Letter to Every Cat Owner from Cats Toraja’s jottings
Letter to Every Cat Owner from Cats Toraja's jottings
I had been wandering around for a while in the town whose name I didn't know, and all of a sudden I decided to live with Kaori(meaning Fragrance in Japanese), a human female who has a dog, named Kona.It all happed by chance in a summer afternoon.The windows were open, so I made an entry into her house, and they let me live there without any objection. I know that was because I was handsome. Fortunately, the female puppy Kona had never met a cat, and did not know how frightening I can be.
So, I became a scrounger."Toraja" by the way means something like "a man on the mountain", and it seems as if it has something to do with the name of this town.
Kaori, works in an office but is always fed up by the power struggles in her company. Once somewhere she experienced something similar to aromatherapy so she made up her mind to experiment with it herself in her own home.
If you open magazines anywhere, you will see that aromatherapy is a flourishing "healing" process in aesthetic salons, hair salons, and beauty parlours. It is a healing method, which modern day humans rely on heavily for stress reduction.
They smell fragrances of essential oils such as lavender, lemon and peppermint and take massages by rubbing in such oils.It would appear that it must be a great luxury for humans. For me, it's only something smelly.
Kaori is a dollar-store queen and buys everything for 100 yen in those stores. Aromatherapy manuals aroma pots, candles, sets of these smelly essential oils, etc., etc. She thus started using these to start her aromatherapy.
On the first day it started like this.She dropped lavender oil directly in the aroma-pot, so the room was filled with a malodorous burning , smell and I almost became a black cat.
By the way, my fur is striped like a tiger. "Hey, read the manual first! Must put water in the aroma-pot, am I right?"I can't stand this smell anyway!
After that, Kaori bought a little more expensive lavender oil and began diffusing the fragrance in her room, using .something like an electric sprayer or diffuser. The smell of the new oil seemed a bit better than the 100 Yen variety, but for me it was still a bad smell. It's so difficult to understand what humans are trying to do. Why do humans enjoy such a thing?I was feeling listless these days.
By practicing aromatherapy every night, it looked like something abnormal was happening to Kaori,too. What was going on? Essential oils have grades of quality? There are 100% natural oils and adulterated oils?If you use poor-quality essential oils you have side effects instead of healing?
Kaori realized that, and now having bought more expensive therapeutic essential oils, she is very satisfied, sleeping well at night, and her dog Kona also sleeps soundly with her.
But, be that as it may, I was feeling sick; maybe I ate something bad, and. I don't even need the best-quality aroma, so help me, help me anyway! A few weeks later, I collapsed and when I became conscious, I was in a cage inside an animal hospital.The diagnosis was simply hepatic disorder.
Vet: Did you give this cat anything strange?
Kaori: Nothing in particular. .. Just cat foods available in the market."
Vet: Well, did he lick the floor wax, or did you practice aromatherapy?
Kaori: "No, I did not do that for the cat."
Vet: "Not for the cat, but for yourself?"
Kaori: When I go to bed, I diffuse lavender oil in my room. It makes me sleep well. That's all."
Vet: 'Yes? Maybe, that's the cause of the trouble. Stop the therapy immediately. I will try to explain it in simple terms, although it's not an easy subject. Cats seldom eat plant materials other than meat, which is a very important difference from dogs. They are true carnivores. They don't have enough enzymes to metabolize plant components.Essential oils are extract of plant components, aren't they? Cats cannot metabolize those components completely. Please be careful about that. It is highly possible that essential oils can be harmful to cats."
Kaori,: ...
Vet: "As he is recovering fairly fast, it's OK as long as you pay attention from now on.
Kaori: 'Thank you so much, Doctor"
Held in Kaori's arms, for the first time, I came back home.
Kona kissed and licked me. This was an awful feeling at first. Kona is a strange · dog with a long body like a sausage and her legs are abnormally short. She is a very clumsy dog.I don't know why, but she is very popular among humans.
When she goes out for walking, she is admired "Adorable! by all, so she has a lot of pride. But, when she licked me, wagging her tail, I felt that I had made friends with her. Not bad at all.But, looking at hospital receipts, Kaori is breathing a sigh. But, its not my fault!
In the neighborhood I have cat companions called Bolt and Nut kept by a beautiful lady Yuriko (meaning Lily in Japanese), This lady is very fond of flowers and practices the Japanese Art of flower arranging ikebana". I always play together with them in her yard enjoying in the sun. Since I haven't been there so long, I'll go and tell them what I experienced at the veterinary hospital.
"Hi!."
"Toraia?"
"What's the matter, Nut?"
"Bolt, Bolt ... "
"What happened to Bolt?"
"Yesterday, Yuriko decorated her room with lilies. Bolt licked lily pollens attached on my body. For quite a while ...
Nut was panicky.
"Bolt licked pollens on your body?" And, what happened?" "Cramping, foaming at the mouth, and got cold .
Bolt licked lily pollens and died of poisoning.
Come to think of it, I recall, I met a cat called Lip by chance when I was in Nagoya, and she was saying, "As we cqts easily get poisoned by various things, we must be careful." Lip is very knowledgeable.I wonder how she is.As I suspected, Bolt was also poisoned.
I was also almost in danger too with aroma. But, I did not know lily pollens were deadly poisons to cats.Oh, essential oils, too. For the sake of my companions, I guess I have to study more.
