Customer Reviews

Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life

5 star:		(76)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Dr. Hodgkins' book is right on the money. Her background with the pet food industry makes her well informed on the subject of feline diets. Cats are obligatory carnivores which means they make most of their energy from meat, not carbs. I am also a veterinarian/lawyer as is Dr. Hodgkins and I have been recommending a meat diet for cats for the past 10 years. Clients who follow my advice have healthy cats who live long lives. My own cats live long healthy lives on the diet recommended by Dr. Hodgkins. As a lawyer, I would consider it malpractice if a veterinarian put my cat on a corn-based dry cat food. Far too long, the pet food industry has controlled pet diets without proper peer reviewed research on the contents of their pet foods. A rodent, the primal food for cats, is 3% carbohydrates, 40% protein and 57% fat, minerals and fiber. To be a healthy cat food, their diets must mimic that of their primal food source. READ THIS BOOK! Then talk with your veterinarian about improving your cat's health with a healthy, meat based diet.

For so many years, it seemed that a lot of the sanity when it came to advice on how to properly care for, and especially FEED, a small cat, was only to be found in books published by non-vets. There are many great books out there with fabulous advice, but, sadly, many of them were never taken seriously by the mainstream veterinary community because they were written by people who lacked the 'DVM' credential.

Dr. Hodgkins' book has, thankfully, changed all that. As a lay person, I've spent years now running a website on cat nutrition and steadily beating a noisy drum to draw attention to the folly of feeding the carnivores we choose to live with foods that have no relationship to what Mother Nature intended. It's been fabulous having the support of so many people, but I've longed for -- for years -- to have a book out there by a real, live veterinarian that spoke the truth about the dangers of feeding dry food to cats and articulated precisely how it is that so very many feline diseases are entirely avoidable if we simply get the diet right.

This book is a dream come true. Aside from the wonderful, easy-to-understand style with which Dr. Hodgkins writes, it's jam packed with answers to the questions that so many of us have sought for years. Personally, I'm especially thrilled with the emphasis throughout the book on nutrition, as that really is the brick and mortar of health for cats. It's been astonishing to me over the years to see veterinary clinics fill up with more and more patients and more and more oversized bags of meat-flavored cereal (i.e., prescription dry food), with no one sitting up and taking notice of the relationship. Dr. Hodgkins' book is an extraordinarily welcome breath of fresh air.

Every veterinarian ought read this book and keep a copy or two in the reception area to educate clients. It's written by someone with impeccable credentials, after all, and there's no easy way to dismiss what it has to say. This bell can't be un-rung.

The tragedies that unfolded in earl 2007 with the massive pet food recalls began to wake people up to the dangers of blindly trusting what the pet food industry offers. But the pet food recall is only the tip of the iceberg. Even without the conspicuous problems associated with poor quality control, the sad truth is that the lion's share of commercial pet foods sold today--even when they're not 'tainted'--are terribly inappropriate for our cats (and dogs!) and contribute greatly to illness.

So if you have a cat (or three), you really owe it to yourself to invest in this book.

If I could give this book more than five stars, I would!

Anne (www.catnutrition.org)

This is absolutely both the best and only cat book you will ever need. I found Dr. Hodgkins' web site for diabetic cats about 6 weeks ago and began following her instructions for diet and insulin. My 2 cats, 1 diabetic and 1 not, responded immediately! The difference in them is amazing--they are both happier and healthier than ever. No more hairballs, no more dry skin, no more dry, dull coats. Their eyes are brighter, they are more active and playful, and my diabetic cat's blood sugar is under control for the first time. It is nothing short of amazing and I am so grateful to Dr. Hodgkins. Her book outlines everything you need to know about caring for your cats. It's simple, straightforward and best of all, full of common sense. If you love your cat, read this book and follow the diet recommendations--you and your cat will be so happy you did.

Finally, a book that is NOT simply a recycling of the same old information, or vague mumbo-jumbo. This book is full of useful facts presented in a way that the lay person can easily understand, yet backed by the latest veterinary research and facts of feline physiology.

Finally, a book that breaks it to the public that most commercial cat foods are recipes for obesity, irritable bowel disease and diabetes. Dr. Hodgkins explains how to evaluate a commercial cat food and how to choose a food that will promote a long and healthy life. Your cat's diet is fundamental to health - and as a specialized obligate carnivore, the cats' unique dietary needs are explained in this book.

