Neal: Today, we're going to talk about kitty cats. We don't talk enough about kitty cats. Kitty cats are awesome. More people need to respect the kitty. A couple of things, number one, we're going to start up here. Kitty cats are-- Way over here. Way over there. I'm a terrible cameraman. Kitty cats are obligate carnivores. What does that mean? They have no ability at all to digest anything except for meat, fat, bone, and organ. They don't have the ability to digest cellulose, carbohydrate, anything else. They are obligate carnivores. Anything else that we put into them other than meat, fat, bone, and organ, it has to be predigested for them.

Essentially, it's just poop which is-- And a carrier for the spread on nutrition pack and fat for energy that they do require to survive, so do not feed your cat an inappropriate diet. It does shorten their life. It is that simple. It is really basic. Dry foods are never okay for cats. We can use them in tiny amounts as treats, but we should never use a dry food as their primary source of nutrition. That is inappropriate.

The fact that kitty cats at 12 years old often end up with chronic kidney disease points to the fact that dry food should never be given to cats, so please do not feed your cat a dry food diet. If you are doing so today, please consider moving to a healthy or a decent canned food product. Canned foods are way better, are substantially better for kitty cats. Often, people tell me their kitty cats are picky, picky, picky, picky, picky. Then I try to ask them about some of the things about their household and how they feed their kitty.

One of the things people often do is feed their kitties in a bowl. Well, the bowl is deep enough often that the cat, every time they put their whiskers and face into that bowl, that sensory organ that is those whiskers gets stimulated. What you'll often see for kitty cats who are eating in an inappropriate bowl that is over-stimulating their whiskers is they'll eat everything in the middle of that bowl and leave all the food around the edge of the bowl, and that's because they can't get into that edge without over stimulating those whiskers, those sensory organs.

What we use is we use a shallow-- This is a Jackson Galaxy bowl. I do recommend you check out Jackson. He does great work and offers fantastic advice around kitties. A really shallow metal bowl that's easily dishwasher safe, that does not over stimulate the sensory organ, that is their whiskers. A saucer, things like that, are far better options for kitty cats to eat out of.

The other thing is put the water bowl in a separate room than their food bowls because cats are smart unlike dogs in that the water and the meat shouldn't really touch and so cats want the water in a separate room than they want their food and probably in two places. They would prefer that we use a waterfall, a small waterfall. They prefer falling water because they are inefficient drinkers of still water. That's why you'll often see kitty cats go to a leaking tap or a running toilet because they're looking for moving water. They do not drink efficiently out of still water.

You can get cat fountains but you have to be careful to keep that cat fountain clean. I know that The Two Crazy Cat Ladies who I follow on YouTube gave a great video on how to clean a kitty cat fountain recently, so do go to their YouTube channel and check that out. Now, the other thing that cats often don't get the opportunity to do is to clean their teeth.

Cats are notorious for having terrible teeth and there is no reason for that other than we're not feeding them correctly. Kibble does not clean teeth. If Kibble cleaned teeth, I would eat a biscotti every morning to brush my teeth, but biscotti does not clean teeth. Crunchy Kibble can never clean the teeth of your cat or your dog. What do we use? We use things that are appropriate for them to chew through, to masticate through, to clean-- Hi, gorgeous. That's a little puppy dog. We use things that-- These wing tips will often help a cat learn how to chew.

Of course, I'm doing a video so we end up with a dozen people in the store. I'm going to stop this and start it up again in a second. I think we were talking about toothbrushes and kitty cats and them having to maintain their teeth appropriately. We were saying water needs to be in at least two other rooms of the house as the food and it should be falling water, and make sure to keep the waterfall clean, and The Two Crazy Cat Ladies have a great video on keeping those waterfalls clean.

