Really Fat Cats

Kate S asked:


Pet ownership in the United States is on the rise. A recent survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association indicates that four in ten (43 million) U.S. households own at least one dog, and three in ten (37.5 million) households own at least one cat.  This increase in pet ownership reflects more people realize pets can truly enrich their lives.  Pets not only provide companionship, unconditional love and affection, research now shows they also provide significant health benefits. Pets can help to reduce stress, relieve loneliness and depression.  Moreover, pets can provide opportunities for exercise, outdoor activities, and socializaton.  Published scientific studies show that pets can decrease their owner\’s blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and feelings of loneliness. Older people who have pets tend to have better physical and mental health than those who don’t.

In parallel to the increase in pet ownership, gift-giving to pets continues to rise.  A recent survey shows eight out of ten dog owners buy dog gifts and 63 percent of cat owners purchase gifts for the family feline.  Moreover, the gifts are not just purchased at Christmas, but also for birthdays, Easter, Halloween, Valentine\’s Day, or for no special occasion. This article reviews some popular dog gifts and cat gifts available online.

Popular dog gifts include natural dog treats, dog gift basket, gift tower, and care package. The natural dog treats are bone-shaped biscuits that come in one pound gift bag and in three different flavors: peanut, carob chip and oatmeal cinnamon.  These crunchy delicious treats will be received by your pet dog with excessive tail wagging and plenty of kisses.  These inexpensive dog treats are ideal gifts for dog lovers.  

Another popular gift, the dog gift basket, consists of a chrome bone shaped wire basket filled with a chew toy, a package of chewy treats and special dog biscuit mix that the dog owner will bake. Dog biscuit mix comes with simple instructions and a bone shaped cookie cutter to cut out and bake the biscuits. Anyone feeding these treats to the dog can look forward to plenty of wet kisses from that pampered pet.

The dog gift tower consists of a set of adorable boxes stacked on top of one another and make great storage for doggie\’s toys later. Every box is filled with pleasant surprises, including doggie shampoo, plaster dog print kit, doggie chew ball, 2 doggie chew toy, washing mitt or brush, a paw print box filled with beef flavored dog bones, and an 8\” playful puppy toy. This gift will delight your favorite pooch or pooch lover.

Another fantastic gift to spoil the dog in your life or its owner is a pet care package designed specifically for the dog lover. This adorable dog paw print gift box comes filled with doggie ball, doggie chew toy, doggie shampoo, plaster dog print kit, doggie washing mitt or brush, and a paw print box filled with beef flavored dog bones treats.

Popular cat gifts include cat gift box and cat gift basket. The house shaped cat gift box is full of treats for a good kitty. It includes over a cup of tuna flavored snacks and a mouse play toy. These cat snacks are low fat and low calorie, so you don\’t have to worry about the cat\’s weight.  It is a perfect gift for any friend or family member who has a cat.

The cat gift basket consists of a chrome cat-shaped wire container as a keepsake.  It is filled with a seed mixture of herbs and cat grasses to grow in any sunny place, a cat toy, and a bag of kitty treats mix that the cat owner will bake after cutting out with a metal fish-shaped cookie cutter.  All the cat owner needs is a bowl, water and an oven to make these treats. This gift basket is sure to pamper any feline.

In conclsuion, gift-giving to pet dogs and cats is on the rise, probably as a result of increasing pet ownership, and scientific confirmation on the benefits of pet ownership. Great selections of dog gifts and cat gifts are available.  These gifts are not only ideal for showing your affection to your pets, but also make great dog lover gifts or cat lover gifts. 

Kate S. is the CEO of Gift Basket for All, LLC. You can visit her site by clicking on the link below:

Gift Baskets

Gift Basket for All.com offers sensational gift baskets for all occasions, including anniversary, holidays, new baby, birthday, corporate events, get well, sympathy.

For information on products reviewed in this article, please click on Dog Gifts, Cat Gifts

Bob Alexander asked:


My cat Spike was mad!  He is used to eating breakfast around 7:00 a.m., but I did not awake until almost 8:00.  I heard his meowing in the garage and from the sound I knew he was still in his bed, but complaining that breakfast had not been served! He gets loud when he is not fed his Meow Mix on time.

The sight that welcomed me was not pretty.  The vagrant band of raccoons that visit my garage on a regular basis had discovered the buckets of pecans I had picked up during the day.  I had collected more than I had time to process, but this did not bother the raccoons.  They proceeded to crack and shell pecans all over the garage. 

