How to tell if a cat is pregnant
Posted November 04, 2019 11:19:08It’s no secret that cat owners have a hard time getting pregnant, and it’s certainly not a healthy choice.
But can a cat really tell whether it’s pregnant?
Dr. Stephanie Loughlin, a veterinarian and animal behaviorist from the University of California, San Francisco, and author of The Cat’s Best Friend, believes the answer is yes.
“There is no single test that can tell whether a cat has been pregnant,” she said.
“The only thing that can determine if a woman has been having a baby is whether she has an ultrasound or ultrasound image of her cat’s abdomen.”
The biggest risk is not the pregnancy itself, but rather the cat’s environment.
Loughlynns research found that cats living in households where the cat is kept in a separate room from other cats in a home also tend to be more likely to have a catgy-style episode.
“In other words, a cat who is housed in a cage with other cats, such as other dogs, or with other people’s cats, is more likely than a cat living in a kennel with other animals to have an episode of anorexia,” Loughlins research found.
“And this is especially true when the cat lives with a person who is overweight, and that person is also more likely if they are obese to develop anorexia.
So in other words if you have a large house with a large number of cats, that’s a big risk.”
Loughlin says that a cat that has been stressed or abandoned can also become pregnant, even if it has a normal pregnancy test.
If a cat exhibits these behaviors, she advises that a vet or an animal behavior specialist should be consulted.
Loughlynn also recommends that cats be given a good social cue before having a pregnancy test done, such like a food bowl or a tray of food to feed the cat.
“I do think that if a vet is familiar with how to handle and administer a pregnancy testing kit, they should be able to administer that,” she added.
“So if a pet owner is feeling very anxious, they can say to the vet, ‘You know, I feel really anxious, so I think I need to go in and get this tested.'”
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