Understanding and Training Your Cat or Kitten [Paperback]

Ellen H. Whiteley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2006

What do you do to promote harmonious relations when your cat hates your fiancé? How do you raise kittens that will interact well with children? How do cats learn? Can you teach your cat to ring the doorbell or play dead? Are some cats despots? How do you know if a cat is depressed? Stressed? Sick? Happy? In fourteen information-packed chapters, H. Ellen Whiteley, D.V.M., answers these and hundreds of other vital questions. Each chapter includes a letter from a concerned cat owner and Dr. Whiteley's advice to that owner. Whiteley draws upon her experience as a house-call veterinarian for felines and her years as a pet columnist for publications such as "The Saturday Evening Post," "Woman's World," "Cats," and others to write a book filled with interesting and insightful anecdotes about patients, clients, and readers that will keep you turning pages long after you've discovered the answers to your specific questions. H. Ellen Whiteley, D.V.M., is the author of "Understanding and Training Your Dog or Puppy," "Animals and Other Teachers" and the coauthor of "Women in Veterinary Medicine: Profiles of Success," all from Sunstone Press, as well as "Train Your Dog in No Time" from Que Publishing. She has been a veterinarian for over thirty years, with job descriptions as diverse as military veterinarian and national rabies awareness spokesperson. Whiteley founded Cat Clinic of Amarillo, Texas, and at the time was the only veterinarian in her locality to offer house-call services for cats. An avid hiker, Whiteley has trekked in Nepal and climbed Africa's Kilimanjaro. She and her husband George live in Guadalupita, New Mexico. For more information, visit her website: www.DrWhiteley.com

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Of obsessive-compulsive disorder among cats, Whiteley ( Women in Veterinary Medicine: Profiles of Success ) writes, "MeeMee, a female Siamese looked around with a weird look in her eyes, swung her head to one side, and licked at her left paw in the sort of rhythm that you could set a metronome by. Nothing seemed to distract her when she entered one of her compulsive licking periods." The syndrome? "Displacement grooming"; Valium solved it. Whiteley gets to the point, too, on a range of other problems and issues in feline behavior--anorexia; the insatiable appetite for grass or houseplants; the challenges posed by air travel, w/owner or w/o; and the meaning of purring (cats are not necessarily happy, she says, when they do it). And she discusses training your pet, whether or not you believe it will work at the outset, maintaining that it really is possible to instruct cats in the arts of sitting, stopping, fetching, jumping, and in shaking hands/paws. They can also, she says, learn to ring the doorbell. (But, wait--is that really an advantage?) The proof is in trying all of this stuff out; meanwhile, it's amusing.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Writing in an anecdotal style, Whiteley, a veterinarian and founder of the Cat Clinic in Amarillo, Texas, focuses on the cat's psychology and behavior. Her consideration of cat selection and suggestions for training will be helpful to prospective and first-time cat owners. She also covers such basic pet care topics as grooming, nutrition, and preventive medicine, though Terri McGinnis's The Well Cat Book: The Classic Comprehensive Handbook of Cat Care ( LJ 6/1/93) provides more detailed information. Whiteley's final chapter, "Saying Goodbye," will be of interest to anyone who has lost a pet. Suggestions for pet funerals and a short bibliography of children's books dealing with the death of a pet are particularly helpful. Recommended for public libraries.
- Charlotte Means, UM-KC Health Sciences Lib., Kansas City, Mo.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Sunstone Press (July 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865345090
• ISBN-13: 978-0865345096
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,541,476 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book with good advice and some intriguing anecdotes., September 10, 1999

By 

Adrienne D. Fargas (Centreville, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding And Training Your Cat Or Kitten (Paperback)

Despite the rather unwieldy title, this is a good book for the novice cat owner or even the experienced owner who wants to learn more. It seems oddly organized and structured at times, however. Sometimes it's a practical training handbook, at others a feline medical guide. It even ventures into autobiographical territory when it presents anecdotes of the author's veterinary experiences. Overall it's pretty informative, relaying neat facts about cat neurology, behavior, and growth and development. I recommend it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars understanding and training your cat or kitten, March 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Understanding And Training Your Cat Or Kitten (Paperback)

I have had several cats and kittens over my 50+ years and this was very helpful, with reasons why cats do the sometimes dreadful things they do, and ways to stop some of the behaviors.