World Cat Congress Seminar Presentations

Welcome from Anneliese Hackmann

With everyone duly welcomed, Dr. Susan Little, DVM from Ottawa, Canada, president of the Winn Feline Foundation and frequent guest speaker at WCC events, took the floor for the first of her two lectures—Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), a disease that causes abnormal thickening of the left ventricle heart muscle and is the most common heart disease in cats.

In the course of her lecture, which was illustrated by a large-screen Power Point presentation, Dr. Little described the disease, spoke of the breeds in which HCM is the most—and least—common and explained how echocardiography is the most reliable means for diagnosing HCM.

Dr. Susan Little, DVM

A short coffee break followed, then Olga Mironova, WCF all-breed judge from Russia, who was ably assisted by the simultaneous translating of WCF second vice-president Anna Rudakova, also from Russia, introduced the seminar attendees to one of the WCF’s newest breeds—the Ural Rex. Mrs. Mironova stated that this curly-haired breed is native to the area around Ekaterinburg on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains in central Russia where they were first sighted in the middle of the last century.

Ural Rex

Galina Devyatkova, a World Cat Federation (WCF) breeder from Russia, who showed a live example of the Ural Rex—a blue male, Leonardo Elly Irresistible—to the seminar attendees, concluded Mrs. Mironova’s presentation.

The next speaker was, Dr. Chiara Noli, DVM from Cueno, Italy, whose presentation regarding food allergy in cats detailed the difficult and lengthy process of accurately diagnosing this type of allergy. Unlike these conditions in dogs, feline allergies have not yet been well defined, nor are clinical manifestations of allergy as site specific. Add to this the similarities in the way flea allergy symptoms—and even symptoms with psychogenic causes—resemble those of food allergy and the degree of difficulty facing the veterinarian in diagnosing food allergy starts to become clear. Dr. Noli described the long process of elimination that is necessary to make an unequivocal diagnosis of feline food allergy.

Dr. Chiara Noli, DVM

If the cat had been eating several different food elements, they could be reintroduced one element-at-a-time to ascertain the one that causes an allergic reaction. If the elimination diet causes no improvement in the cat’s symptoms, the cause probably lies in an allergy to something in the environment—but that’s another topic.

The seminar broke for lunch after the discussion period following Dr. Noli’s presentation and when it resumed, Mrs. Marion Schacht, a German Turkish Van breeder, introduced another breed to the seminar audience—the all-white Turkish Van.

The cat fancy is a western phenomenon, having developed in the United Kingdom, the United States and continental Europe in the past hundred years, and as a result, some of the official versions of breeds native to other parts of the world are, in fact, historical errors that bear little resemblance to their indigenous counterparts.

Turkish Van

From these and others brought back in subsequent trips to Eastern Turkey, the official Turkish Van breed was established and eventually recognized as such by the cat fancy, in fact the particular pattern on these cats also came to be known as Van.

However, it seems that in its native land, the people around Lake Van consider only the all-white cats the true Turkish Vans and those with auburn markings an inferior variety. The all-white Turkish Van is known there as the Van Kedisi—the cat from Van, a city on Lake Van with an enormous statue of an all-white cat standing at its entrance.

Some progress has been made in righting this historical wrong: on February 23rd, 2005, the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) granted preliminary recognition for the all-white Turkish Van under the name of Turkish Vankedisi, on September 1st, 2006, The International Cat Association (TICA) approved the addition of the all-white Turkish Van to the Turkish Van standard, which made it eligible for registration and championship competition alongside the patterned Turkish Van effective May 1st, 2007 and during the WCF cat show, the day after Mrs. Schacht’s WCC presentation, the breed began the march toward full-recognition in the WCF.

Two breeders, Joyce Ouderkerk and Anke Baks, along with WCF judge Olga Mironova, treated the seminar audience to a first-hand look at several live examples of all-white Turkish Vans before Dr. Noli again took the floor for her second presentation—Trombicula, Notoedres and Fleas.

Bugs on pets is something every animal owner is familiar with, though, except for fleas, some translation is needed to put Dr. Noli’s lecture title into familiar lay terms. Trombicula are chigger mites and Notoedres are cat mange mites. However, by whatever name, they are troublesome little creatures for both animals and humans. Fortunately, as Dr. Noli explained, all three can be diagnosed and eliminated fairly easily. Chigger mites (Trombicula) are easily identified with a magnifying glass and any parasiticide will eliminate them. They are usually found on body areas in contact with the ground and their peak infestation period is late summer to early autumn. Chigger mites can cause skin irritation in humans.

Cat mange mites (Notoedres cati) are seen almost exclusively on cats, though rarely in North America and Northern Europe and frequently in Eastern and Southern Europe. The mange caused by these mites is highly contagious. As with chigger mites, diagnosis is easily made and treatment is relatively simple.

Fleas, as any cat owner knows, are the most common feline parasites. Of the three parasites Dr. Noli spoke about, flea infestation, in most cases, causes the least harm to the animal, though are the most difficult of the three to eliminate due to their highly developed survival skills and the need for an extended treatment period to interrupt the flea’s life cycle. Dr. Noli concluded her lecture by recommending some very effective products for flea control/elimination.

Dr. Susan Little

Should a failure of this passive immunity transfer occur—the kittens are orphaned, for example—it can be corrected by injecting adult cat serum under the skin of the kittens. In the event something goes wrong with the newborn kittens and medical intervention is required, Dr. Little stressed the importance of giving the veterinarian a complete medical history of, not only the sick kitten, but also its littermates and mother.

Mr. Alban Morin presented Royal Canins book Practical Guide: Cat Breeding

She pointed out some of the difficulties in using drug therapy on kittens. Unfortunately not all kittens make it through the first month of life. Ten to twenty percent of litters born in catteries are lost due to a number of factors: low birth weight, congenital defects, trauma, inadequate nutrition, maternal neglect, environmental factors, infectious diseases and parasitism, and neonatal isoerythrolysis (blood-type incompatibility).

The highest risk periods are: during pregnancy, at birth, the first two weeks and immediately after weaning. Dr. Little concluded her presentation with some interesting facts regarding the three feline blood types— A (dominant), B (recessive) and the very rare AB. Most non-pedigreed cats are type A (95-98%), while some breeds, the Devon Rex and British for example, are found to be type B approximately 40% of the time, while others like the Burmese, Russian Blue and Siamese are 100% type A. The Birman and the British may also have rare instances of type AB.

Following Dr. Little, Pam DelaBar, president of the World Cat Congress introduced the WCC delegates and opened the seminar to questions from the audience. After a short question and answer session, the seminar was adjourned.

>> back to World Cat Congress 2007