Over the last several years my garage appears to have become a half-way house for raccoons.  They use my cat’s food dish to treat themselves to human food without having to scatter the contents of my garbage can all over the yard.  Spike’s cat food is also more nutritional!

Packed with vitamins and minerals, one of the three raccoons that currently visit almost every night is getting so fat that he can hardly get through the pet door designed for cats.  Spike is partial to the tuna flavor of the cat food, but occasionally he will get the chicken flavor.  It does not matter to the raccoons what the flavor of the day is; they simply devour anything placed in the food dish.

I had not given much thought to leaving the buckets of pecans out in the open, practically inviting any hungry animal to grab as many of the nuts as it could eat. Since our home is near a small woods complete with vegetable gardens on the side, my house is a natural target for a raccoon’s nightly snack. 

In the wild, there’s not much that raccoons won’t eat.  They like grasshoppers, grapes, corn, worms, mice, bird eggs, berries, garden vegetables and walnuts.  I have discovered they also love pecans.  They don’t carry the nuts out of the garage; they just crack them with their teeth and spit the shells all over the floor.

Raccoons are slobs!  If they were standing on the table or the work bench eating a nut, that’s where they would leave their scraps of pecan shells. The tops of the washer and drier were also covered with debris from their midnight scavenging of my pecans.  I can see why Spike ignores the raccoons and tries to sleep through the commotion each night!

Spike has a box, complete with several pillows for comfort, where he sleeps while all this is going on.  The box is on a table in the middle of the garage and he occasionally raises his head over the edge to see what the racket below is all about; that’s the extent of his involvement in the chaos below.

Cats sleep more than humans, about 13 to 16 hours a day.  Spike spends almost two-thirds of his life snoring, without letting hungry varmints disturb that blissful state of relaxation.  When morning comes and his cat food dish is empty from the assault on it from masked bandits, my cat wails almost like a dog.  Unfortunately this is in cat language and sounds really weird.

Normally an early riser, Spike gets impatient when he has to wait on breakfast.  A cup full of cat food, Tuna Surprise, calms him down.  By now the raccoons, like vampires, have retreated from the sun and are peacefully snoozing in their dens.  Once again, all is right with the world.

Gail Metcalf asked:


If 20 million Americans were to appear on the streets tomorrow, each with a cement block weigh­ing between 20 and 40 pounds permanently attached to his body, it would create a tremendous stir. Everyone would ask how they carry a load like that for the rest of their lives? They would command the sympathy of the entire nation. As a matter of fact, such a situation does prevail right at this moment. The only difference is that the weights those 20 million Americans are carrying consist of fat rather than cement. And the burdens are less conspicuous because they are distributed over the entire body. But from the standpoint of health and the added work load placed on the heart, it makes no difference whether the cargo is cement or tissue. The cost to the individual, in poor health, loss of energy, and in most cases, a shorter lifespan, is the same.

The Price for Being Overweight

Overweight is a hidden disease. About the only people who seem to take this seriously are physicians and the insurance companies. At least they are the only ones concerned in terms of health and longevity. They know that overweight is a “hidden disease”, responsible for shortening the life of every average American adult by almost five and one-half years.

Think what that means. Our own generation will lose a com­bined 108 million years of life because of overweight! This figure represents many times the number of adult years lost by the premature deaths of young men killed in World Wars I and II. Only in the past few years has the public become even dimly aware of the critical and dangerous results of being a nation of “fat cats”. It’s time we all began to sit up and take notice. If we learn how to count the calories, we will learn also how to count on more years of vibrant, healthful life.

Dr. Louis D. Dublin and Herbert H. Marks of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company were among the first to point to in­creased death rates attributable to excessive fat. In consequence, there have been a number of campaigns aimed at persuading people to reduce their weights to the normal or even the ideal figure. And we’re seeing more of these ads every month.

Diet for Health, Not for Beauty

Unfortunately, people are intensely human and, they commit to a diet program only to slowly slide back into old eating patterns. The result has been a widespread practice of “yo-yo” dieting aimed not at im­proved health, but at a more fashionable appearance. Each year brings new fads in dieting books. It has even become fashionable to be on the “in” dieting program with everyone else.

The Damage of Yo-Yo Dieting

Nothing could be worse than that kind of up-and-down the scales program. In the first place, you benefit from reduced weight only if the normal weight is maintained from that time on. Taking it off and then putting it on again is worse than remaining overweight, because it is in the process of becoming fat that a large part of the damage is done. This damage occurs in the blood vessels, liver, and heart,critical sites of the body.

