking and hunting her prey. And do not forget about the old standbys, such as dragging a tiny piece of string in front of your pet cat.
Ping pong balls are also good cat toys, along with rolling little papers into balls.
For more ways on how to keep your cat active both mentally and physically, you can visit a vet.You can also walk your cat during nice weather, however, ensure that you put a leash around her neck before taking her out.
An alternative to this is a fully enclosed and safe patio or porch area that stops your cat from going out and other wild animals from coming in.
5. Schedule veterinary wellness visits
Visiting a veterinary at least twice a year will help keep you informed about the health of your cat. Changes in your cat’s health can occur, mostly in areas where you cannot see, such as changes in her liver health.
When most cats are sick, they do not show any signs of illness, but with frequent visits to the vets, suck cats can be quickly treated. Visiting the veterinary every six months allows you to examine your cat’s attitude and behavior.Younger kitties should be taken to the veterinary at least once a year. Cats with chronic health problems or those that are over 7 years old should be examined twice a year.
Conclusion
All cat owners want their pets to live for a long time, and they also want their cats to be healthy and happy while living with them. If you are hoping to help your kitty live up to her early 20s, the above-mentioned tips will help you give your cat a healthy lifestyle that will help her stay around for many years.