animals – sofiapenabaz

January 5, 2023January 10, 2023

Cats

So, I read a lot of academic medical papers, especially regarding nutrition. It seems we’re always learning more about how the human body works. But, I realized today that I also read a lot of papers about cats. This is because I have two of them and they’re elderly with problems. I figured that since I read so much, it might be beneficial to other people to write about what I learned sometimes. So I thought I’d share what I’m learning about now.

Currently one of my cats, Bina, has a problem with possible pancreatitis. Up until a few days ago, she had been losing weight and she looked really bad. Her fur was getting scruffy and she was listless and vomiting almost every meal. She was scratching her neck and had some sort of rash that would get worse with the low-fat diet food I was giving her.

I haven’t taken her in for her ultrasound yet, but after a visit the the vet with a blood test her lipase levels were really high. I started searching around on the web for papers referencing what to do in cases of irritable bowel disease, pancreatitis, feline regurgitation, and high levels of lipase. I found quite a bit of stuff. The most shocking was that almost everywhere I looked, it said that many vets say not to give cats in this kind of situation fats, but that although this applies to humans and other animals, it doesn’t apply to cats. Their internal organs work differently… Thus, sometimes there are anomalies. And in this case, almost all of the places said that you can give cats fats even if they have high levels of serum lipase. Even though that was the only recommendation by the vet. No fats, and to limit her to kibbles.

Now, a lot of other places said that you’re lucky if you can get your cat to eat at this point. Also, cats should be on a liquid diet so that they can get their hydration back.

I pulled on her neck skin, and it slowly went back down to normal. Wow, she’s pretty dehydrated. So at that point, I pretty much threw everything that I had been told out the window and started doing my own research.

I use triangulation when I’m researching information on the web. That means, that at least three veterinarians or academic sources have to say something similar in order for me to accept it as possible fact. Also, the words can’t be plagiarized and each has to be a different academic paper. The information should preferably be newer.

What I found was that the most common treatment for the situation is to ultimately treat them with antioxidants and to rehydrate the cat with a potassium rehydration liquid first, because usually they are dehydrated. Sometimes this involves force-feeding because they refuse to eat, and some places they don’t even worry about what they’re feeding the cat because cats can go into a dangerous bodily shock if they don’t eat for too long. In general, my cat doesn’t have too bad of problems eating; she’s a glutton. But my choice of food for her has mostly been dry kibbles, with wet food at night. Almost every day she throws up. So what I did was change her diet to wet food, with vitamin supplements added.

One hint was the vitamin B complex. I was not shocked to find that vitamin B complex, especially folic acid can be helpful. Also, she is particularly low because I give her Coenzyme Q10 for her heart problems (5 years ago she almost died — within 2 weeks of coenzyme Q10 treatment she was fine)… But Coenzyme Q10 uses Vitamin B during absorption into the system… Even though I supplement the cats with Yeast flakes, I guess it isn’t enough, because the other day I found her attacking a B vitamin pill that I had dropped, and devouring the contents… So B Complex was in.

The supplement that’s most recommended for her situation is Sam-e. Other than that, vitamins E, C, K2, A, B vitamins, and other antioxidants are recommended. Other than that, some places recommend probiotics, and in humans with pancreatitis they recommend using digestive enzymes to aid the pancreas in digestion while balance is returning but it hasn’t been tested in cats.

I mashed up her wet food and mixed in B complex and vitamin C and added almost as much water as food. She gobbled it up. Within the day, she was already starting to look less anorexic and her nape skin was falling a little faster. Within 3 days she has almost returned to normal. Her eyes are sparkling, her nape skin can be lifted and drops into place almost immediately, and she looks just so much better. She wants to race me and play. I’m so happy she feels better.

I’m waiting for the Sam-e, Vitamin E, and an antioxidant set of resverotol with vitamin A to arrive. I’ve been giving her small amounts of K2, C, and digestive enzymes with lots of water. She gets her regular Coenzyme Q10 and the new addition of vitamin B Complex, but I have tapered off the dosage as she took a lot for a couple of days. I check the dosages and vitamin types before feeding them to the cats. Some vitamins are dangerous for cats.

