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Gina Spadafori, Universal Press Syndicate pet care columnist and host of AOL's "Gina Spadafori's Pet Connection," follows her educational and entertaining book Dogs for Dummies with Cats for Dummies, which she co-authors with Paul Pion, D.V.M., D.A.C.V.I.M., president of the Veterinary Information Network.
If you own a cat or are considering cat ownership, Cats for Dummies is the one book you really must have. This educational, comprehensive, and entertaining book is probably the closest you'll get to a cat "owners' manual."
Beginning with a foreword by Lilian Jackson Braun, the cat-owned author of The Cat Who... mystery novels, the book quickly moves into a brief history of cats, cat psychology, and their recent amazing growth in popularity.
Spadafori and Pion spend a considerable amount of time on the selection of a cat breed. While size and in-bred behaviors don't vary in cats as much as they do in dogs, different breeds of cats do have distinctive traits and temperaments that should be considered when deciding on a purebred animal. Physical characteristics, such as coat type, should also be considered. Some cats require a great deal more grooming than others do. The authors are frank in their discussion of the fate of poorly chosen cats who wind up in shelters because they were too much work and not right for the person who had selected them.
For readers considering a purebred cat, Spadafori and Pion provide tips and resources, including magazines, Web sites and Cat Fanciers Association breed clubs. They also give information on screening breeders to weed out the "truly evil" and the simply ignorant. They strongly encourage adoption of shelter cats, though, pointing out that many of these animals are young, healthy, and affectionate and may have been given up through no fault of their own. Adult shelter cats, Spadafori says, can be a particularly good choice, especially for an older person, since they are past their kitten craziness. Because the adoption rates for adult cats are lower than for kittens, thousands of wonderful animals who would make great pets are euthanized each year.
Spadafori recommends proceeding with caution when shopping pet stores for kittens due to the high percentage of pet store kittens that come from kitten mills where animals are bred indiscriminately and often kept in horrifying conditions. And while some pet stores offer space to sell "oops" litters, she believes the practice, while well-intentioned, sends the message that kittens are easy to place and encourages cat owners to continue allowing their pets to breed.
Once the breed or type of cat has been selected, Cat for Dummies moves on to cover aspects of cat ownership, including kitten-proofing your house, bringing home a new cat or kitten, care, feeding and grooming, and veterinary care. The chapter on medical care and common illnesses is particularly strong, spending much more time on the subject than in Dogs for Dummies, due, most likely, to the fact that the co-author is a veterinarian. This section provides important information without excruciating clinical detail that might lose the reader and is a great addition to the book.
As in Dogs for Dummies, Spadafori includes the entertaining "Part of Tens" section in which she debunks 10 common cat myths, offers 10 things the cat owner needs to do to be prepared for a disaster, suggests 10 sets of questions to ask when choosing a kitten, lists 10 household dangers to cats, and provides 10 cat-related sites on the World Wide Web. Also included is "Ten of the best things ever said about cats." This book is highly recommended for anyone who is owned by a cat or aspires to be.
From Library Journal
You know you want to share your home with a pet, but dogs require so much time and attention. Friends recommend you get a cat?a loving but much more independent creature. Sounds like a simple solution. But is your lifestyle really suited to owning (or being owned by) a cat? If it is, what kind of feline do you buy, where do you buy from, and how do you care for it properly? All this and more is covered in this work, which incorporates the excellent "Dummies" format. The authors are eminently qualified to address feline topics. Spadafori writes an award-winning newspaper column and received an award from the Dog Writers Association of America for her best-selling Dogs for Dummies (LJ 11/15/96). Pion is a renowned veterinary cardiologist and cofounder and president of the largest online veterinary information network in the United States. In 22 chapters (along with a generous supply of appendixes), the authors provide reliable information on topics from preventative healthcare and common health problems to solving behavior problems. There is even a chapter on cats in cyberspace. Sure to be often requested, this is highly recommended for even the smallest of libraries.?Edell Marie Schaefer, Brookfield P.L., Wis.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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