Dixie Meows

One of the great joys of having a pet is the laughter that they bring to us.  Whether we are laughing at them or with them they never hold a grudge.  It seems they are almost always trying to entertain us.  What pet owner doesn’t have a picture of their beloved friend in some crazy situation or pose, stuck on their refrigerator door?  And what better way to save those precious moments than with a great photo?

I photograph pets professionally, intentionally trying to create humorous images…but often it is the in-between moments that end up with those priceless expressions. Those un-expected antics…that bring an involuntary smile to me and have me showing everyone around the back of my camera saying “Hey!  Check this one out…what a crack-up!”. Read more…

There are some nasty smells in the world and topping the list would have to be cat urine odor. Really I don’t think there’s much worse than visiting a friend and not being able to enter their house for the foul smell of cat urine, the odor meets you at the door and hits you hard. The stench is in the carpet, the furniture, it’s in the curtains, and it’s up your nose. Someone should really tell this person how to remove cat urine odor.

Cats are creatures of habit. When they find a place to urinate they will return to that same place and continue to urinate there – the fact that it may be your carpet, furniture or curtains really has no relevance to your cat at all. Once your cat finds a place to urinate it is drawn by the smell of its own urine back to that same spot time and again. Cats like the smell of their own urine, they have marked their territory and they’re happy with that.

To stop your cat urinating in the same place you need to remove the smell of cat urine completely, not mask or hide the smell, as it will just come back and so will your cat. It really is simple once you know how and which products to use and more importantly which products not to use. You may think you need a professional remedy for cat urine – but you don’t! You don’t need a cupboard full of cat urine cleaners either. You just need a tried and tested cat urine cleaner

So let’s learn how to get rid of the smell of cat urine.

First We Should Understand the Problem…

• Cats are not big drinkers so the urine is concentrated and very potent and gives the strong cat urine odor.

• Cat urine is made up of several different bacteria strains.

• Urea and Urochrome cause the stains, which can sometimes be invisible.

• Uric acid salts cause the odor by bonding to surfaces.

• Cat urine dries on the carpet and the uric acid forms crystals in the underlay padding. The Crystals are the source of that strong ammonia smelling odor and are also the reason puss returns to that “special place”.

• Cat urine crystals are the hardest part to remove.

• Most household cat urine removers contain ammonia so they are going to make the problem worse not better, your cat will be even more attracted to that same spot to urinate as puss thinks it smells wonderful.

• We need to use a cleaner that will break down the crystals so we can get rid of the cat urine odor.

• Water only spreads the stain and will reactivate the uric acid crystals, reviving old stains and smells.

• Normal cleaners, if they don’t soak the area with ammonia, will mask the odor of cat urine for a short time, but it always returns and so will your cat!

• We need to remove both the stain AND the odor.

How to Clean Cat Urine…

• Soak up the excess cat urine from the area as soon as possible.

• Use a dry cloth or paper towel (I like to use old towels as they are absorbent by nature) – do not wet the area or the urine will spread.

• Blot the area – don’t scrub the carpet – it’s kind of like when you get an ink stain on your clothes, and you scrub it. Does the ink come out or does it spread? Cat urine works the same way in your carpet as the ink. (By the way to get ink out, don’t wet the area or it will set the ink – instead soak it in a bowl of milk – yes I said MILK – and then scrub from the outside of the stain in towards the center, a nail brush is good for this! I just thought I would throw in that tip for you – it comes in very handy when you have kids.)

• Hold the cloth or paper towel over the spot for a while – I find standing on an old towel will absorb a good amount of the cat’s urine quite well.

• Let your cleaning solution soak into the area, again use a dry towel, put it over the urine stain and put some weight on the towel. Put something heavy over the towel and leave it overnight.

• The main objective here is to be eliminating cat urine stains permanently so your cat won’t be tempted back to this spot again.

• You really need to keep your cat away from this area until all trace of the urine odor has gone.

• If your cat keeps going back place some foil over the patch until the smell of the urine has gone.

• You may need to repeat this process until all trace of the urine odor and stains have gone.

What not to use. These are not effective Cat Urine Cleaners…

• Ammonia Might – remove the stains, but it smells too much like cat urine so puss will just keep coming back to the same spot to urinate again and again.

• Water -If used by itself can spread the urine and makes the problem area so much bigger

• Citrus based products – Only masks the smell – doesn’t get rid of it permanently

• Liquid soap – Just doesn’t work – at all

• Bleach – Which smells worse – bleach or cat urine – I think it’s a draw! Plus bleach tends to fade carpet, furniture and curtains

• Carpet shampooing – Only cleans the surface, wont soak down into the underlay padding where the urine crystals are

• Hydrogen peroxide – Only removes the urine odor temporarily – the smell soon returns

• Oxygenated products – Only works on the surface, doesn’t remove the smell from deep down and can cause fading or discoloration in your carpet, furniture and curtains

What to use. How to Choose a Cat Urine Remover…

There are many cat urine cleaners on the market. You’ve probably tried some of them while trying to find how to clean cat urine, and possibly found they don’t work. Why?

The bacterium in cat urine can be very hard to kill, and until you kill the bacterium you won’t be removing an odor. You need an enzymes to remove cat urine. Get rid of the bacteria and you’re one step closer to getting rid of cat urine smell.

