Hugo was rescued as a kitten when he was approx. 9 weeks old-from the off he had a lot of personality, but not a lot of agility! He often struggled to land on his feet…..despite how the saying goes. One such incident, when he was just over 2 years old, saw him fall from a height onto his left side following which he was 10/10 lame on this limb. A quick visit to our Vets at the time led to ‘rest and NSAIDs’ and a diagnosis of a ‘stifle strain’, but I was not convinced. However, he did improve following this spell of treatment and seemed to return to his normal self for some months after.It wasn’t until about a year later, when I had then been working at SMART Veterinary Clinic Ltd for just over a year, that a feline case I was helping with at the clinic made me look closer at my own cat. I realised that he very rarely chose to run, or hunt, and when he did shift into a faster mode he always curved his body quite dramatically to the left-hand side. I also realised that I had always put his ‘beast like’ (he had rather the vicious streak) tendencies down to his personality and had not considered that they were pain related-as he had just always just been like this.
I therefore got him referred to SMART for an initial assessment, and despite working there and being involved in the care and management of many of our cases-as an owner, I was amazed at how much was explained to me (likely he has had hip dysplasia his whole life) and to his response to treatment. I was dubious that anyone would be able to handle him long enough to thoroughly examine him, let alone attempt to acupuncture him-yet they did and his response was profound! We have since realised, after building our feline caseload over the years, just how profoundly our feline patients respond to our treatments, especially acupuncture.
We have also learned how we need to tailor our assessments and treatment plans for our feline patients. When I first brought Hugo in for treatment (granted this is now nearly 10 years ago) I did not have any videos of him moving and we did not have a dedicated feline area at the clinic. We also had no feline specific exercises included in our client communication or examples of how these exercises should look, or things as simple as how to introduce heat packing with our feline patients.
Despite this, simple changes that I made at home alongside his treatment in clinic really helped
- moving his feed bowls down from his feeding perch (we were living with a dog at the time) to somewhere more accessible
- raising his feed bowls-using treats to slowly direct him around various obstacles around the house
- using treats to encourage him to stand on a block and stretch forward
He flat out refused to walk on a lead, but was so good with everything else we introduced, I could forgive him this!
Before long Hugo was running, not bending, and…..hunting! He also stopped attacking us, and just generally seemed happier in himself and much more comfortable when moving around. This was also achieved, I am ashamed to say, without the regularity of treatment that we ask our clients to commit to. Hugo was usually seen every couple of months vs every couple of weeks and I admit to not consistently completing his homework. This in my mind goes to show just how much our treatments can help our feline patients. Hugo in particular responds incredibly well to electro-acupuncture, and would always look unbelievably better following a session of this. He is also much calmer and happier in our ‘feline friendly’ consulting room, and introducing these spaces in our clinics has made a big difference.
In recent years Hugo has been seen in clinic every 4-6 months, with a spell of more regular visits when he also had a GI issue that saw a decline in his mobility (which we often find with our patients, as their core is so integral to their mobility and GI issues can definitely affect this). I have also been better at trying to more regularly heat pack and stretch him when he looks sore (I keep a close eye on how he holds his body when he runs-and on his general demeanour!), we have found hand warmers are perfect for this.
As he ages I will definitely need to be better at more consistently taking him in for treatment and managing his mobility at home, but he is currently fairly stable even with me being a far from ideal compliant client!
I hope this short account of Hugo’s treatment, and my involvement with this, helps highlight some of difficulties we can face when managing our feline patients-especially as many owners will be like I was, and not even aware that there is an issue. They may also think that there is no way their cat will respond to treatment or be amenable enough for accurate assessment. How we communicate with our clients, educate them, and how we tailor our treatments to our feline patients is essential. Videos before appointments are incredibly useful, as are a bank of videos and pictures demonstrating exercises that can be done at home.
I feel there are so many of our feline patients that do not get seen because of some of the difficulties I have outlined above, and possibly because of the differences in our relationships with them vs their canine counterparts, but I hope in future we will start to see changes with this and more cats coming through our doors!