What makes a cat? ‘Cat’ is one of the first one hundred words children learn. Cats are familiar as pets, numbering some 60 million in the US, and five times that many in the world. Cat domestication is young compared to dogs and barnyard animals, less than 6000 years old. Descended from the African wildcat Felis sylvestris, house cats are first a companion animal, but they were initially bred a...

Personality has been researched in many companion animals and is described as differences behavioural traits of individuals that often remain consistent over time. In domestic cats factors have discovered to influence personality, including breed, coat colour, gender, rearing experience, number within a household, owner age, gender personality. However, research limited for certain factors, dem...

To determine the genetic regulation of "hair length" in the domestic cat, a whole-genome scan was performed in a multigenerational pedigree in which the "long-haired" phenotype was segregating. The 2 markers that demonstrated the greatest linkage to the long-haired trait (log of the odds > or = 6) flanked an estimated 10-Mb region on cat chromosome B1 containing the Fibroblast Growth Factor 5 (...

The role played by wildlife in the perpetuation of rabies is discussed in the light of information obtained during a routine examination of specimens at the Veterinary Research Institute, Onderstepoort, during the 10-year period, 1967-1976. In the course of the investigation, 9 additional hosts of rabies were confirmed and 4 rabies areas identified. The chief disseminators in 2 of these areas w...

cattle (2,8). Taken together, the prevalence of EHEC serotype O145:H– in cats, humans, and cattle might indicate that the girl was probably more likely the infection source for the cat than vice versa. Third, a cycle of mutual infection and reinfection between the girl and her pet cat cannot be ruled out. Although the excretion rate for EHEC changes over time and EHEC can therefore remain undet...

Mammalian coat patterns (e.g., spots, stripes) are hypothesized to play important roles in camouflage and other relevant processes, yet the genetic and developmental bases for these phenotypes are completely unknown. The domestic cat, with its diversity of coat patterns, is an excellent model organism to investigate these phenomena. We have established three independent pedigrees to map the fou...

BACKGROUND Nonimmune-mediated glomerulonephropathies are rarely reported in domestic animals with the exception of amyloidosis. Here we describe the pathological features and clinical course of a feline with protein-losing nonimmune-mediated glomerulonephropathy characterized by segmental glomerulosclerosis and severe podocyte injury. CASE PRESENTATION A castrated male Japanese domestic cat a...

This study was intended to investigate some aspects of the morphometric characteristics of the neurocranium in domestic cat (Felis catus) of Bangladesh. Twenty adult domestic cat including 10 males and 10 female were euthanized using diazepam (@ 20 mg/kg) and their skulls were macerated to give morphometric parameters. Student t-test with level of significance set at 5% (p < 0.05) was used to a...

The /3 chain amino terminus of one or more hemoglobins in the blood of members of the Felidae family is substituted with an acetyl group. Such acetylated hemoglobins occur together with nonacetylated components in variable proportions in blood of d8erent members of the family. In the lion, tiger, and snow leopard, the acetylated component comprises about 90% of the total hemoglobin; in the serv...