This post first appeared on Care2.com
Routine vet visits are vital to your cat’s health, but they can be stressful for you and your cat. Here’s why regular checkups are important and how to make vet visits less stressful for your cats.
One of the greatest challenges I faced when coordinating the Seniors for Seniors Foster Program at a local shelter was getting cats into carriers for transport to their foster homes or for health check-ups. Rides in the car were no fun either when the most stressed cats howled, hissed, defecated or threw up in their carriers.
My friend, Ann, has seven cats and planning trips to the vet is always quite an ordeal. She has to carefully plan where to stage the cat carriers and which cat to shut in which room. It’s always stressful for the cats and not much fun for my friend either.
“No cat likes being taken to strange places and handled by strangers,” Ann said. “Some of them deal with it better than others, a lot of it is just personality. I think using a sturdy cat carrier that they can’t get out of is probably the most important thing.”
A 2013 study by Bayer and the American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) found that 52 percent of cats in the U.S. had not been taken to the veterinarian in the past year for necessary check-ups. The study also found that only half as many cats receive annual exams as dogs.
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