Our interviewee, veterinarian Mirjana Dubovečak, owner of the "VetArt" veterinary clinic in Rumenka, is one of the few in Serbia who has largely reoriented her practice toward treating cats, although she treats dogs too. In her words, cats aren't small dogs, and that's why she believes they can't be treated as one.
Understanding "Cats Aren't Small Dogs"
Specifically, that means you can't weigh a cat that, say, weighs 3.5 kilograms and then give it a dose the same way you'd dose a dog. So cats aren't small dogs – they're cats, very specific animals with very different diseases compared to dogs, and very different treatments. Honestly, I'm sometimes shocked at how many colleagues use medications to treat cats that generally shouldn't be used, since it's been proven that cats have serious reactions to certain drugs. That's called felinomania – explains our interviewee.1
Dr. Mirjana explains that if a cat is given a medication it shouldn't be given, it goes into a seizure with a lot of drooling. That's a form of poisoning of the organism, essentially caused by the medication itself, i.e. iatrogenic poisoning. Such a state can be fatal for the cat.
That's something we're constantly fighting in our clinic – generally very few vets are even interested in working with cats, because they're a bit more demanding. Cats simply aren't as cooperative as dogs, and they're much harder to examine. For example, we see all sorts of dogs – aggressive, scared, restless, but also calm ones. A cat, however, is first observed while still in its carrier, and that's actually where you can see what kind of mood it's in. So when a cat comes in for an exam, I have to close all the doors and windows, because it's happened that the moment I open the carrier, the cat launches itself out and knocks everything over in the clinic. Then my colleagues and I sometimes need up to 45 minutes just to catch it – says Dr. Mirjana.
That's why she believes vets in general aren't keen on working with cats, since diagnostics are also harder to perform. According to her, nobody likes drawing blood from cats, since that's always a struggle too, which is why at least two people always have to hold a cat.
In my long career, I've maybe had five scared cats that were calm and that I could do whatever I needed to with, and they were easy to examine. But every other feline patient has, sooner or later during the exam, shown some kind of aggression. So there's no point even starting a cat exam without two people. In our clinic we have a really interesting moment – when they bring us cats that need a cardiovascular exam. Because the cat, as if out of spite, starts purring the moment we put the stethoscope on it. If the cat purrs, we won't be able to get its heartbeat, and I can't hear its breathing well either, which definitely makes the exam harder. Actually, that's a kind of defense mechanism of hers, and that's why it's not true that a cat only purrs out of pleasure – explains our interviewee.
So, Dr. Mirjana emphasizes that cats don't purr only when they're content. As she points out, that's just a popular belief. But cats also purr when something hurts and when they're very sick. So it's not a sign of contentment, it's a kind of communication.
People simply don't know this, yet they have cats as pets. Cats don't purr only out of pleasure – they also purr when they're very scared, but also when they're in pain, and even when they're in a very poor state. Purring is actually a kind of communication that we humans, unfortunately, don't understand. I'd love to be Doctor Dolittle, but I'm not. On the other hand, we don't have these problems with dogs – it's enough to close its mouth and listen to its heart and lungs. That's a basic exam I'm talking about, and that's very hard to do with cats – our interviewee reveals.
She's also had cases where cat owners notice their cat purring a bit more, but instead of attributing it to illness, they think their pet is simply enjoying itself. That's why she warns that owners shouldn't stay relaxed about it and should instead take the cat to a vet.
- That's also where the biggest communication problem with owners arises, because they bring in their cats much later than dog owners bring in their dogs. The reason is that when a cat is sick, it tends to hide around the house and sometimes refuses food, but the owner doesn't react to it, because cats are extremely picky eaters, so owners simply say, well, she's just not having a good day today. She won't eat, she's hiding, or today's just her day to lie in the window and sunbathe. She's purring, and that's cool. That's not true – it's a sign the cat is most likely sick. That's why most of the cats we see come in quite a bit later. In other words, they don't come with the first symptoms, but considerably later. That's the difference between veterinary care for dogs and for cats – says Dr. Mirjana.
On the other hand, dog owners panic immediately if their dog doesn't finish an entire meal, and they call the vet right away. With cats it's a bit different again – they're specific animals, so the owner may not even realize in time what's going on. That's unfortunately why mortality tends to be higher in cats than in dogs.