How Often Do You Take A Cat To The Vet? Complete Guide 2022

Presuming this means your cat as opposed to a cat . . . Excellent question ~ ‘How Often DO You Take A Cat To The Vet’? This question begs a thorough, honest and compelling response. As not only an animal lover but an animal advocate with tremendous love and appreciation for the feline species, let’s explore ~ rather the question, how often do you NEED to take a cat to the vet? This query is a loaded question because there is no black and white answer, it’s relative.

Relative in the sense that if you don’t want to be dependent on an outside source for your cat’s well-being there is a plethora of practical advice to empower you. Or if you just want to provide the best quality of life for your beloved kitty and rely on an expert when you’ve exhausted your toolbox, this post is for YOU!

A Holistic Approach Determines Frequency Of Vet Visits

Providing for your cat’s most essential requirements will determine the answer to the question, How Often Do You Take A Cat To The Vet? When you feed your cat a specie-specific diet meeting all the natural nutritional necessities you are building a foundation of health. Chemicals found in food, water, and the environment are highly toxic and are the root cause of many health conditions; feline and humans.

Choosing cat litters that are natural in substance and appealing for your cat to use to ‘doo’ his or her business is essential. Quality safe outdoor time for an indoor or outdoor cat is essential to their mental health and sense of well-being. Companionship based on the unique characteristics of feline breeds and the individual nature of your cat determines contentment, happiness, and fulfillment.

Toys, games, stimulation, playtime, and mental enrichment all contribute to not only a satisfied kitty but a thriving kitty. And for those times when the unexpected and unforeseen circumstances arise, having holistic remedies and resources at hand can make a world of difference not only in your cat’s life but your life. You’ll feel empowered and enriched.

“Take good care of your cat by making wholesome choices and you won’t find yourself in need of an expert very often because you’ll be your own expert!”

Debbie Criddle

Here is an outline of the tools you can begin implementing immediately with resources and links:

1. Diet, THE Foundation ~ A Healthy Mind And Body
2. Chemical Free Environment
3. Pure Clean Water
4. The Natural SandBox Chemical Free Litter
5. Indoors/Outdoors
6. Healthy Companionship/ Relationship
7. Learn How To Clip Your Cats Nails And Basic Care
8. Satisfy Prey Drive
9. Cats Coming From Unhealthful Living Conditions
10. First Aid, Basic Care, And Remedies
11. The Ultimate Living Quarters, A Catio
12. SUMMARY of Links At The Bottom Of Post

Diet THE Foundation ~ A Healthy Mind And Body

How is a feline diet related to the question, how often do you take a cat to the vet? It’s completely related! As I’m sure you know for yourself eating the right foods is mandatory for physical, mental, and emotional health. It’s no different for our feline friends or any sentient being for that matter.

Cats have very specific nutritional needs and when you give the body the proper fuel for the engine the engine runs better and even optimally. Cats are designed to eat a Biologically Appropriate Raw Food diet. Also known as BARF. Not barf like in ‘barf up’ but Biologically Appropriate Raw Food. Raw meats, fowl, fish, bones, organs, and glands are not by any means a new concept for our furred friends.

For decades people have been running to the store to get their pet cat a bag or can of food. The now processed cat food diet replaced a natural, fresh, raw, and wild diet approximately 80-90 years ago. What did cats eat before that? They hunted mice, moles, voles, insects, lizards, fish, and all variety of what was available in the environment they found themselves.

Hunting is a natural drive and where cats derive their complete nutrients from food. But we are talking about domesticated cats here in this post needing the same nutrition they would derive from hunting. Hunting isn’t always practical these days with rodent chemical poisons as common practices to rodent control. Depending upon the area, especially residential cats could easily be poisoned.

Solid Benefits Of Adhering To A Feline Specific Diet

You say, yeah, but my cat doesn’t live in the wild, it’s domesticated and lives a civilized life. Though the relationship between humans and cats has developed to cohabitating together, there is no reason why they can’t be provided with the food/diet that they are designed to thrive on. Literally THRIVE.

