Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Smart, sharp, and slightly unhinged. Late Night's Fresh Perspective. The Last Show with David Cooper. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, come get your vegan, gluten-free dinner is not what you should be saying to your cat according to science. It is vet talk, or as I should say, cat talk, here with Dr. Cliff Redford.
It's everything you wanted to know about your furry friends and probably some things that you didn't. Cliff, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. This is going to be fun. We normally focus a lot on dogs.
I know, boring. Boring.
Chapter 2: Why aren't cats vegans despite isotopic signatures?
Who wants an animal that just always loves you? Don't you want an animal that hates you sometimes?
It's probably a little bit more realistic to our regular relationships.
Thank you. I guess. I guess. Dogs teach people about unconditional love and cats teach people about boundaries, Cliff.
What's more important to you? People, yes. What do they say? Dogs are family members. Dogs have family members. Cats have staff.
I would say friends. Friends with high expectations from those friends. Look, when I hear of a pet owner who's like, my dog's, my cat's vegan, I'm like, you're an idiot. But I have no like evidence for that other than like these animals evolved eating meat. Not like us. They're not omnivores. So it's not like one or the other. They eat meat. They need that protein. They need a lot of it.
They need more of it than us by weight. But am I right about this is the question. You are half right.
Dogs are actually omnivores and dogs can thrive on a meat-free diet, whether it's commercial or let's say homemade, but it's very hard to balance the diet when it's homemade. But cats... Cats are true carnivores or are called obligatory carnivores. They cannot produce the life requiring amino acid taurine. Proteins are made up of amino acids.
All the different sort of chemical building blocks put together make these large molecules called proteins. And most mammals, humans, dogs can take proteins. different amino acids and create taurine out of it. But cats can't do that. And the only place to get taurine in nature is meat, is animal flesh, especially like the liver and the heart and then certain muscle parts have high taurine.
This all came out due to this kind of interesting article in this very easy reading book called Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
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Chapter 3: Why is taurine essential for cats and how do they obtain it?
When we leave, he wails. He screams, no. He's a needy boy. And she's like, well, wouldn't he want a friend? Wouldn't he want a sibling? And to that I say no, because one cat's enough. I didn't want the one cat. Now that I have him, I love him. He's my best friend, but I didn't even want him.
And so just like twice the amount of poop, twice the amount of food, twice the amount of vet visits, twice the amount of zoomies, twice the amount of getting woken up to something wailing at night, twice the amount of scratches on my body. No thank you, Cliff. One is enough.
Twice the amount of cuddles, twice the amount of purrs, twice the amount of sweet, beautiful faces, and twice the amount of scratches. Some people like that.
But when we come back from the break, we're not going to talk about it from the owner perspective because I think my girlfriend would want us to have another cat. Maybe your family member listener wants you to have another cat. There are reasons why your cat, not you, your cat might not want a new sibling.
And that is what we're going to cover and discover, he said, as he killed a few seconds waiting for the commercial break with Dr. Cliff Redford. Check out his podcast, Vet Life. And that's available wherever you have podcasts, right, Cliff? Who would I hear if I downloaded your podcast right now?
You might hear Mr. David Cooper. Oh, you got to put out a new episode, bro. Oh, I have ones all the time. The latest one that launches in a couple of days is Dr. Krista Halling talking about exercising outside and the human-dog bond.
It's vet talk. It's pet talk. A lot of owners think, oh, my cat's lonely. I want to get my cat another cat, a sibling. There are good reasons not to do it. We're here with Dr. Cliff Redford to discuss just those reasons. He's a veterinarian and more.
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Chapter 4: How do nitrogen isotopes affect our understanding of cat diets?
Cliff, welcome to the show again. Thank you, as always, again. All right, we have a clickbait article we're going to go through online. I love clickbait. It's called The Seven Signs Your Cat May Not Want a Feline Sibling According to a Vet. That vet's not you, but it could be you.
Yeah, excellent article. And I don't think it's clickbaity because it sort of tells you what it says. Although they did exaggerate. They only gave three signs that your cat may not want to have a feline sibling. But then four signs after the fact that maybe you made the wrong decision. But... You know, like, don't assume.
You know, you talked before the break about how your cat, Tomato, wails and cries, no, no, whenever you're leaving. No, no. Oh, see, that's not what you said. You definitely had an N there in the beginning. But maybe your cat was howling in joy. Yes, go, go. Leave me be. Now I can sit on the couch or do whatever that you don't let him do.
I do want to know what he does, but I just can't bring cameras into my house. I know some people have these cameras in every room. They get them for their babies, and then they keep them, and it's weird, and they spy on their family members. I just can't do it, but I do want to see what he does.
I think you're going to be opening up the Pandora's box on that, and your relationship with Tomato will never be the same.
I'm not putting cameras in my house. Don't do it. There's apps to do it that make it easy, and they're cheap, but I'm still not doing it.
A little mystery is always good for any relationship, let's say. So basically, this article says, don't assume that your cat is lonely or bored. Cats, much more than dogs, are solitary animals. They barely tolerate us and we feed them and take care of them. They aren't necessarily going to want another sibling, another feline sibling. So there are signs that you can look for.
If your partner wants another cat, you guys got to look at Tomato and maybe ask Tomato what he wants. First of all, does Tomato get stressed out when change happens?
Yes, like more than regular cats. He's extremely neurotic. And my friend who cats sits professionally, she's probably cared for about 100 cats, confirms that Tomato is a neurotic, insane person.
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