Well, that's the funny thing. They might seem healthy on the outside. When a veterinarian starts to examine them, however, and really gets out the otoscope and an ophthalmoscope and looks in the eye all the way back to the retina, and down the ears, opens up your cat's mouth, looks for dental tartar, dental disease, feels all the lymph nodes, puts on a stethoscope and listens for heart murmurs and arrhythmias, weighs your cat, you could be surprised that we could find and uncover some things that you didn't know just by looking at your cat.

Yes. Good question. When a cat is a kitten, there are going to be a series of developmental exams—usually starting at eight weeks, then 12 weeks, then 16 weeks. They often correspond with vaccines that need to be done at that time. Then as they grow into adults, we'll see them every single year. Sometimes when they're a senior, we may be following some blood work or some problem, and they might need that to be more frequent than once a year.

We recommend that adult cats have a wellness exam at least once every year. When they're older and they're senior cats, and maybe we're following a particular issue, they might need more than one examination or checkup in a year. But as a minimum, cats should get wellness exams once per year.

Medications that are safe to give to your cat are ones we give them after a full history, physical exam, assessment, and perhaps even some diagnostics. Medications that your veterinarian prescribes are the best ones to consider.

So this actually hasn't been studied all that extensively. There may be some genetic predisposition for certain cat breeds, but it's not really well-known.