Holistic health for cats, as for everyone, includes all the major areas that, when done wrong, will lead to dis-ease, with all the accompanying ailments. In my opinion, there are three main areas, which are each covered separately. They probably all have equal importance. 

For some strange reason, humanity thinks it can improve on the natural diet all species evolved on. There is huge profit in convincing people that this is so. However, this are one of the main triggers of disease, ill health, depression, anxiety, you name it.

Each species has a specific diet when caring for themselves out in Nature. These specific diets are naturally sought after and provide all the nutritional needs in perfect balance, in a way that can be easily digested. Anyone who has watched any wildlife documentaries know that the diet of a lion is different from that of a giraffe. They aren’t interchangeable.

However, when you look at the ingredient list on a typical commercial cat food, you’d think they were. Plant based foods abound.

The ‘food’ may keep the cats alive, but not healthy. They are almost guaranteed to fall foul of a chronic, degenerative disease. Very few escape this tragedy. It’s normally a slow process, which most people don’t see.

Cats are stoic beings. This means that when you DO notice something is wrong, it’s often well advanced.

So what is a healthy diet for cats? What diet will keep them in good health all their lives?

The same diet wild cats eat. The same diet zoos feed their cats. It’s a good quality, raw, meat and bones diet.

When you get this right, you can largely forget about supplements. It doesn’t seem logical to feed a lousy diet with supplements when you can feed a healthy diet without them. After all, healthy supplements (the good ones) come from food.

Another really important part of holistic health for cats involves their living conditions. Although it’s not possible for everyone to achieve everything, everyone can get some of this right.

Bearing in mind that cats are one of the most sensitive species on earth, I believe they include having:

• a loving human family who also respects their space
• an environment that is both energetically (wifi, cell towers, etc) and physically comfortable
• clean litter trays
• interests to stimulate

• safe access outside for the healing effects of the earth and sun, chasing flies and running up trees

• scratching posts
  
• access to grass for medicinal purposes
• a quiet and stress free home
• a safe bolt hole for stressful times, such as visitors
• access to chemically and physically clean water

Cats also like high places as that is an instinctual place to escape to and feel safe.

While veterinary care is the main go-to for most people when they’re troubled by their cat’s health, drugs and vaccines have a deleterious effect on the immune system. Drugs suppress the body’s natural expression of disharmony. Yet it’s this expression that affords the patient relief. What the patient really needs is help healing the cause, not suppressing the effect.

In homeopathic medicine, there are two causes of ill health that are examined closely before any treatment is prescribed. They are exciting causes and maintaining causes. Both are self explanatory.

The exciting cause would be from a single event that caused the problem. This could be an injury, a shock, a fright, etc. The maintaining cause is something that is continuously in the life of the patient, that is not healthy. Examples include unsuitable diets, living conditions, stress, etc.

When you consider these causes, suppressing the effect, or the presenting problem, just doesn’t make sense. If the diabetes was the cause of a bad diet, it makes more sense to correct the diet than give toxic drugs for life. The same goes for stomatitis, renal failure, cancer, everything.

The drugs not only suppress the ability of the body to release this dis-ease, they cause more problems of their own. Toxicity builds up. The cat sleeps more, is more lethargic, less vibrant. More ailments appear.

When a condition is quite well advanced, improving the environment, especially the diet, can have an enormously beneficial effect on the cats health. But it may not be quite enough. And that’s where good, homeopathic treatment comes in. Homeopathy supports the best efforts of the body to heal itself.

Combining these three basic tenets are the foundation of holistic health for cats. It’s respectful, elegant, economical, loving.