Here is a book to get you started learning about the BARF diet. You can read about the BARF diet and then implement providing a raw food diet for your feline buddy. They will LOVE you for it. You will see how their coat shines, their breath doesn’t stink, their poo doesn’t stink, (not kidding on that one) you have to experience it for yourself to believe it.

Where And How To Start Feeding The Optimal Diet

Among other common benefits are that their teeth stay healthy due to the enzymes in the food keeping tartar and plaque down. In a specie-specific diet the health of the tooth is maintained due to the natural inclination to ‘chew bones’ ~ its inherent. They don’t fall prey- literally, to depression and moods, anxiety, and the like because they are getting, absorbing and digesting the nutrients they are absolutely designed to receive.

You will be light years ahead ~ forging the path of optimal well-being and flourishing health for your cat by adhering to an appropriate diet.

*When feeding freeze-dried raw food out of the bag you can reconstitute it with water or you can feed it dry and then your cat will have option to have a drink at their clean fresh water bowl”.

You will be light years ahead forging the path of optimal well-being and flourishing health for your cat by adhering to an appropriate diet. There are also sources to buy freeze-dried or frozen BARF-approved food to get started immediately. Do this whether your cat is brand new to you, a foster, or a stray. You may have just acquired a kitty OR your cat’s health is deteriorating and you haven’t had much success turning it around. Start here:

APPLYING THE BARF PRINCIPLE
1. Dr. Ian BilLinghurst BARF Book
2. Freeze-Dried or Frozen BARF Approved Food

A Feline Friendly Environment Is Chemical Free

This is an easy aspect to miss but equally important is considering your cat’s exposure to chemicals. These days chemicals are found in most household products from laundry detergent to fabric softener to weed killer. However, with awareness from a post such as this, you can begin to de-chemicalize your home and environment, therefore creating a healthy environment for your pets and yourself.

Continuing to answer the question, how often do you take a cat to the vet, steering clear of toxic cleansers in the household goes a long way. Think about carpet powders where your cat’s pads are in constant contact.

Cats absorb through the pads of their feet as well as inhalation of the breath to the lungs. Toxins and chemicals disrupt the endocrine system, the organs and glands and produce inflammation.

Additionally, consider the bowls they eat and drink out of and what they’ve been washed with? Strong fragranced soap or a mild more natural biodegradable dish soap? Pet odor sprays are one of the worst. Can you pronounce the ingredients?

How many words are there to an ingredient name? These are all indicators of less than natural ingredients. Above all, and important to realize is that you won’t need pet sprays when you provide a wholesome diet and holistic lifestyle. Your dog or cat won’t stink ~ I promise!

Pure Clean Water

What’s the best water for your cat? CLEAN. Most of today’s water sources are polluted in one form or another including municipal. Yep! In fact, most people rarely drink tap water anymore and have a filtration system of some kind or have 5-gallon water bottles delivered by a water company. If you wouldn’t drink it why would you let your pet!

HAPPY TIP: Cats should always have fresh water available and it should be changed regularly, even every other day. Having said that, cats naturally are supposed to get most of their water from their food. When a cat is eating a raw diet consisting of muscle tissue, gristle, organs, glands, offal, and meaty bones, you won’t find them hanging over the water bowl very often. Maybe just a few laps here and there.

By no means does this mean not having fresh water available. But what you will notice is that they drink much less water out of the bowl when their diet has the right amount of moisture contained within the uncooked/raw food. ALWAYS have fresh clean water available.

What’s Clean And Fresh?

Bottled water such as Crystal Geyser, Arrowhead, or clean spring water is a good choice. Or a reverse osmosis system with the minerals replaced is the best option.

