Siamese Kittens

The personalities of Siamese and Tonkinese are special and make for unique and wonderful companions but are sometimes accused of being loud or grumpy….

Siamese and Tonkinese cats and their relatives are very affectionate and talky. Not all affectionate cats are clingy or loud, but they may be, particularly when feeling stressed.  One of the major reasons of stress in a cat’s life is separation anxiety.  Cats can be much stressed when they feel that their “people” are leaving them!

You can reduce separation anxiety and increase kitty’s confidence and independence using the following tips:

• Leaving the radio or television on when you go out provides the illusion of company and masks frightening noises.
• Don’t make a fuss when leaving, and have keys ready for a quick exit.
• Giving kitty a favorite toy or treat before you leave distracts kitty and associates your departure with treat time.
• When returning home, ignore kitty for a few minutes, especially if kitty is demanding. Give attention only after kitty is calm.
• Providing a hideaway such as kitty condo, carrier, or box with a door gives kitty a safe retreat when alone and anxious. Add a piece of your clothing that has your comforting scent.
• Consider adopting a second kitty, but handle introductions properly.

To help needy cats become more confident and independent:

• Engage in interactive play rather than cuddling.
• Ignore demanding behavior.  Set times for affection such before eating breakfast & evening during TV, and stick to your routines.
• If kitty begins to knead or suck on your clothing or earlobes, gently remove kitty from your lap, get up, and leave the room.
• Calming products such as Feliway help some kitties.
• Is needy kitty bored? Provide an enriched environment with plenty of toys, a cat tree, and a bird feeder view. Consider taking kitty with you on a leash to do fun things. This might help kitty relax when traveling to the vet.

Siamese and Tonkinese are very social and “dog like.”  This means that, like dogs, they can be upset when their owners are gone unexpectedly. So, if your kitty is stressed about your leaving, try to use these tips above and try to use positive reinforcement to help your kitty to be “The Best Cat, Ever!.”

I often must defend my choice to feed Purina to my cats, yet my customers and friends are usually surprised to hear that one third of my actively breeding cats are technically senior or geriatric cats.  Furthermore, our vet has just examined these older cats and found no diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, heart disease, etc.  We do select our cats from lines that are long lived and healthy with superb temperament and good teeth, but there is more to our healthy cats than just good genes.

Kittens and cats will only reach their full potential if they eat great, fresh food. The analysis on pet food labels is a calculated estimate. Only feeding trials really establish that a food is suitable. Your cats require specific nutrients, not particular ingredients or a certain percent dietary protein or fat.

We will be adding links to purchasing these foods to our Shopping Page soon!

We feed Purina because Purina carefully sources and stores their ingredients, maintains a cat colony for real world food testing, does cutting edge research, and has control over their manufacturing process. In contrast, many so called premium brands actually are produced by another manufacturer whose profit depends only on fast production. This leads to poor quality and recalls in spite of premium sounding ingredients.

Purina offers many choices to match your cat with just the right food for life stages and special concerns. I will touch on some of these over a few weeks starting today with life stages.

We feed Purina Cat Chow Complete to our kittens, young cats up to 6 years old, and pregnant or nursing queens.  This is great food that is widely available and offers excellent value. We buy ours at Sams, but here is a link to get it online.

Purina research clearly demonstrates that feeding cats a high quality diet including antioxidants, prebiotics, and poly unsaturated fatty acids both extended life span by a year and maintained better health throughout this longer life. Kittentanz feeds our breeding seniors aged 7 to 10 Purina One Vibrant Maturity adult premium dry cat food 7+ and our breeding geriatric cats 11 and more years old Purina Proplan Focus 11+ chicken and rice formula. Our alteredretired geriatric cat, Tango, eats Purina Pro Plan focus 11+ indoor care turkey and rice in controlled portions as he is overweight. We order these products online.

We also feed to maintain healthy weight, manage hairballs, urinary problems, etc . I will cover those topics soon.