I’m considering the raw or semi-raw food diet, but at this point, high liquid wet food seems like it may work. I know it has more chemicals, but it also has a lot of water and the cat will eat it… That being said, for the long-term I am considering different raw food diets at the moment for both of them.

August 31, 2020August 31, 2020

Deserts to Grasslands to Forest

The famous TED Talk by Alan Savoy about changing deserts to grasslands was first on my YouTube watchlist today. This was after I read this wonderful blog post by Sacred Sueños, a darme un the Andes where the forest was burnt down in 1999 to bring in cattle… And afterwards was used for corn and other crops, until the land was unusable anymore and it came into their hands.

The message is this:

After we have brought grazing animals to the land, whether it be desert land that is unusable, or grasslands, if we want it to become forest again or even crop land, we need another step.

We have to give it chance for succession if we want it to be productive again. We need to allow it to feed and for the soil to grow with mulches and leaves from trees and bushes, for the microbes and organisms to live within it.

It really makes sense. There is a wonderful video about a professor from the US going back to his native land in Africa, where the people were struggling to eat from the land, and creating a new biome with water and forest through agroforestry.

The traditional way of agriculture isn’t working for us. It will be our undoing, as it has been for so many cultures before ours. This is the power of history: let us learn from it and not make the same mistakes.

July 16, 2020

Rainforest Commons

Happy birthday to me.

The last of the Amazon Rainforest is being torn down and scorched to ashes. I can feel it. It is a horrible. It is a classic example of the Tragedy of the Commons. The Rainforest has no physical owners… That anyone with power RESPECTS anyway. They are too wise for their own good in this small-minded modern world, and instead call themselves “Guardians of the Forest”. Also, they have no money, and in this story, people with money are greedy assholes who want more. So with guns, bulldozers, and flamethrowers, they take it. It’s not hard. Because to be a guardian is to understand that nothing in the world is yours. Not your children or your spouse. Nor your pet or your house. Philosophically speaking, we own nothing. We are born with nothing, and we die with nothing. Ownership is an illusion formed by society so that we can create rules and systems… But the rainforest does not work inside our little boxes.

The sad thing is that, we are so obsessed with what we have and what we want, that we have forgotten that what is shared is our greatest treasure. Our greatest moments of humanity are spent when we are together in some way, sharing an experience. A concert, an exhibit, an awestriking view, a traditional family dinner, an anniversary, a trip to the park. It is when we give to each other. When we forget “this person is MINE” and instead stare in wonder at the person we love after they have done something that strikes us at the depths of our souls… The sad thing is, the Rainforest and its Indigenous inhabitants are a gift to us all. Like the artists at an exhibit, or the band at the concert, or our loved-one who is not ours but is there for us out of simply being there. We could have sat at dinner with the Rainforest and enjoyed her wonders, and instead we rape her and steal and burn. So that we can have a steak dinner with our loved ones who we know so much better. We don’t need the steak dinner… because just like too much sugar, the loss of the forest is going to kill us. Because we are so small, in our little societal boxes, we fail to see that this is going to be our undoing. Our individual greed translates to a colossal demon that is ripping the forests out, vomiting on the oceans, and creating agricultural deserts of nothing but “green”, because it is something inedible that does not contribute to the global ecosystem — meaning no one else can use it except for us. At the same time we increasingly commit atrocities within the social system, underneath our own noses and behind closed doors in the name of “science” for the next LD50 or to test the physical testicular load on rats so that we can see the best supplement for testosterone production. Ridiculous!!! What a joke. The Tragedy of the Commons is no less ridiculous than it was when first coined, and no less deadly. Because whatever is not owned by someone more powerful than anyone else, is going to be abused and destroyed in the name of…. Whatever anyone feels like saying!! “We are going to test on all sorts of little animals, because, well, they aren’t human.” So WHAT?! “We need more cows, so uh, we’re just going to build this farm right here where thousands of species are living now but will disappear.” What if it were OUR SPECIES?!

What.If.It.Were.Our.Family?

The Indigenous people’s religions in the USA and Mexico were misconstrued 450 years ago. They did not believe in this Father Sun God or that Mother Rain God. They believe that actually, the rain is their family member, the plants are their family members also. Because they are. Even in the Bible it says that man is to be steward; that means a guardian, not an abusive owner.