The Natural Sandbox Chemical-Free Liter

You are probably getting the idea now that keeping chemicals away from your cat and for that matter, yourself is essential in maintaining a level of health. Cat litters are no exception, many are filled with unnatural substrates and highly fragranced. Cats don’t DO fragrances. I

In addition, they are extremely scent sensitive and chemicals from unnatural litter absorb right into the pads of the feet and the mucus membranes of their sinuses. Here is a list of the types of natural cat litter as there are many on the market now:

• Pine, cedar, and other softwood shavings and pellets
• Grass seed
• Recycled paper
• Recycled corn cobs, kernels, or husks,
• Wheat and other grains

Here is one of the best natural cat liters we have found. We’ve tested a lot of them! And will have a review page on these soon. But this litter is chemical-free, economical, has minimal dust, and lasts a long time compared to other brands.

In our ongoing dialogue addressing the question, how often do you take a cat to the vet, it really depends on how healthful an environment you are providing on all levels.

Read our Related Post On Why Cats Pee Outside The Litterbox

Learn To Clip Your Cats Nails & Basic Care

Clipping your cat’s nails is an empowering process for you and your cat.  Why? Because it requires patience on your part and trust on your cat’s part.  Most people take their cats to the vet to have their nails trimmed because they feel like they don’t know how to do it. 

It’s no different than learning to do anything that you really want to do.  The process that you’ll go through will teach your cat that they can trust you and this also establishes a leadership position for you.

Ideally, start clipping when your cat is a kitten, this will get them used to having their paws handled. That is the ideal but more frequently we acquire cats that are already adults or we adopt cats that may have been feral and then adopted out.  This is the case with our two current cats, Elijah and Isaiah.  Both cats were caught, rescued, neutered, and adopted out without much human contact except for being handled for a brief time.  They came to us pretty much full-on wild. It took time and patience to acclimate them to the trimming process.

It can be done! In learning how to trim your cat you’ll both be better off for it.  Start with handling the feet and pads on a frequent basis.  When your kitty comes up to you for pets and love or curls up in your lap use this time to ‘touch’ the pads and paws for 3-5 seconds.  Then add in rubbing deep in between the pads in the webbing of the feet. 

This also takes time and patience.  For cats, its important to know that they are not being ‘held captive’. Hold them and work with them gently.

The Technique

When they are letting you hold/touch their pad for a short time then start clipping one nail at a time.  You’ll actually squeeze the pad of the toe you’re going to clip and this will make the nail protrude (as shown in the photo above).  Clip the last quarter of the nail. 

HAPPY TIP: If your cat has clear transparent nails you’ll be able to visually see the quick within the nail as a darker or blood colored segment. 

Clip AFTER the quick.  If you clip the quick, it will hurt! Always clip past the quick and you’ll be safe.  And your cat will trust you’re not going to hurt him or her.

The Burrito Method

If you have a cat that is taking longer to build trust you can use ‘the burrito method’ to protect yourself from getting scratched or hurt and to help your cat along.  Simply take a towel or smaller soft blanket and wrap your kitty like a burrito pulling out only one paw.  This keeps the other 3 paws secured while demonstrating to your cat that they can do this. 

Stay with this practice and soon you’ll be able to clip the whole foot in one session. RULE: start with one nail and have success with that.  Add a nail every few days.  Soon you’ll have the whole foot done and then you can start the process on the other foot. 

HAPPY TIP: Make nail clipping fun ~ have treats ready afterward for praising a good job.  Play a game after to program new neural pathways in the brain. Nail clipping is not something to be afraid of but rather something FUN!  You and your cat really can do this.

There is more to clipping cat nails than clipping cat nails.  It ultimately creates trust and a leadership position and as a result bonding.  A huge benefit is that when you need to apply first aid to your cat for an injury or acclimate them to a new situation or environment you’ll be way ahead of the game.  Knowing how to take basic care of your pets will enable you to save time, energy, and money in the short term and the long term.  Building and maintaining relationships with our cats is an adventure.  It’s a positive challenge and creates less dependency on others.

