Learn the Basics of Cat First-Aid

Series Summary

Man has long had a unique relationship with the animals on this planet. We’ve kept them as familiars; helpful spirits for performing witchcraft. We’ve trained them to track, to find, and to kill. Some we have worshiped as gods or killed as offerings to gods…and some we have eaten. Yet, perhaps as a gentler development from this history, we have begun to bring animals into our homes, to domesticate and care for them, to call them friends. We keep them as pets, but to some they are as precious as children.

Over time, cats have proven to be well-adapted for human life, expressing qualities of loyalty, love, and friendship. Studies have also shown that, aside from their usefulness as mice catchers, pets like cats can help dramatically reduce a person’s stress level. Having a domesticated cat, then, is an emotional and medical benefit for any pet owner.

Being a domestic animal though, cats must be cared for just like little children. Every cat will need both preventative and emergency health care in the course of their lives, whether it’s to deal with a broken bone or to get rid of fleas. In our free video series on cat health, learn the skills you need to have to provide this care. Our expert will give you tips for dealing with common cat problems, like fleas, as well as demonstrate important first aid techniques for cats that have been poisoned, hurt in a car accident, or are bleeding.

Video Transcript

" Hi, I’m Dr. Greg McDonald, and I’m coming to you from Expert Village.com, and today we want to talk a little bit about first aid in a cat. Some of the basic things that you need to know about first aid is, first of all, you need to be paying attention to your cat and finding out is the kitty cat eating on a regular basis, passing stool and urine on a regular basis, and also is the cat drinking water, and not abnormal amounts of water. So the very four basic things that cats do in your house that you need to be paying attention to is to be sure that there isn’t some underlying disease process going on. So knowing your cat real well is important to know if there is something wrong with it or if something is not wrong with it. When we are talking about some of the basics on emergency care of your cat, things like bleeding, poisoning, broken legs, maybe attacked by a dog, all these types of things are going to be things that we are going to talk about during this session. Other metabolic diseases such as diabetes, if your cat gets a very high glucose level, it could become comatose, and you need to know what to do under those circumstances. There is several diseased prosthesis that can happen with your cat, which is kidney disease, liver disease. All of these things have signs that may require some emergency care. Of course with any emergency treatment, you always have to think to the back of your mind you are intervening and trying to get your cat healthy enough to take it to the veterinarian, and do some life saving procedures while you are thinking about getting him to the veterinarian."