Positive Reinforcement

We all get positive reinforcement different ways. For Newton, positive reinforcement is time with the wand toy.

For Pierre, positive reinforcement is being allowed to help make the bed.

And for Ashton, positive reinforcement is definitely chicken.

Not THAT kind of chicken!

Giving Positive Reinforcement to Your Favorite Pet Bloggers

Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to do something a little extra for the pet bloggers you enjoy reading every day? You may not be able to give Ashton a treat, but you can do something for your favorite bloggers by nominating them for the Nose-to-Nose Awards.

The Nose-to-Nose awards are really treasured in pet social media because they are awarded by a panel of judges who look at the quality of the content nominated. No one is going to ask you to stuff the ballot box for them for these awards, because they aren’t a popularity contest. They reward quality.

Can you think of a blogger who made you laugh, made you cry, or made you think? Maybe you want to nominate them for an award.

We have already started to nominate some of the bloggers whose worked moved us this past year, and there’s still time to nominate others before nominations close April 11.

What to Do

When you think of a blogger you want to nominate, go to the BlogPaws Nose-to-Nose Award Nomination form and tell them about it!

On the form, you’ll choose what category to nominate the blog for. It might be a broad category like best cat blog or best dog blog, or it may be one of the more specific categories where they ask for the web address of the blog post of photo that you are nominating. There’s a BlogPaws blog post explaining the different categories in case the categories like Best Written Pet Blog Post and Best Pet Photo on a Blog need a little more clarification.

Here’s the other thing to know: It’s just like a secret ballot. No one will ever know you nominated them unless you tell them. So if you never told your favorite blogger how much you love their work, they still won’t know. So make sure you give them a high five sometime, even if you don’t tell them that you nominated them. Positive reinforcement doesn’t have to happen just through award nomination. A grateful comment, a retweet, a share, or even a thank you could brighten someone’s day any time, all year round.

A Few More Thoughts

Over the next week or so, a lot of bloggers are going to publish posts asking for nominations with links to suggested to nominate. I have already been asked when I will publish one. The answer is that this is the closest I will get.

I would be honored and touched if you nominated this blog for a Nose to Nose award. I know it takes time out of your busy day, and I appreciate your considering it. But before you do, please nominate another deserving blog first. I want to be sure that the positive reinforcement goes as far as possible.

Yes, Ashton, that includes getting some real chicken. It’s positive reinforcement from your friends!

Raw Cat Food: Not as Expensive as You Think

One of the questions I get asked when I mention making raw food for my cats is, “Wow, isn’t that expensive?” When I posted about how I make raw cat food for Newton and Ashton, APB asked this much more politely, “Have you figured out what your food costs, per pound?” in the post comments.

The short answers are: it’s actually not expensive at all, and the food cost per pound varies a little depending on your ingredient cost. I sat down with the actual receipts from the last batch of food that you saw photos of my making to calculate the exact cost. Surprisingly, it costs much more to feed Pierre, who is not interested in raw food thankyouverymuch, than it does to feed raw to both Newton and Ashton combined.

How Much Raw Cat Food Costs to Make

I’m about to start tossing numbers around again, so if you are as allergic to math as I am, don’t worry, I’ll include the bottom line and not just all these numbers.

The 30 lb batch of food I described in my previous post had a total ingredient cost of $68.67.

That total includes buying the chicken, chicken liver, and eggs at Whole Foods, so I’m sure I could have sourced them less expensively. I wanted to be sure the chicken wasn’t injected with extra saline or dunked in a chlorinated water bath, so I chose to buy the chicken at Whole Foods where I knew I could get air chilled chicken. I am still looking into other sources, so I might be able to get that cost down a little bit.

The 30 lb of food in a batch are separated out into 202 meals. (Ashton eats 2 oz meals and Newton eats 2.75 oz meals, for an average of 2.38 oz.)