See Our Post On CLIPPING Cat Nails

Indoors Or Outdoors Or Both?

Is your cat an indoor cat or an outdoor cat or both? Regarding injuries, accidents, and the like indoor cats certainly fair better since they are not interacting with potential stressors. But and the big but . . . . is . . . . cats need some outdoor time to fulfill their very basic needs.

At a minimum, they need to get their paws on the earth and sniff the dirt, lawn, plants, and flowers. Dig a little bit. Roll a little bit. Furthermore its essential to their mental and emotional well-being. This is such a necessity an entire book could easily be written on this subject.

Why not let your cat take you for a walk at their speed and take a dive into ‘their’ world.

You can easily replicate getting outdoor needs met safely while having your cat primarily be an indoor cat, therefore reducing risks. Risks of being prey for coyotes and wild dogs, catfights, injuries, eating rodents that have been poisoned, threatening the avian population, and more. You can use pet tents and camping tents laid on the ground, lawn or outdoor area to allow them to sniff the air, bird watch, critter gaze, and simply get a dose of the natural world.

Take your cat for a walk with a cat halter and leash. (We use this exact one and its made well, as we’ve been through quite a few!) Yes, it takes them a minute to get used to it but they are your companion, and its a relationship . . . right? Why not let your cat take you for a walk at their speed and take a dive into ‘their’ world. Animals aren’t on a time watch like humans are, though they know exactly what time it is when it’s time to eat! Have you not witnessed that before in your dog or cat or even horse. That is because they are intuitive.

Let Your Cat Bring You Into The Present Moment

Healthy Companion & Relationship Needs

Some theories and people claim that cats are solitary, meaning they do just fine by themselves.  And this may be true, that cats can do fine by themselves and some may prefer a more solitary life. But despite this, many cats really do enjoy the company of another cat or several cats. Some may show it more outwardly and others less so.

Whatever the case maybe it will be important to recognize what your cat’s preferences are. A happy cat is a healthy cat. If your cat does desire the company of another cat, you’ll be far better off acknowledging this fact than evading it. Or your cat may prefer your company alone – be prepared to fulfill your end of the obligation.

Satisfying Your Cats Prey Drive

A cat’s prey drive needs to be satiated in healthy ways. Once again we are building on the cumulative answer to the question, “how often do you take a cat to the vet?” The fewer ensnaralments your feline companion gets into, the fewer visits or emergency calls to the vet.

Playing with your cat frequently with toys and games helps them fulfill the primal need to ‘catch’ something. We have lots of games with our cats; the chlorella game, tennis, and hide and seek, just to name a few.

The chlorella game (which we’ll have a video of soon) is exactly quite that, a chlorella game. We take tiny tablets of chlorella and roll them down the wood floors. They LOVE ‘catching’ the chlorella and then eating it! Such fun!

This single game meets a minimum of four basic needs:

1. Exercise
2. Prey drive (catching something)
3. Eating
4. Concentrated Nutrition

Additionally, this gives them a highly absorbable form of minerals in concentrated algae. What more could you ask? They love their ‘chlorella game’.

The idea is that you can easily satisfy a cat’s natural prey drive by providing a raw food diet and stimulating games and interactions that allow your cat to thrive.
We also play games with raw treats and roll them for them to catch. They get freeze dried liver, lamb lung and chicken breast treats as part of their diet.

Cats Coming From Unhealthful Living Conditions

When bringing a cat home there are several things that we have to consider and prepare for before we should consider how often we take our cat to the vet. It is less of an issue if you do not have other animals living with you in your home.

Practical Kitty Steps To Take

First: The overall condition of the cat and addressing the coat and skin also, parasites internally and externally.

Second: Diet, beginning the dietary intake and the introduction of a quality food source such as BARF or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food or Bones And Raw Food diet.

