Owners always ask me, "Dr. Hill, do I have to brush my cat's teeth?" And I tell them unless you're brushing them twice a day every day like you and I generally do it, brushing isn't super effective when you only do it here and there. So, what I like to do is offer them either cat dental treats in the form of the Feline Greenies, Virbac C.E.T. IntelliDent treats that we carry, or by offering a water additive like this Vetradent water additive to help manage their teeth at home. Those are easier things than brushing your cat's teeth, and you can provide those every day to help manage their dental care at home.

The biggest one is many people want to feed their cats raw diets, and I don't recommend it, mainly because we can have severe bacterial contamination with things like E.coli, salmonella, and listeria that can make both you and your cat sick. Dry or canned foods provide an adequate amount of nutrition, and cats tend to love them, so I generally advise you to avoid raw food diets.

It depends on your cat. If you've got a chowhound of a cat who's always at the food bowl if there's food in it, then yes, free-feeding could lead to an overweight cat. Some cats are a bit better at regulating themselves so that you can leave food out, and they'll eat when they're hungry, and they won't eat when they’re not, and they maintain their weight pretty well that way. You just need to figure out what cat you have.

It definitely can, so I don't recommend feeding a lot of human food to cats and anything you do give them, do so in moderation. Cats can have a pretty sensitive system. And especially with the overweight cats, we can push these guys into diabetes or some other conditions when we get them overweight. So I would try to avoid giving cats human food if you can.

No, it doesn't necessarily mean that the cat is missing anything in their diet. Cats are natural hunters, and some like to do it more than others. Whether they eat what they hunt or not is purely up to the cat, but it doesn't mean that there's a lack of nutrition in the diet.

We make the recommendation for prescription diets when there is a need for them, whether your cat's prone to urinary tract infections or they have some renal or liver disease. Maybe they’ve got some skin issues or a sensitive GI tract. There are general cat foods over the counter that you can get out there that are great, but I like the prescription diets when we're trying to manage something specific.

Nope, it's not more nutritious. Sometimes we recommend it for different reasons, like adding some water or moisture to the diet, but it can develop more plaque and tartar on their teeth faster than dry food. So I like to recommend at least a combination of both, if not just straight dry food.

We don’t recommend that your cat lives solely on a vegetarian diet. Compared to dogs, cats are the more carnivorous species of the two, whereas dogs still need protein. These guys need it a bit more strongly, so I wouldn't recommend a vegetarian or vegan diet for cats.

A good physical exam. Again, if you had an ear infection, it would be painful. We also know that if a dog has an ear infection or an eye infection, those would be signs of pain. We’re trained to determine the causes of pain or to determine if your pet is in pain. And it’s our job to alleviate pain and suffering, so we take a good history. For example, if you tell us every time the dog walks, like halfway into their walk, they can hardly use their back leg, but when they first start, they're fine—this helps us determine the source of pain. Along with getting the dog’s history, we may take x-rays. We're going to do a physical exam and get to the root of the problem.