Taking the total cost of a batch and dividing it by the number of meals, that last batch of raw food I made for the cats cost $.34 per meal. Yes, you read that right, my cats are eating whole meat meals from Whole Foods at $.34 per serving.

Pierre, who still turns his nose up at raw, currently eats the canned food that Ashton and Newton used to also eat, which costs $1.70 per can. (Yes, we’re looking for a new food, but this is what he’s eating now.) A meal is half a can of food, making it cost $.85.

So the canned food is $.85 per serving and the raw food, at $.34 per serving, is less than half the cost. I’m saving $2 a day for two cats to eat fresh instead of canned canned food. Not bad savings!

What About that Grinder?

I can almost hear someone asking about my grinder. It’s true, I bought my grinder specifically for making cat food, so it’s fair to ask how it factors into the equation.

Image credit: depositphotos/ptasha

Well, if I’m saving $2 a day, let’s apply that toward the cost of a grinder. If I bought a Tasin TS-108 ($150), which is what many people use for grinding meat for cat food, it would take 74 days to pay for itself from the savings over canned food.

I went all out and bought a Weston #12 grinder, which was more costly ($457). It will be 225 days until the savings over the cost of canned food pays for the grinder. If it hadn’t been for being able to project it paying for itself in well under a year, it would have been a lot harder for me to justify the higher-horsepower grinder!

It’s Not All About Saving Money

So that’s the long answer about how much it costs to to make your own raw cat food. The numbers assume you’re going to feed the same food day after day, week after week. Some cats do better with that than others! Ashton is starting to show signs of boredom with that, so I’m going to start rotating some other foods into their raw diet, which will no doubt nudge these numbers one direction or another. Happy cats at mealtime make happy humans.

I also wanted to note that I didn’t start down the road to feeding raw because it was less expensive. If it was all about the cost, I could have just fed my cats grocery store kibble. I actually started because Pierre was having so much trouble keeping his commercial canned food down for a while that I wanted him to benefit from something more digestible.

Of course, cats being cats, Ashton and Newton took to raw, and Pierre is the only one who won’t touch it. His stomach is much better on a different canned food he is eating now, and who knows, maybe someday he will be curious enough about Ashton’s bowl that he’ll give it a try, too. Until then, I’m paying more to feed him canned food than I am to feed the other two cats raw food, and that’s OK, too. It’s really about keeping your cat healthy and happy, and even among my cats, that isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing!

Go Fish!

Newton: This is my little friend, Freddie the Fish. My friends at Beco Pets sent him to me from Global Pet Expo.

Newton: The humans think it’s cool that he’s made of recycled plastic bottles inside and out, but I think it’s more important that he stands up to some serious abuse by a mancat like me. I have been known to rip lesser toys open in minutes, but not my pal Freddie.

Newton: Who says I’m not allowed to have fish in my diet? I can chew on Freddie all day! He’s full of catnip, so who wouldn’t want to chew on him?

Pierre: It’s my turn to play with Freddie, right?

Newton: Who said anything about taking turns?

Pierre: Did you hear that? I think I heard a human in the kitchen opening a bag of chips.

Newton: Could you fishsit Freddie for me for just a minute?

Pierre: He falls for that kitchen line every time! Come to me, little fishie friend.

Pierre: This fish really is durable. If this was a real fish, I would have torn the tail right off by now.

Pierre: I’m not as selfish as Newton. Do you want to try it, too? Here…. catch!

Pierre’s Very Bad Day

Those of you who follow us on social media probably heard last week that Pierre got to visit the vet last week. He wasn’t really thrilled about the whole thing.

Pierre: I’m being CATNAPPED!

This was an urgent visit despite Pierre’s protests. His constipation, usually controlled with the addition of some pumpkin to his diet, had gotten worse and was causing vomiting outside the litterbox when he tried to go.

Ashton was due for her wellness visit, so she accompanied him for the trip to the vet.

Ashton: This is NOT funny. You’re in so much trouble for making me do this, Pierre.