Third: Clean Water. This cannot be understated. To avoid serious health issues it is imperative not to let your animals drink tap water. A good Reverse Osmoses System that remineralizes the water for the whole house or an under-the-counter system will do the trick. These under-the-counter systems are more affordable and are easier to install than ever before.

This is really important if you live in an apartment or are renting your home to be able to have clean drinking water for you and your kids and animals in other words the whole family.

Their Own Space, The Sandbox & Socialization

Forth: Their little place their little way. Where kitties can have a place to lay down and relax and in addition know where the poddy box is. Make sure to introduce them to their cat box so that they know where to go to take care of business.

Equally important, this is a big part of the relaxation mechanism that allows them to settle into their new surroundings. Very important. New cats should always have NEW litter boxes. This avoids marking in the house when trying to claim their own territory. Give them an new box to mark their territory as THIERS.

Fifth: Acclamation. Some cats get going with their new routine sooner than others. It is important to let things move along organically meaning let the animal dictate the pace of introduction into their new lifestyle. There will be times when we will need to help them along, especially in the socialization department.

Do not just let them recede into the nooks and crannies of the living areas. They will need to explore and find out about their new home and its little ins and outs. But do not let them become reclusive. Teach them to be social with you and your people and the other animals if you have them. It may take some time but it is well worth all of the extra effort.

It is important to let things move along organically ~

Let the animal dictate the pace of introduction into their new lifestyle.

First Aid, Basic Care, And Remedies

There are a plethora of options for your sweet feline when things don’t go as well as our cats thought they should have. Haven’t we ALL been there! Having a Homeopathic remedy kit on hand as well as Flower essences can truly bring peace, calm, and resolution in unimaginable ways. Try them and see for yourself.

When it comes to fright, fear, shock, accidents, tummy upsets, injuries, sprains, new companions in the house, exposures, and the list goes on and on, there are remedies for that as well. The first thing is to educate yourself as to how to use these tools and have them available in the house.

Here are guides/kits to get you started:
Homeopathic First Aid and Emotional Support Kit
Homeopathic First Aid For Animals Treatment Book
#1 Flower Essence To Have On Hand
Flower Essence Repertory Guide Book
The Holistic Animal Handbook

The Ultimate Living Quarters – A Catio

What is a catio and what does it have to do with how often should you take your cat to the vet? A catio is the ultimate in cat living and for that matter people and cat living. To clarify, it is like a pat-io but for cats within an enclosure.

Specifically designed for cats, there are multiple ways and endless ideas to construct an outdoor enclosure off a portion of your house or apartment. Finally, the answer to providing a safe and secure place for your cats to hang out but why not hang out with your cats.

Small enclosures can be easily put together for even a bay-type window enclosure. This allows your cats to be in an environment completely protected from predators, other cats, rodents, and anything else. Let your cats play in the dirt, and plant feline herbs such as catnip and lavender.

Decorate with cat furniture, scratch posts, tubes, catwalks, tunnels, and even DIY water fountains or waterfalls. Add cat-friendly plants, flowers, and greenery. There are plenty of economical ways to bring your catio to life and your cat or cats will truly appreciate it.

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Wrapping UP

So there you have it ~ a small expose’ on holistic cat health and how it should certainly help you answer the question, how often do you take a cat to the vet? Well, if you are your own expert then you’ll be able to answer that question yourself. In this post we covered:

• Diet, THE Foundation ~ A Healthy Mind And Body
• Chemical Free Environment (sprays,
• Pure Clean Water
• The Natural SandBox Chemical Free Litter
• Indoors/Outdoors
• Healthy Companionship/ Relationship
• Learn How To Clip Your Cats Nails And Basic Care
• Satisfy Prey Drive
• Cats Coming From Unhealthful Living Conditions
• First Aid, Basic Care, And Remedies
• The Ultimate Living Quarters, A Catio

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