There is no big secret on how to select a cat urine remover. You need natural cat urine cleaners. Using a combination of products found in your home. Once you use an all natural cat urine remover, you’ll wonder why didn’t try it sooner.

There’s a beautiful legend which tells that the Persian cat was created by a wizard from a sparkle, which jumped out of the fire, the shimmer of two far away stars and a curl of grey smoke. I’d say that this legend rather closely describes appearance and temperament of the Persian cat, but the real history of persian cat breed is not less interesting or less mysterious.

So how does such mutation as long hair appear in a domestic cat? None of its wild counterparts has long hair gene. Well, if only lynx and snow leopard have a slightly longer coat due to the environmental conditions of their habitat.

It’s rather difficult now to investigate the origins of the long-haired cats, but most probably they are rooted in Persia, which is now called Iran. That’s from where Pietro della Valle brought several long-haired cat beauties to Italy in 1620. And a few years later the scholar and naturalist Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc brought long-haired cats form Angora (now Ankara in Turkey) to France. When the first long-haired cats appeared in England (which is now called ‘the second motherland of the Persian cats) they were called ‘French cats’.

It’s not exactly known whether those were the cats of one and the same breed. Nowadays it is the recognized fact that there existed several breeds of long-haired cats in the East. Angora cats were described as fluffy, light and active animals of a medium size, while well-known Alfred Edmund Brehm described long-haired Angora cats as big-sized and clumsy cats. He as well noted that grey and blue Angora cats were observed in the South of Siberia.

It’s not easy to answer the question why the animal from hot Asian counties has got long hair, while Mother Nature usually gifted long-hair to animals from severe Northern countries.

There are several versions regarding the long-haired cats origin. Some believe that among the ancestors of the Persian cat breed there were long-haired cats form Siberia which at first got into East and Small Asia, and only then were brought to Western Europe.

Others believe that long hair was a mutation which happened to a short-haired cat in the East, which then was kept in the process of domestication and some sort of selection – thus the cats which got into Europe and Siberia were aborigineous to Eastern countries.

The third theory roots in the phenotypic differences between the Persian cats and other domestic cats. This theory suggests that massive stocky with the ears set wide, big round head are related to Pallas’ Cat ( Felis manul ) otherwise known as Manul – wild cat which lives in Central Asia and has comparatively long hair, flat face with round eyes and ears set low on the head. Recent research however refutes this theory.

Such are the different Persian cat origin theories but anyway, all of them are pointing to Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan as the Persian cat native lands.

England is rightfully called the second Motherland of the Persian cats, as it were British cat fanciers who started to purposefully breed cat breeds (and primarily – Persian cat breed) in the 19th century. Although that was the time when the long-haired cats started being differentiated into Turkish Angora (long flexible body, silky but less thick coat, big pointed ears) and Persian cats (massive, with big round head and small ears), as a matter of fact only blue cats of the latter were called Persian, and all the rest were simply called ‘long-haired’ cats. Every of about 50 colors of long-haired cats was considered to be a separate breed. Till nowadays the Persian cat in England is not in fact called ‘Persian’ but rather ‘long-haired’, and every color variation is attributed to a separate cat breed. Also the official ruling of the British cat fanciers club regarding this issue was issued as early as 1910, the Englishmen still follow this kind of breed distinction.

The Persian cats arrived into America in the eighties of the 19th century and soon became a very popular cat breed. Unlike British clubs, in America all the color variations of the long-haired cats were attributed to one cat breed – “the Persian cat”. There are lots of color variations for Persian cats but Persian show cats are limited to the following colors: solid color, shaded and smoke, tabby, particolor, bicolor.

For today we know about 150 variations of the persian cat breed and contemporary persian cat, due to the efforts of many breeders, is a work of art among the other cat breeds. New age Persian cats are quite different form their ancestors. The Persian cats of the ‘old type’ had a narrower face, the color variations were not so rich and the coat was not so thick and delightful. Contemporary Persian cat might have its coat as long as 10 centimeters. One could say that the contemporary persian cat is the result of selective breeding by cat breeders from different countries. Probably due to that fact there are several Persian breed standards and some of the traits are still not agreed upon.

For one, starting form the middle of the 20th century, American cat breeders’s efforts were aimed at reinforcing traits peculiar to Persian breed – they were trying to breed a cat with even more massive, short body, even more round head and flat muzzle. As a result a new variation – Extreme Persian (or Peeked Faced Persian) – emerged. The first kittens of that type were born to red and red tabby persians in 1920-s. Although veterinarians believe that extreme manifestation of such traits is harmful to the animals health (specifically affecting their sinuses and breathing), and the despite the fact that British cat fanciers stand against such breeding, extreme persians are extremely popular in America and many European countries.

Contemporary persian cat became progenitor to a new breed – Exotic cat – a short-haired cat breed which has all the traits specific for the Persian cat breed with the exception of the coat length. Exotic cat is a hybrid with adorable temperament and excellent physical condition. The breed was created by American cat breeders in 1960-s. FIFe (Federation Internationale Feline) recognized the Exotic cat breed in 1984. Short (though longer than with other short-haired cat breeds) but awesome sparkly coat of the Exotic cat does not cause any problems with grooming.