Whether times are good or bad, budgeting for your cat is prudent. A good budget includes vet visits as well as food costs. This article will show you how to minimize vet visits and increase your cats' overall health. Buying pre-packaged cat food is the worst thing you can do for your cats overall health, and your budget.Prevention is KeyPrevention is the key to a long, and happy relationship with your cat. It is ONLY through prevention that you will be able to greatly reduce the potential of life threatening illnesses. Most chronic disease takes a long time to develop to a point where your cat begins to show signs of illness. When it does, vet bills can overwhelm the family budget. Sadly, and solely through lack of knowledge, many cat owners put their companion down because they could not afford the vet bills associated with a disease.Are Annual Exams Necessary?By the time the signs of a chronic illness are visible to your vet, you can through your budget out the window. The early stages of a chronic illness, develop out of view, deep within the gastrointestinal and immune systems are easily missed even by expensive tests. The best method is to keep an eye on your cat for changes in energy, or behavior. However, be aware that cats are experts at hiding pain and illness as a defense mechanism.When budgeting for a vet visit, be aware that the actual cost includes hidden expenses like; time away from work (door to door averages 4 hours), and travel costs. Even if you are fortunate and get a clean bill of health, you are looking at $50-100 just for the visit, plus all those hidden expenses.Better Health through NutritionThe old adage you are what you eat is five times more applicable to your cat. Why? Because cats age five times faster than we do! Chronic illness and disease seem to come on suddenly, when in fact they develop slowly, below the surface.Thanks to the pet-food recall of 2007, pre-packaged pet foods became front page news. While hundreds of pets died and countless thousands suffered long-term, this was actually a good thing. While prepackaged cat foods today are considered safe, they are the equivalent of eating fast foods for every meal.Super Size Me is an eye-opening documentary about a film maker who eats nothing but McDonalds food for 30 days straight. Prior to starting, he had a battery of tests by physicians, who also monitored him throughout. A mere two-weeks into the experiment his doctors urged him to stop, as his overall health deteriorated rapidly. This is exactly the same diet that the overwhelming majority of owners feed their cats daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. The connection between food and health can be ignored, but it cannot be denied!By far, the best way to stretch the time between annual exams, and to minimize the risk of your cat getting a serious disease is to improve their diet!Health, restoring or maintaining it, is based on eating quality food and taking three targeted supplements. The most effective diet for your cat includes human grade meats, fowl and fish, combined with daily supplements like; soil-based probiotic supplements, and high performance oils, or vital pet lipids, which are essential to maintain every aspect of your cats health- joint, skin, digestive system, immune system and all internal organs.When transitioning, you can avoid, or minimize GI upset by mixing the old cat food with the new in a 50/50 ratio for a week, then making the full switch to lightly cooked meats; then, after one month, transition the same way to a raw meat diet, again with daily supplements.The Bottom LineCat health care on a budget is possible once you realize that you cannot do it by cutting corners on food or supplements! Lets do the math: The actual cost of 3 vet visits a year (including annual check up) is hundreds-of-times more expensive than the difference in cost between pre-packaged cat food (which should only be fed in times of emergency) and better food combined with a high performance supplement program.Spending more upfront, for better cat food and proper supplements, will not just minimize your vet bills; doing so will reward you with a happy and healthy cat that will live 5-7 years longer than if you dont!
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