Pierre and Ashton sang the song of their people all the way to the vet. We’re fairly sure that even with the car windows rolled up, drivers in the surrounding cars heard them at every stoplight. (If the video doesn’t display below for you, you can visit it directly to hear their song.)

At the vet, Pierre really wasn’t interested in coming out of his carrier to be examined.

Pierre: I’m fine right here, thanks. Just punch my round-trip ticket and let me go home.

He was diagnosed with constipation and scheduled for an enema. The vet suggested that he stay with them for a few hours since the results were usually pretty messy, and that he would be able to go home later in the day.

Ashton: Can’t you keep examining Pierre so that I don’t have to come out there?

Ashton had her annual exam, which was uneventful except for the vet warning that her bladder was kind of full. Worried about Pierre, we didn’t pay too much attention to that comment. As we carried her carrier back in the door, Ashton’s bladder couldn’t wait any longer. The dense humans, without a cat’s keen sense of smell, didn’t realize this until we opened the carrier and out sprang Ashton, the fur of her whole back end wet.

There are no photos of the chase over all of the furniture in the house that ensued, so you’ll have to use your imagination. It was, however, epic.

One of the awesome things we love about the Sleepypod carrier is that it’s not just super-plush for the cats, it’s also easy to clean. The innards of the carrier went right into the washer with the bed comforter and other things that suddenly needed to be washed, and they came out April fresh.

By the time cleanup was mostly done but Ashton was still hiding under the bed, the vet called to say that Pierre had gotten his enema, but he was refusing to use the litterbox at the vet. The vet suggested he would be more relaxed at home and would use his own litter box.

Pierre looked very glad to see a familiar face at the vet and went right into his carrier. We set out for home and were nearly there, only a few blocks away, when Pierre couldn’t wait for the litter box any longer. Unlike when Ashton went in the carrier, there was no mistaking what had just happened. Pierre, ever the tidy cat, tried to rearrange the incontinence pad we had added to the bottom of the carrier for just this situation, trying hard to bury the evidence. So when we got him the last few blocks home and into the house, he went into the bathroom carrier and all to assess how much mess there was.

There are no photos of this part of the story, either. In his effort to be clean, he had managed to get it all over his feet. So in addition to all of the other indignities he had suffered, Pierre had to have his paws washed before he could be allowed back into the house.

Pierre: You’re not going to publish a picture of my wet paws for people to see, are you? So humiliating!

Afterward, he had a little bit to eat and then went to hide in his kitty kozy.

Pierre: I never want to go through any of that again.

Neither do we, Pierre.

The good news is that Pierre feels much better now, and we have a plan to help him keep feeling that way.

Lessons Learned

This whole experience taught us that it’s important to always know how often your cat is using the litterbox. When you have three cats, it’s sometimes difficult to know who leaves what, so you have to keep an eye on them. In our house, Pierre is the only cat not eating raw, so we can usually tell which ones are his at scooping time. When we stopped being able to tell them apart, we suspected there was trouble.

PetMD lists these as additional symptoms of constipation:

Straining to defecate with small or no fecal volume
Hard, dry bowel movement
Infrequent or complete lack of defecation
Small amount of liquid stool with mucus in it – sometimes with blood present, produced after prolonged straining to defecate (known as tenesmus)
Occasional vomiting
Lack of appetite
Depression
Large intestine (colon) filled with hard, compacted fecal material
Swelling around the anus

If you think your cat is constipated, see your vet both so that your kitty can feel better and so that your vet can try to identify the cause of the constipation, since it could signal another underlying condition.

Positive Reinforcement

Giving Positive Reinforcement to Your Favorite Pet Bloggers

What to Do

A Few More Thoughts

Raw Cat Food: Not as Expensive as You Think

How Much Raw Cat Food Costs to Make

What About that Grinder?

It’s Not All About Saving Money

Go Fish!

Pierre’s Very Bad Day

Lessons Learned

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