DILLIE THE DEER                                        

I recently hosted a seminar that featured  Dr. Tony Buffington from Ohio State, the founder of the "Indoor Cat Initiative."  (http://www.vet.ohio-state.edu/indoorcat.htm) His revolutionary yet stunningly simplistic approach to the prevention of cat diseases just turns me upside down. His research has shown that despite all the medicines and expensive prescription diets, many illnesses in cats can be lessened simply by enriching their lives and understanding their basic cat needs: hunting, socialization, independence,  security, and, for lack of a better term, sovereignty. 
Even though we have had cats living among us from the time that King Tut was a boy, they have never really lost the traits that make them lions, not housecats.   By denying them the opportunity to just "be a cat" and keeping them, as he said, like zoo animals, we have created stress-oriented problems that the complexities of physiology turn into medical problems.   Even though we keep these mini-lions in gilded cages with their soft beds and warm spots next to the heater, they are still captive.  Cats are independent by nature-- some much more than others-- and do not take to this captivity as well as we like to tell ourselves.
I returned from his lecture with a whole new perspective on my own pets.  They enrich my life so much -- do I enrich their lives enough? It isn't enough just to feed them twice a day and pat them on the heads, do I allow them to be the animals they were born to be in ways that they are not stressed?   My big black cat Spaz goes outside and plays in the barn and wanders the acreage.  He has his adventures yet still has a spot on the bed at night.  My Abyssinian cat, though, stopped being interested in going outside a few years ago. Other than feeding time, we have very little interaction, by her choice. She hates the dog and barely tolerates the other cat.  She likes Dillie the deer, and snuggles next to her sometimes, but she is mostly a loner.  She definitely needs a new routine of some play events, toys that rattle and give a treat, a place in the house where the dog cannot go and she can jump around and feel she is in her own castle.

Dillie on the other hand seems to have adapted completely to her captive but luxurious world.  My husband Steve and I have had multiple conversations from the time she first came home from the hospital about whether we were doing the right thing for her or not.  Should we get another deer to keep her company ? If we did that, she would have to move out to the barn , and she would never like that.  Does she get enough time to play outside and explore her surroundings?  We try to make her life interesting with variations in her food and routines, yet at the same time give her the security of consistency.

 All animal people go through this., don't we? We want to do our best for the animals in our lives.  Dr. Buffington's work shows us  we can help them by  just giving them a little bit of room to be the animals they are born to be.  We must learn to understand their instinctive behaviors that we have suppressed to domesticate them, and allow them to bring out that "inner Lion" .  See his website please for further information about the Indoor Cat Initiative ! 



Dr. Mel

We are going to use this page to talk about some of the strange things that have happened since Dillie became an unexpected star.   More to come....

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