And if humanity is able to survive the next hundred and fifty years, it will be because we were somehow able to move past our little boxes, into a wider philosophy that protects the Commons, we found some sort of protection for the Commons, or we lost everything we had and somehow from the garbage left over from our ancestors, we built a new philosophy. One about being sisters and brothers with everything around us, because in the end, that is the only way we can maintain the world “for seven generations” after our own. And the land we stole, we took from the wise who had lived here 20,000 years already, and would live indefinitely, in their family of man and sky and land, enjoying concerts, exhibits, traditional family dinners, and trips to the park, had we not come.

Indigenous Lives are at stake… by our own hands. Please be conscious of your purchases, buy reused goods, eat more vegetables and fruit, and breathe in the moment. “This is OUR Earth, most friendly Earth and fair, daily her sea and shore, through sun and shadow, faithful she turns robed in her azure air…”

July 7, 2020July 7, 2020

Grazing that Stimulates Growth

I was taught as a bio major that certain grazers feeding on plants stimulate them to grow more.

I never suspected that it could extend into the insect family!!

ススメガの幼虫がクチナシを食べる。　Sphyngidae “Hawk Moth” feeding on gardenia

For several years, I have been growing two gardenias. They are native to Japan, but due to my lack of fertilization, perhaps, they have been scraggly since sprouting about four years ago.

This year I found a cute little caterpillar near my plants. And another one. I tried to see which ones they would eat by putting them on different plants, because, you see, caterpillars turn into beautiful flying creatures that pollinate our flowers and fruits. So I didn’t want them to die. I found that they liked my gardenias, and knowing it was early spring and they would grow their few leaves back, I put the little guys to graze on them. They chose only the tenderest sprouting greens, and we’re quite picky… They turned out to be SuzumeGa (Hawk Moth, or Sphyngidae, Larvae), who eat pretty much only gardenias. They are lovely, huge moths with a shape like an arrow that hover while sipping nectar from flower to flower. I hope they survived because I haven’t seen many gardenias around here.

The Hawk Moth baby likes only the tenderest leaves… That will soon grow back much fuller!

The gardenia before consumption on the far right in the tall pot. Isn’t it scraggly? I think I could probably count the leaves on it, and they are evergreens!

A Hawk Moth in the Sphyngidae family. I didn’t take this amazing photo (I got it from the free pile) but I wish I had!

Gardenias, by the way, come in two types. The horticultural variety, with many petals, and the native to Japan, with only five. That being said, the one with only five petals, also called Kuchinashi (meaning “No Mouth”) produces an orange, almost flavorless fruit. This fruit is used as a natural coloring agent, and rather than using carcinogenic Yellow Five, the Japanese use Kuchinashi to color everything edible from candy to everyday packaged foods.

Where did the petals go? Rather, where did the seeds go… The seeds were turned into petals over time, as in many flowers, by gardeners who wanted more elaborate flowers. And the seeds disappeared, meaning that all of those plants have to be propagated vegetatively by cuttings, and cannot have their own babies. They can flower but not fruit. So of we plant them rather than the ones that can seed, they can never make their own… Well, that’s another story for another time.

Anyway, lo and behold two months later, the places that were chomped on my Kuchinashis by those colorful babies are now full of leaves!! The moths, I believe, stimulated the leaves to produce more in response. Maybe it is similar to the technique that is being studied for stimulating crop production (see one of my earlier posts); bumblebees bite leaves to stimulate flowering earlier than normal. Anyway, food for thought. Don’t let your friends kill the caterpillars! Especially the cool-looking ones!!

May 2, 2020May 17, 2020

Major companies, permanent work-from-home, and the future of humanity

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/01/major-companies-talking-about-permanent-work-from-home-positions.html

Yes. Let’s fast forward about 10 years. Because there are less people in cities, there is less chance for people to spread disease. Also, with more people in localized areas, local business flourishes again. Small businesses, mom and pop shops, and true pride through craftsmanship are given a new beginning. We also find space (in my wholesome and imagined future) for public edible landscape where everyone can meet their neighbors and chat while picking the red raspberries. Because people can get out more freely, there are more local social networks, and there’s also a deeper relationship with the landscape, as well as the inhabitants of it, the birds, the butterflies, and the bees. We move forward into another, more mature stage of humanity.