Although the process of becoming fat is more detrimental than being fat, carrying around an overly hefty frame is also a way to shorten the period of your time spent on earth. As you put on excessive fat, movement of the blood throughout the body is slowed. The heart has to work harder to keep the circulation going. And the added weight places a greater burden upon your joints, which may develop trouble as a consequence.

Every part of your body experiences the affect of the extra weight being carried. As the ad campaigns continue to expose the seriousness of the American hidden disease, more people will be interested in discovering the information that is currently available and has been available for years. Unfortunately, it may be too late for many.

Darlene Norris asked:


You may be shocked to learn that the rate of feline diabetes is skyrocketing.  You may be even more shocked to find out that diabetes in cats can often be prevented.  Preventing your kitty from becoming a feline diabetic is much easier than treating the disease once it’s developed.  Here are three ways to prevent this illness.

Feline Obesity Is The Number Reason For A Diabetic Cat

We feed our pets too much of the wrong kinds of foods.  Some experts go so far as to say that feline diabetes is a man-made disease, and that it’s completely preventable by feeding the proper diet.

Here’s what you need to know about the problems associated with dry cat food:

1. The protein is plant-based, not animal-based.

2. The carbohydrate levels are too high for kitties, which leads to weight gain.

3. The water content is too low.

Cats are obligate carnivores, which means most of their protein must come from animal-based sources.  They aren’t meant to eat large amounts of carbs.  Plus they have evolved to get most of their water from their food.  You can see that feeding dry food for years on end can lead to a health disaster for your pet.

Feeding your pet a high-quality canned food now is the best way to prevent a feline diabetic in the future.

Daily Exercise Is Essential

Like us, cats tend to be too sedentary.  Regular exercise, in the form of rousing games, is essential for burning calories and keeping your companion in top shape.  Exercise also helps to keep blood sugar levels normal, too.

Natural Remedies For Cats Can Help Prevent Diabetes In Cats

Research has shown that certain herbs and supplements can help to regulate blood sugar levels in pets.  Interest in natural remedies for pets is rising as more and more people are turning to natural and alternative medicine for their own health issues.

Goat’s rue has been used in Europe for centuries to support pancreatic health.  Studies have confirmed that this herb helps the body to maintain normal blood sugar levels.

Fenugreek was used both in ancient Egypt and in traditional Chinese medicine for many ailments.  Now modern research agrees that it’s another herb that helps to keep glucose blood levels normal.  It’s also a kidney tonic, and promotes urinary tract health, preventing infections.

Astragalus was called huang qi in traditional Chinese medicine.  It’s been shown to prevent cardiomyopathy in diabetic rats.  Again, it also helps to promote healthy blood sugar levels.

Bilberry is an antioxidant that promotes eye health.

Chromium picolinate is a form of chromium that’s easily absorbed by the body.  This mineral is essential to metabolize sugars and fats, but most diets are very deficient in it.  Taking this supplement daily can reduce the risk of developing insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

You’ll be happy to learn that these five ingredients have already been combined into a safe and effective remedy formulated especially for pets.  It’s reassuring to know that the company producing this remedy has an excellent reputation for producing only the highest quality remedies for companion animals. 

Some food for thought:  it’s much easier to prevent feline diabetes than it is to treat it once it’s developed.  Take steps today to protect your beloved pet from this dread disease.

Duncan Kelly asked:


Your kids would like a cat. Especially your girl kids. They’ve told you that how many times. But you don’t want to. What use is a cat, you think. But cats are great for building character, like suffering is.

There’s lots of great reasons to get a cat. Here’s 10 just to start with.

1. Cats help to get all that nasty, stuck on varnish off the legs of your furniture. It looked disgusting anyway, all yucky and brown. Bare wood is more natural, and splinters give it that rustic, homely look.

2. Cats protect your comfy chairs and couches by covering them with a thick layer of hair, and sometimes sticks, dust and small stones. This also gets to protect your gucchi pants, when it all sticks to them when you sit there. This is great, as it protects your fabrics from acid rain, nuclear radiation and the suns Xenta rays.

3. Cats prevent you from sleeping too much, by singing outside your window, or in your room, when they reckon you have overslept. This could be at 2am, but cats know best.

4. Cats help to keep a whole industry of cat food manufactures going. They use your money to do this. Doesn’t this make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!! Of course it does Dad!

