What to Do if You Find a Stray Pet?

So, you’ve picked up a cat or dog on the street. Congratulations, you are great! It remains to figure out what to do next.

Go to the Vet

Better to head straight to a nearby veterinary clinic. Do not treat yourself as the animal is likely to be emaciated. The wrong treatment (or dosage) in this case can be fatal for him. In the clinic, inform that the animal was picked up from the street.

It is imperative to get tested:

• scraping from the inner surface of the ear for the presence of an ear mite;
• wool for lichen (examination is carried out using a special lamp);
• for infections. They are appointed by the doctor based on the results of the examination. Most likely, these will be tests for panleukopenia, peritonitis, immunodeficiency, leukemia, caliciviruses, mycoplasmosis, chlamydia, or toxoplasmosis.

Ask your doctor if there are fleas on the animal, specify the approximate age. The latter is especially important for very small individuals. Alas, the street animal will definitely have worms, so you need to get rid of them in any case.

If you will be treating an animal for fleas, then you need to wait three days before proceeding to deworm. By this time, the test results will be ready. Thereafter, treat the animal as recommended by your doctor.

If you have other pets at home, be sure to inform your veterinarian and figure out where to place the new animal while you are taking tests and treating it.

Wash your Pet and Get Rid of Fleas

If the veterinarian is convinced that the animal does not have shingles, then it is better to wash the cat or dog. A special pet shampoo, which is sold at a veterinary store, is suitable. If this does not happen, you can dilute the baby shampoo with water in a ratio of 1: 4 and wash the animal with it, and then dry it with a towel. If the doctor finds lichen, then immediately find out how to treat it. It is easy and simple to display.

If the animal has fleas, treat it with the medication your veterinarian suggested. It can be in the form of drops, sprays, tablets, collar.

For small kittens or puppies (less than a month) and weakened individuals, medicines will not work. They must be sure to collect fleas by hand and wrap the flea collar in the litter where the animal is or pour tansy or wormwood into it. This is an old, but very effective way.

Keep in mind that fleas will leave the animal, but they need to be treated with an apartment or room. After rinsing off the product, all surfaces will be safe for mammals.

Get Vaccinated

Treat the animal for worms first. If the kitten or puppy is more than one and a half months old, buy a remedy for helminths.

Read the instructions for the preparations carefully before use!

The instructions indicate the amount of the product that must be used based on the age and weight of the animal. You should not skimp on these drugs. A poor quality product can cause irreparable harm. Some tablets must be given twice. This is also spelled out in the instructions.

If in 10-14 days after deworming (taking the last portion of the drug for worms) the animal looks healthy (eating, drinking, going to the toilet, playing), you need to go to the veterinary clinic again and get vaccinated. The doctor will tell you the specific list. They should be done no earlier than the kitten is three months old or the puppy is two months old.

Know when to get your booster shot and don’t forget about it. Buy a special passport for the animal and make sure that the doctor marks all vaccinations. It is much faster and cheaper to take care of your pet’s health in advance than to treat it later.

Remember that even a pet can get infected. Shoes, outerwear, bags can serve as carriers of infections.

Don’t Forget About Proper Nutrition

Feeding Cats up to a Month

To feed small kittens, it is ideal to find a cat that will agree to feed other people’s kittens, but this is not always realistic. You can do this yourself. The kittens are fed in an upright position so that the kitten’s head is above the body, from a pipette or a 20-cc syringe, allowing the kittens to suck independently. So they will not lose their reflex.

You need to feed every day every 2-3 hours, and without much help, kittens begin to eat about three weeks after birth. When the kitten is two weeks old, you can leave one night feed while maintaining the interval of the day feeding, and after a month, feed it during the day every 3-4 hours and once at night.

Kittens need to be provided with a temperature of at least 30 degrees. You can put them in a box, and maintain the required temperature with heating pads. Be sure to close the cardboard box if the kittens are under two weeks old.

Examine the pet, wipe the kitten with a slightly damp thick cloth. Massage the kitten’s belly and inner thighs before and after feeding to facilitate litter.

Nutrition for Cats Over a Month Old

Food that we are used to is not suitable for animals at all, so do not feed them from the table, do not mix natural food and specially produced food – this will cause illness in the pet (for example, chronic kidney disease). You need to feed with natural food prepared by you and food purchased in the store.

If you decide to feed the cat with food, then the composition is very important here – the first two ingredients should be meat with an indication of a specific type (beef, turkey, chicken). Pour the feed, focusing on the rate indicated on the package.

You can feed dry food or combine it with soft food. In this case, you need to focus on the proportions indicated in the pack. The feed must be of the same brand.

Also, it is imperative that clean water is always available. If the cat drinks little water, then you need to think about completely replacing dry food with a wet one. It is undesirable to buy food for cats without specifying the ash content. It should be no more than 6%, otherwise, such food can contribute to the development of urolithiasis due to the high content of magnesium.

The transition from one feed to another should be carried out gradually (within 7-10 days) by mixing the two feeds and increasing the percentage of the news feed. It is useful to feed cats and cats with sprouted grass, purchased or grown on their own.

It is impossible to mix artificial and natural food – these are different types of food, to each of which the animal must get used to.

