WINTER INTO SPRING, CAT-WISE

WINTER INTO SPRING, CAT-WISE

The transition from fall to winter to spring is an annual cycle for the cat and the cat-owning household with typically consistent year-to-year behaviors that mark the passage of time.
As fall turns to winter, many of our indoor/outdoor cat friends choose to make the indoors by the fire a new place to hang out. It is amazing how many hours they can sleep, and I often wonder what they dream about. Even those cats that are strictly indoor cats mark the passage of winter in a more quiet repose. And now, as the days grow longer, we’ll begin to see a stirring, maybe sitting on the window sill, more often than watching the bird feeder or squirrels, and for the more hardy, checking the open door to see if today would be a good day to venture forth.
What as cat owners should we be conscious of with regard to care and health during this transition? Here are a few things that I think about. Most of our outdoor cats have been hunting and maybe have had some fleas during the summer and fall. As the hunting season ends for a few months, November or December would have been a good time to get that last dose of worming medication, administered to allow them to pass the winter without the burden of tapeworms, round worms and hookworms. Of course, if your cat has not been on a flea preventive medication, confirming that he or she doesn’t bring unwanted houseguests is a great idea. You can check your cat by using a “flea comb,” running your fingers from the tail base to the shoulders looking through the hair as you go. If your cat is accommodating, look carefully at the belly where fleas like to congregate. I recommend using a flea/tick preventive into December to increase the chances of having a flea free winter.
If you share your life with one of the more hardy cats who likes to spend the time outdoors all winter, it is important to be sure that she or he has a place to get out of the wind and cold. Many cats grow really robust coats and tolerate the winter well with a little extra food, but frozen ear tips are not uncommon in cats who lack a good place to “hunker down” on a windy day. Have you ever seen and wondered about a cat you’ve met with squared off ears? This is usually evidence of a previous frostbite where the tips of the ears have actually died and fallen off.
What about the woodstove of which your cat is so fond? Hopefully is he or she likes to use it as a perch during the summer, you made the transition to wood heat without any burned footpads. It’s good to be careful as we get into spring. If the stove is out during the day and then on at night, some cats make a leap that they might have wished they hadn’t made!
With the first signs of spring just around the corner, those cats with cabin fever will be stirring from the fire, climbing into the windows and heading outdoors. It’s a good idea to be up to date on the weather forecasts so no one stays out too long on a cold day. If your cats can’t be counted on to obey a curfew, its important to get them in for the night. It’s kind of like hardening your seedlings in the spring. Before long, the indoor-only group will be sitting at the window watching those birds and butterflies that I suspect they were dreaming about, and the outdoors group will be chasing them, in addition to mice, chipmunks and voles.
So, while you enjoy the lengthening days and the change of the seasons, and while you marvel at the return of spring life outdoors, it is good to notice the change in patterns and behaviors that we can recognize in our domesticated friends.