5. Cats keep dogs fit. If it wasn’t for cats, dogs would be fat, lazy bums with no recreational outlet. It also helps them to develop endurance barking talents.

6. Cats are a good guage of how much frustration you can endure. When you can’t get them off the roof just before going to a school parents evening, you really get to know yourself.

7. Cats teach you about nature. What kind of parasites drink blood, what the contents of an animal stomach look like on a clean carpet, what a dead rat looks like, and the makeup of hairballs. Fascinating stuff.

8. Cats help you to get to know your neighbours. Happy hours are spent shouting over the fence about the cat being in the neighbours house, shredding his curtains, terrifying his Pug dog and pleasantries like this.

9. Cats get rid of left overs, like the roast you took out to defrost, the fish you caught and were filleting when the phone rang, and the steak you had on the barbeque.

10. Cats keep you humble, by totally ignoring you when you call them, walking over you when you’re sleeping and generally treating you like dirt.

Well, maybe these reasons are a bit thin, but cats are still good to have around. Watching them curl up and sleep in almost any place imaginable is quite an education. “How to Relax 101″

You have to admit, life would be a little boring without a cat in your life!

 

IB SERVE asked:


You can make your favorite recipes lower in fat and calories with a few simple substitutions. Here are seven tips to help you adapt any recipe to your new low fat lifestyle.

The first step is to take all of your recipes and make a note of the high fat ingredients. These can include whole milk, butter, margarine, cheese, for more detail go to: www.delicious-sandwich-recipes.com.sour cream, oil and eggs. Make a note of what needs to be substituted and then start to adapt the recipe.

Start making your substitutions slowly. It is going to take a little bit of time to master the art of low-fat cooking. Try substituting half of the low fat options at first and see how the dish tastes. If you are able to reduce the fat without sacrificing flavor, then try to eliminate a little more fat the next time around.

If your recipe calls for eggs, you can use low-fat egg substitute. Egg substitutes are available by the carton at your local grocery store. Use 1/4 cup of egg substitute for one egg. You can also reduce the fat by using egg whites instead of the whole egg, however this changes the composition of your dish slightly.

Make an easy switch from whole milk to low-fat or fat-free milk. If you’re drinking whole milk on a daily basis or using it for your cereal, you should be making this switch anyway to follow the rules of your low-fat way of eating. If you are accustomed to using whole fat milk, first switch to 2% milk and then work down to fat free milk eventually. This way you can become accustomed to the taste of the lower fat varieties.

Mayonnaise, sour cream and cheese can all be substituted with lower fat versions of the same products. Use the same amount that you would with the high fat varieties. Low-fat plain yogurt also makes a great substitute for sour cream. When it comes to cheese, keep in mind that low-fat cheese doesn’t melt as well as regular cheese. You may need to adjust your baking time.

Eliminate excess butter and oil by using cooking spray to prepare eggs and other items in a frying pan. You can save a lot of fat calories this way and will hardly recognize the difference. The clean up after using cooking spray is a lot easier as well.

You can also eliminate butter and oil in sweet baked goods by using applesauce. Use a cup of applesauce or pureed fruit for every cup of oil or butter required in the recipe. You can experiment with different flavor combinations and come up with many varieties of your favorite baked goods.

Your meat choices can also play a big part in how much fat a dish contains. For more detail go to: www.cat-head-biscuit.com.Use extra lean ground beef (such as 97% fat free) instead of the full fat variety. Try substituting ground turkey for beef for an even lower fat option. If you aren’t a fan of the flavor of ground turkey, try mixing the ground beef and the ground turkey together.

By using these simple substitutions, you can easily reduce the fat in your diet. The flavors of your dishes wont change a whole lot but your waistline will thank you.

VickyHillChamp asked:

My Cocketeil whistling & singing. My Eclectus. My Congo African Grey talking & dancing. My English Bulldog. My Fattest Cat.(Video with SubTitles).

ohtobeblue asked:

Gino Matteo & The Family Funk playing Fat Cat from the album “I’ve Been Thinkin’”. Recorded at Humphrey’s Backstage Live in San Diego, CA Gino Matteo-Guitar “Chicago” Chuck Gullens-Drums Chris White-Bass Mo Beeks-Keyboards

psykohed asked:

25 pounds of kitty stuffed into aa baby shirt.

ChipnDaleRRock asked:

The Fat Cat Stomp sequence from the Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers episode “Adventures in Squirrelsitting”