Cats love grass. They nibble at it if it's to clean their belly from hairs or just for fun. In addition, if you get a cat its own flowerpot, you can hope that it will leave your other plants alone :).
If you live with a cat, you surely know it: chewed leaves on all the domestic plants, knocked-over flowerpots, lengthy search on the internet before you buy a new flower if it isn’t poisonous for your fluffy friend.
My cat is a downright gardener. It considers itself to be the owner of all the plants in the household and it carefully oversees any manipulation with them. Once, it even plucked an onion from a flower box and it put it, sorry, it re-planted it, into the next flower box. When I water the plants, it can’t be left out. It gets in the way, tells me how to do it (probably swears that I am over-watering them again) and after I’ve watered them, it carefully checks every flowerpot and sniffs it. So a simple two-minute activity becomes a nerve-wracking situation that lasts about quarter of an hour not counting the wiping all of the spilled water.
When my boyfriend brings me a cut bouquet, the cat immediately usurps it. It sniffs it, re-arranges it and then it keeps sitting next to it constantly (it probably feels more beautiful next to it :)).
Cat grass
For purely domestic cats, this is a necessity. Cats spend most of their waking hours taking care of their fur so it’s no wonder that a considerable amount of hairs get into their belly. As we can already know from the article Mystery of cat tongues, their tongues are covered with hundreds of rough papillae in the shape of little backward bent hooks, so they can’t spit the hairs out. These settle in the stomach and form clumps (trichobezoars). If the cat doesn’t manage to vomit them out, this will lead to health issues and a surgical intervention might even be necessary.
You will find plenty of pet foods and food supplements on the market that are supposed to help the hairs pass through the digestive tract, but the most natural way is grass. It helps with elimination of the hairs from the digestive system in the same way and using it, the cat can induce vomiting if it needs to get rid of a clump inside its stomach.
Buying and growing
You can buy grown cat grass almost in every flower store or DIY store. Recently, I saw it even in some hypermarkets.
You can find seeds in pet supplies. But it is a small and rather an expensive package.
I personally buy regular grass mixture or seeds for sowing. Types with wider leaves are better. I prefer to use the so-called Easter seed shoots or cyperus: it has beautiful, green and wide, as if curly leaves. Besides, it comes from marshes, so it likes moisture and there’s no risk that I could over-water it.
Do you grow grass for cats at home? I always have a planted flower box or several flowerpots so that I never ran out of it and the cat wouldn’t start eating my flowers or its favourite palm trees.
Sometimes, one dog is not enough and it is better to have a whole pack. Especially if you breed drafting (or also pulling) dogs. Of course, the more dogs you have, the more care and issues it means, but it also means there’s much more joy for the...
The modern world is not only rich in material things but also in the number of dog breeds. There are quite a lot of them, Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI) recognizes 360 different breeds. And they are not only different from each other when...
There are many ways to learn a new thing. One of the most pleasant ones for both the dog and its owner is positive motivation. Thanks to it, a dog learns new tricks in a simple and pleasing way and it also helps to develop a mutual social relationship...
Pregnancy is a difficult time for a bitch in all aspects. The body nourishes more organisms and it needs to be reflected in her energy and nutrient intake. A breeder, racer and sport cynology contestant, Jitka Duffková, gives advice on how to make...
You might be interested in this dog sport but you have many questions before you can decide to start with it. Will my buddy enjoy it? Do I have sufficient physical abilities? When should we start, isn’t it too soon or too late? This article and advice...
A healthy mouth is a very important part of the complex vitality of a cat and we shouldn’t neglect taking care of it. There are many oral diseases our furry friends can suffer from. What can you do to keep your cat’s teeth clean?
Korat is a very rare breed that isn’t very common even in Thailand – the country of its origin. Thanks to its beautiful, soft, silver-tipped hair as well as its special nature, it’s unmistakable. This breed definitely deserves some attention.
Have you ever thought about how the composition of the gut microbiota of your dog companion influences its mood, metabolism or immune system in addition to its digestion? Do you know how bacteria work in guts and how to keep the good ones inside?
Letting furious dogs with only one task – to detain and put you down – bite you is definitely not for everyone. But is it really as horrifying as it may look from the outsider’s point of view? Jan Böhm answers our questions about what it takes to be...
Snakes and scorpions are said to get out on Saint George’s Day. It has been a while since then, so it’s no surprise that we can see a lizard or a snake when on a walk somewhere or in our gardens. They already left their underground shelters designed...
The German Boxer can truly be called a versatile dog. With no doubts, it can be a family dog, a watchdog or a rescuer. It is also good at sports. A long-term boxer breeder, Ing. Michaela Martinů, can confirm that.
Bikejöring doesn’t mean that a dog simply runs next to a bike. The dog pulls the bike when doing this sport, it is similar to dog sledding. A famous Slovak musher, Marcel Dučák, will tell us what equipment you need for it, what dogs it is good for,...