Cats often don't know how to chew. They often have to learn how to chew by watching other cats, so we use these wing tips. They're just chicken wing tips and we use those as introductions to chewing for kitty cats. What we do is we put those by their plate or by their bowl every day, one or two of them until they start eating them. Once they start eating those-- They're fantastic ways to get them to figure out how to chew those wings up, and once they're chewing those, then we can move up in size to things that actually really help with that chewing.

We can use things like turkey hearts. These are the Buddies turkey hearts. These are individually frozen turkey hearts, and these are fantastic because they're really tough muscle meat high or rich in taurine and L-carnitine and which are required amino acids for the kitty because they are obligate carnivores. Those are a tooth floss. As they chew through that tough heart muscle, they're brushing, they're flossing their teeth, they're pulling and they're yanking and they're chewing, chewing, chewing, and that helps floss those teeth.

Then we use things like these small chicken necks. These ones are Red Dog Blue Kat. They're just tiny little chicken necks. These are the Buddies tiny little kitty or small dog chicken necks. We use those as actual toothbrushes. As they masticate through those tiny hollow bones and all the tendon around those bones to hold up that neck, those are flossing and brushing those teeth. That is really necessary for a healthy mouth in a kitty cat.

The more you can get them to chew things like whole quail-- You put one of these whole quail on a bowl, on a plate, or a saucer for your kitty, even half a one especially in a special time like Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter, it's awesome. They get their own little turkey. It's very cool, actually. You now have your cat-- They make noises. They're like [growls] as they chew up that carcass. It's just awesome. You get to see that little tiger come out of your kitty cat and you're helping them maintain their mouth.

A healthy mouth, a healthy carnivore, almost always. If you look in the mouth of any sick dog or sick cat, you'll find a sick mouth almost always, so the foundation of health is keeping their gut healthy and keeping their mouth healthy. Letting them chew is important, and not enough people do that with kitty cats. One of the other things, people get caught up and say, "All my cat wants to eat is chicken," or, "all my cat wants to eat is beef," or, "all my cat--" It's just not true.

If you think about how a cat feeds itself, he would eat a dragonfly, a frog, and a mouse all in one afternoon. Why is it that when you feed them they only want one thing? Do you think maybe they're trying to please you? The more variety we can offer our kitties the better. Here we go. We've got rabbit, we've got turkey, we've got pork, we've got beef, we've got kangaroo, we've got venison, we've got wild boar, we've got salmon, we've got quail, we've got-- On and on and on.

The more variety you can get into that diet, the healthier the animal. Variety, variety, variety, variety, variety. I get that a cat has to eat every day, and they do. They have to eat every day. They're not like a dog. You can't starve him into submission, so don't hesitate to have the old standbys that they need, that they want.

I also always include a little canned in my cat food so that when Aunty Fay is caring for my kitty cat she can just use the can because it's easier for her. I find the raw really easy but some people just don't understand it, they don't-- Barely thawing can be challenging for some people. One of the other thing is kitty cats-- If you have two cats, you need three litter boxes. If you have one cat, you need two litter boxes. If you have four cats, you need five littler boxes.

Always have one more litter box than you have cats. Also, make the litter boxes as big as you possibly can. The little ones that they sell in the store make no sense to me. Buy a big laundry detergent-- One of those dishwashing tubs and you make that as a litter box. That's a safer, healthier better litter box than the small little ones. If he's pooping outside the litter box it's because something's not right with the litter box and often that's the size is the problem. We don't sell littler boxes because most of them aren't any good. Go and buy just a laundry tub, the plastic tub that your mom used to have kicking around that you would have beside the sink. I'm dating myself clearly.

I'm just saying, get as big and always have one more litter box than your kitty cats, so two cats, three litter boxes. You'll have a better time, you'll have them pooping out of the litter box less often. The less stress they have around that kind of stuff, the healthier the kitty. I think I've talked enough about kitty cats, I hope. Feline-nutrition.org, Two Crazy Cat Ladies, Jackson Galaxy, look them all up. They all have great resources for all you cat lovers. Thank you, bye.