Winn Feline Foundation: Saving cats ' lives, one research study at a time

If you have a cat, chances are she'll have a longer and healthier life thanks to research funded by the Winn Feline Foundation. They're the folks who, more than two decades ago, sponsored Dr. Paul Pion's lifesaving research into taurine deficiency, leading to the reformulation of commercial cat foods and saving countless cats' lives and vision.



Winn was founded in 1986 by the Cat Fanciers' Assocation, which continues to support the foundation. Winn has funded more than $30 million in feline health studies since then, into subjects including nutrition, vaccination, genetics, cancer, diagnostic testing, infectious disease, and emerging pathogens that can affect cats.



They've just announced their latest grant awards, which include research into a genetic test for the severity of feline polycystic kidney disease, and another to help determine which cats might be at increased risk for feline infectious peritonitis.



Researchers at the University of Tennessee will be examining the effect of raw diets on kittens, and Winn will fund a study by Dr. Philip Fox at New York's Animal Medical Center into the most common of the feline heart diseases, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.



A Colorado State University study will be examining treatment for a devastating form of feline cancer:

Feline oral squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) account for approximately 10% of all feline tumors. Cats will often have mucosal ulceration and bone necrosis that is painful and interferes with eating and drinking.  Cats with these devastating tumors are often euthanized with progression of local disease. The historical failure of treatment of this disease with surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy discourages owners and veterinarians from pursuing treatment.

In another funded project, researchers at Oklahoma State University will be using archived samples of tumor tissue both to see if there is any predictive value to pre-treatment biopsy evaluation, and if therapies other than chemo and radiation will be more effective in treating affected cats.



In all, a total of 36 applications were submitted; 12 projects were funded in the total amount of $127,411. You can see all of them -- and donate to projects still in need of funding -- here.



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If reading about cat health research doesn't do it for you, maybe the incredible roll Dr. Patty Khuly's been on the last couple of weeks will. (Or, as Gina said, "You mean she's been saying stuff we agree with a lot lately." Well, yes. Yes, that's what I mean.)



First, she weighed in on H.R. 669:

Keep a ferret? For many, a ferret is every bit as lovable and bond-worthy a pet as any cat or dog, despite the naysayers (who’ve obviously never met a well-raised ferret). How about a Cockatiel? I never knew a more lovable bird than my first male Cockatiel, “Sydney.”



Now enter the US government with its proposed stipulations on who can own what kind of animal. Its H.R. 669, the Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act, aims “to prevent the introduction and establishment of nonnative wildlife species that negatively impact the economy, environment, or other animal species’ or human health, and for other purposes."



Make no mistake, for all its grandiose verbiage this is a bad bit of law––and not just because of its grammatically challenged legalese.



Its goal? To keep any non-native wildlife species out of our homes, out from under our ability to set them free to multiply, out of the trade in sensitive species, out of our native species’ habitats where they can wreak havoc. It proposes to make all wild, non-native pets illegal across the board––save for cats, dogs, common economic (livestock) species, and, of course the biggest native habitat home-wreckers of all...humans.

I couldn't have said it better myself -- and by the way, the bill has its first hearing before a Congressional committee tomorrow... go tell your law makers it's a stupid idea.



Dr. K has also caught chick fever from Gina, shares my hatred of the term "people food," and just in general writes one of the best pet blogs out there.



And via Terrierman, an amazing Washington Post story about the love of a man and a dog... and their skeletons:

Diane Horton had last seen her late husband two days after his death in 2002, so when they were reunited at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History a few weeks ago she asked for a few private minutes with him.



He was standing under spotlights in a huge display case -- all 6 feet 3 inches of him except for a few bones missing here and there. His head was thrown back and his mouth was open, as if in a big laugh, and his arms were around one of his favorite dogs.



Here was professor Gordon S. "Grover" Krantz, and all, or almost all, of the phalanges, tarsals, metatarsals and the other 200 or so bones that made up his skeleton. Reassembled with wire, glue and metal.



It was an emotional moment, Horton, 66, said.



"Wow," she thought. "You had really [an] impossible last wish. And it's been granted."



Indeed, it has.



The skeletons of Krantz and his beloved Irish wolfhound, Clyde, make up the striking display that comes at the end of the museum's current forensic anthropology exhibit, "Written in Bone."

Great story... read it here. And what a way to go.



Noted in passing: The pet health insurance industry, which struggled for years to find enough interested clients to keep just one company afloat, is getting pretty crowded now, with the expansion of PurinaCare pet health insurance into California.



And speaking of pet health, I just added the Veterinary Information Network's VIN News Service to my feed reader -- they've got some great current coverage of animal health news and an RSS feed!



I mean, how can you not love a story called "What to do with the seal in your bathtub"? And you'll love it even more when you read it:

At the western edge of Russia, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, the nearest sea mammal rescue group is located in another country. So when someone brought a seal pup, apparently orphaned, into a clinic there, the veterinarians — more accustomed to seeing dogs, cats and the occasional hedgehog — were unsure what to do.



About two hours after the pup arrived, Dr. Kirill Skomorovski started his shift at the 24-hour clinic. Until that day, Skomorovski had never held a seal in his hands. For the next 12 hours, he and his assistant struggled with the 25-pound animal, trying to persuade it to sit calmly in a box or a bathtub with water, to eat fish or something else. Though the pup had little energy, it would not cooperate.



Unwilling to give up, Skomorovski took the pup home to the two-room apartment in Kaliningrad where he lives with his wife. There, he discovered that help was as near as his computer.

It gave me chills. Go read the rest.

Comments

[Gina Spadafori]

You must kick ass at Trivial Pursuit.

[Gina Spadafori]

Just as long as I don't catch goat fever from Dr. K ... I'm not zoned for goats!

[retrieverman]

Kaliningrad is in an unusual spot. It doesn't border on Russia at all. It is between Lithuania and Poland.



I had a few ancestors who came from there.



They weren't Russian, Lithuanian, or Polish. They were ethnic Germans of the Lutheran faith.



That's because Kaliningrad is actually the old Prussian city of Koenigsberg. It was the capital of East Prussia and home of Immanuel Kant.



It was fully German speaking until World-War II, when the Red Army expelled the Germans and settled it with Russians.



So it's not really in the Western part of Russia. It's a Russian exclave in Eastern Europe.

[retrieverman]

I was on the West Virginia state championship Quiz Bowl Team.



Plus, my professional area of expertise is Eastern Europe.

[Kim]

A University study regarding raising cats on raw diets? Hmmmm... wonder which raw diet they're using? Have to dig further, but already I'm optimistic. We're about to put an end to that "no studies" issue once and for all - whether the study will be of any consequence remains to be seen. Fingers crossed, off to teh google I go.