You can feed your cat with natural food. The list of required products includes the following:

• Fermented milk products: kefir (1% fat, which stood open in the refrigerator for three days), cottage cheese (less than 9% fat), yogurt, unsalted hard cheese, sour cream (10% fat, diluted with warm water before serving). The products should not contain salt, pepper, sugar. Fermented milk products should be given to cats daily.
• Meat. Can be fed with beef, free of films, bones, and fat. It must be given frozen (for this, the meat is in the freezer for 2-3 days and thawed for eating) in order to avoid the appearance of parasites. It is better not to feed your pet with boiled meat because it no longer contains as many useful nutrients as raw meat.
• A fish. Lean fish fillets can be fed two or three times a week.
• By-products. The heart can be added to the diet 1-2 times a week, the liver – once a week. Everything else is chopped once a month. By-products are an optional component of the diet that is used to expand the diet.
• Bird. Lean boneless and skinless chicken is served raw to the cat. Such meat can be difficult for grafted individuals to digest, so be careful.
• Vegetables. Not red or sweet. Green lettuce leaves, zucchini, not red apples work well. Everything should be raw, finely chopped, or grated. Served with fish or meat.
• Vegetable oil. Olive oil works best. One teaspoon of oil is added to the meat.

Please note that feeding with natural food is not always possible due to diseases such as diabetes mellitus, allergies, urolithiasis.

Nutrition for Dogs up to a Month

Cow’s milk is not entirely suitable for feeding puppies. For added value, mix milk with egg. One egg is needed for 150 milliliters of milk. You can use unsweetened condensed milk. You need to add a fifth of the water to it.

The simplest and most beneficial for puppies is to use special feeding mixtures. You can cook them for two days at once, dividing them into portions and heating them to 38 degrees.

It is better to feed through a regular baby bottle but make sure that the puppy does not swallow air and suck on its own. The approximate number of calories a puppy should receive per day per kilogram of its weight is 120 in the first week, 140 in the second, 160 in the third, and 180 in the fourth.

Nutrition for Dogs over a Month Old

Choose the appropriate food option: dry food or organic food. As with cats, you cannot mix food options.

In the first place should be meat: chicken, turkey, beef. It is even better if it is present in the form of flour and without bones. Avoid the wording “By-products” – this word can hide the waste of birds: paws, claws, heads, feathers. The presence of a heart or liver in the feed is encouraged. Avoid foods that you do not understand.

With natural nutrition, several rules must be followed. It is impossible for meat and dairy products to coexist in the same feeding. Mix meat with vegetables, add vegetable oil and herbs. For puppies and adults, weakened individuals, boil the meat. Their digestive systems may be too weak to digest raw meat.

It is best to feed the dog:

• Meat. It is served raw, frozen (for this, the meat is in the freezer for 2-3 days and thawed for eating), or boiled until half cooked. The required amount of meat is 15-25 grams per 1 kilogram of the dog’s weight. A more accurate amount will be determined by your veterinarian, who will take into account various factors, such as the age and activity of the dog. The main product of the meat diet is lean beef. Do not feed your dog ground meat or pork in any form. You can feed a rabbit, horse meat, lamb, animal by-products. Poultry and offal are optional and serve to expand the diet.
• Fish. The dog can be given frozen sea fish or boiled river fish 1-2 times a week. Remember to remove all bones from the fish first.
• Dairy products. This is an important part of your dog’s nutrition. Dairy products should make up almost half of the daily diet. Cottage cheese, kefir, yogurt and yogurt are best; milk should not be given. Sometimes you can add a teaspoon of honey to dairy products.
• Vegetables. Almost all vegetables will work. They can be combined in one meal. Herbs are useful – dill, parsley, sorrel.
• Groats. They are only used if you cannot feed your dog other foods. Cereals are practically not absorbed by the body of dogs, but give a feeling of satiety. You can cook them both in meat and vegetable broth. Use bones to cook the broth. Add raw meat later. Use rice, buckwheat, sometimes peas (half of the usual amount of cereals), barley, oatmeal. Cereals can be mixed with each other.

The dog must have enough clean water in a bowl.

Do not allow adult dogs to gnaw bones, they grind their teeth on them. In addition, if the bone crumbles and the dog eats the pieces, stomach damage is possible. Better buy your pet a bone at a pet store. They are safe for the animal and not harmful to the teeth.

Keep Your Pet Safe

Protect your animal. Do not let cats outside in the city, it is too dangerous for them there: diseases, contaminated or poisoned food, cars, dogs, cruel people.

The dog must be walked on a leash and muzzled. A muzzle is needed not only to protect passers-by from the dog but also to protect it from accidentally eating poisoned or contaminated food on the street.

For a puppy up to two months old, it is enough to walk for an hour a day, however, during training it to the toilet, the number of walks can reach four, then decrease to two a day. An adult dog needs at least an hour a day to walk.

Teaching the commands to your dog will make it much easier for you to walk.

The Main Thing is Love and Patience

Monitor the health of the animal. If it seems to you that your pet is sick, behaves strangely and sluggishly, do not be too lazy to take him to the vet as soon as possible. At the veterinary clinic, tell the doctor that you have arrived for the annual medical examination, they will tell you the minimum set of tests. In this simple way, you can extend the life of your pet.

Give your pet time. An animal needs love and patience. If you give them, he will love you in return.

Whether you want to teach him how to bring you slippers or it is enough that he happily welcomes you on the doorstep, in any case, he needs attention and time for training. Give him a tasty treat if he obeys commands and behaves obediently.