Dr. Hodgkins presents open-minded and logical discussions of choices that every cat guardian must make, such as indoors only or to allow your cat outside, how to choose a veterinarian, and a detailed discussion of common feline diseases and how to PREVENT them before they occur.

After 4 weeks of largely fruitless treatment by my veterinarian for my 9 year old cat's urinary tract crystals (going to the box every 45 minutes) and pre-diabetic signs (drinking water copiously), I started my own research. Every source led me to this book. After a short time of following Dr. Hodgkin's recommendations, my cat was cured. After several months, she is now healthier than she's ever been, has more energy, plays, lifelong dandruff is gone. I highly recommend this book.

This book represents a step-change in the cat care paradigm for me and I wish that I had encountered sooner. Despite huge investments in expensive premium dry cat food bought at my vet over the years, one cat developed diabetes and another was unable to keep his food down. Reading this book provided me with the knowledge to consider an informed (Dr Hodgkins is not alone in her views) alternative to what I was being told. I considered this a valuable second opinion and so I chose to follow this alternative as the conventional advice was so blatant in its failure to address the issues I faced with my cats. The diabetic cat reached remission after a 7 week treatment on Dr Hodgkins' protocol and the vomiting stopped almost immediately when I stopped feeding dry food. The general condition of the cats is impressive: even my new vet (who also advocates raw feeding) is impressed at their condition, their dental condition and their muscle tone. The knowledge about diet that I have gained from this book far outweighs the price I paid for it. Two human and four feline thumbs up.

I think Dr. Hodgkins book entitled "Your Cat" is a book which every cat owner should read because she rightly says in it how wrong it is to feed carbohydrate laden dry pet food to cats and goes into how feeding them this is needlessly giving them diabetes, serious and even fatal bladder problems, kidney failure, heart disease etc. A former Hills Pet Nutrition Vet, Dr. Hodgkins, has done an excellent job in this book of exposing the illness that feeding pet food to cats is causing them. I am a medical doctor and as such tell patients it is vital they eat fresh, raw food while the majority of Vets wrongly tell clients never to feed fresh, raw food to their pets but Dr. Hodgkins in this book explains how raw food is the best food to feed cats for health. All Vets and veterinary students would do well to read this book since they are wrongly telling clients to feed dry pet food and tinned pet food to cats when they should be telling them to feed raw food since only raw food will keeps cats well and let them live a long and healty life.

This is a wonderful book for everyone that cares about their pets. Nutrition is everything. Garbage in, garbage out. Everything the author says about cats also largely applied to dog nutrition as well. Feed your dogs raw or at the very least no carb canned food. I'm glad someone is setting all of us straight about how we have become so disconnected in the way we feed our pets, relying completely on the pet food industry to tell us what is right and wrong in caring for our pets.

I own a 4 year cat and new puppy and I began researching pet nutrition when I got my puppy because I felt she just didn't respond well to the various foods I was giving her, either walking away from a full bowl of dry kibble or scratching consistently. I have always fed my cat a high quality wet food such as pet guard, merrick or wellness. Though she looks great, no shedding or health issues, I realized recently that she was starting to look older quite quickly. Once I started them both on a raw diet my puppy took to it immediately, but my cat turns up her nose to it. If it didn't come from a can she wasn't interested. Of course I listened to everyone that said you shouldn't feed your pets table scraps so all she knows is a can. After a frustrating week of switching her to a completely raw diet I found the trick - pretend like you are feeding her canned food by taking the can out of the fridge and opening it. Switch and bait, she started eating her raw food with no problems. Crazy cat. I noticed almost immediately that she has a bit more energy and her coat is so shiny and soft. I will never go back to commercial foods. For those of you trying to switch from dry kibble to wet food this might be a harder task then canned to raw, be very very patient.

I had just put my diabetic cat down 2 weeks before I picked up this book. Since this was the 2nd cat in 3 years that had died because of diabetes, I was in despair that I could keep a cat longer than 10 years. I had carefully fed both of them Hill's Science Diet because it was the "best". I now know differently, and I have hope that I can feed and raise my new little one correctly! I am giving a copy to my vet...

I wish I had this book years ago. I have owned many cats and could have done a better job at keeping them healthier if I had read this book. If you have a diabetic cat, this book and the author's website are important tools for getting diabetes under control. I found my own vet's knowledge of cat diabetes lacking and my cat's blood suger was a yoyo. I turned to Dr. Hodgkins advice and my cat is now stabilizing.