Purr-fecting Cat Care

Dogs will come when they’re called, the saying goes, but cats will take a message and get back to you.

But that doesn’t mean cat owners care any less about their pets. And with the percentage of cat-owning households growing, the College of Veterinary Medicine is responding with a new Feline Health Center that includes plans to help veterinarians create clinics that are less dog-centric.

“It’s an umbrella to bring together people who are excited about cats — people doing research on cats, doing clinical work on cats — so we can share our knowledge,” says Dr. Margaret Gruen ’08 MS, ’16 PHD, associate professor of behavioral medicine, who leads the center along with Dr. Alex Lynch, associate professor of internal medicine and emergency medical care.

Gruen says there is growing recognition that cat owners are as loyal as dog owners. “People are increasingly treating cats as part of their families,” she says, yet many small-animal clinics are not well set up for cats.

The center is designed to make NC State’s Veterinary Hospital more cat-friendly and help practitioners learn to do the same. That can mean minimizing the number of people who handle the cat and making sure the cat can get its footing on the exam table. “Something as simple as making sure the scale is in the exam room so the cat doesn’t have to be taken out of the room to get weighed can help,” Gruen says. Cats also do better if they don’t see other cats — or dogs — in the waiting room.

Because dogs travel more easily and tolerate exams better, veterinary students don’t get a lot of clinical experience with cats, Gruen says. As for Gruen, she doesn’t play favorites — she’s the proud owner of an all-black cat named Nox, and Lucy, whom she describes as a “Carolina brown dog.” The two get along fine.