My Mistress, Kaori has been studying hard about aromatherapy, after my accident. During the daytime when Kaori is not home, I began my work, searching hard for the sites she accessed in her PC.1 want to give her my cat's help.
Hmmm, cat's liver lacks certain type of detoxification enzyme, so we have a risk of poisoning to substances, which other animals can easily detoxify and metabolize? Our skin is much thinner than Kona's, making it easy for chemical substances to be absorbed? We often lick our own body and clean up our fur. What? Pigment contained in red cells of blood is so sensitive, too? Uh-huh we were born delicate.
But, It' s good to know we have not been bred according to humans' conveniences, as dogs have.look at Kona.
She has such an unnatural figure.On the other hand, I have long legs and a good figure. I shouldn't waste time talking like that.Search and search!
The more information Toraja gets, the more eagerly he wants to save his companions exposed to the danger.Are people in foreign countries informed about the danger of aroma to cats?
I tell you what. let me write a letter to cat owners all over the world. I told my idea to my E:mail friend and also a multilingual cat Smoky J in Italy. She gladly offered her help to Toraja who has trouble with foreign. languages. What we need to have is a friend, isn't it right?
To Every Cat Owner of the World
We, the cats have incomplete UDP-glucuronosyltransferase, one of the second phase enzymes of the liver that is necessary to detoxify or metabolize fat-soluble chemical substances such as essential oils. As we have lived on meat from remote ages, we might not have needed the mechanism to metabolize and detoxify plant components. Because of that, even medicines and chemical substances,which are no harm to other animals,become poisonous to us in many cases. For us, especially, essential oils are dangerous chemical substances made by condensing plant components artificially.
For humans; they have healing effects,but for us they might be poisonous.So, please do not use products with essential oils around us.Please do not use shampoos with essential oils for us. In case you practice aromatherapy,please do it after you take us to separate rooms. Poisoning may not occur right away,but it gradually develops. We do not know when the symptoms appear.
If you are told we are poisoned from an unknown cause, Please look into the possible cause related to essential oils
The vets who take care of us might not know the relation between cats and essential oils.If they do not know, please tell them. Vets might recommend the treatment using essential oils. In such a case, please ask them about the risk for the treatment. The vets who know the risk should give us the treatment, examining our liver functions.If you want to give us aromatherapy, please select the products called hydrosols or Hydrorat.
Different from essential oils, hydrosols consist of almost all water-soluble ingredients, so we can detoxify in comparatively safe manner. But, please be careful not to use floral water with fragrances of essential oils. In the same way of aromatherapy treatment given to dogs, please use the minimum amount necessary. As well as essential oils, the ingredients of hydrosols have not been fully understood, so the assurance is not 100%.
We used to live on leftovers of humans, but enjoyed our life with gourmet foods by catching mice and birds.However, in the present living environment, it is actually very painful for us to live-with humans. We have nothing to eat nowadays other than meals given by you. So, please, get detailed information about the ingredients of cat foods you give us, and select food as safe as possible for us.We are built to be sensitive for various types of poisoning, and exposed to the risk of BSE and the bird flu.
And, there is one more thing to ask you. Please, do not attempt breeding by your conveniences as you do for dogs. We hope to keep the present figure forever. Please listen seriously to this message from us. And, to anyone who keeps cats, please send this letter by all means.
With love, from Toraja
Message in lieu of the postscript
It was 1993, when pet aromatherapy made its first appearance. Nelly Grosjean, an active naturopathic therapist based on France, published a French book about the therapy. In the following year an English version of the publication titled 'Veterinary Aromatherapy" was published and pet aromatherapy spread throughout the world.However, the recipes introduced in this book were primarily for the use of essential oils for plant-eating horses, and the recipes for humans have often been applied to many pet animals, by thinking that they should be safe as long as they were diluted.
It has been pointed out from a veterinary's point of view that the metabolism of cats differs from that of other animals, but it was Kristen Leigh Bell who first announced the risk of essential oils for cats in her book from the position of aroma therapist. In 2002, in her ''Holistic Aromatherapy For Animals" (a Japanese version "Itoshino Pet Aromatherapy" was published by Sanga Publishing), she first warned against easygoing pet aromatherapy,writing that cats were victimized by aromatherapy.
I was shocked when Mr. Kanjuro Saito ,an aroma-therapist asked me to translate the "Holistic Aromatherapy For Animals. In the circle of my veterinary companions, there is multiple number of friends who experienced events of catsapparently suffering from poisoning by aroma products. I said to myself ,"Cats in the world might be exposed to the danger by the boom of aroma!" Consequently, together with my husband who devoted himself for animals in zoos, we established "The Japan Animal Aromatherapy Association" in 2005 and began dissemination of the information and awareness campaign. We have conducted several seminars in the past, and professional aroma therapists as well as veterinarians participated in the seminars. And, each time when the seminar was repeated, comments on poisoning events of cats and aromatherapy were sent from the participants.The right use of aromatherapy can be a very effective and complementary alternative. health care.However, we have to avoid the easygoing use of essential oils. that ignore the physiological and metabolic mechanisms of each animal.
Kazuko Tanabe D.V.M.
Acknowledgements
I wish to offer very special thanks to my Friend John Crosskey who lives in Italy, for proofreading the English version of this manuscript. Particular thanks also go to Ms. Chie Shirai for drawing lovely illustrations. Also, this book would not have been possible without the help of my sister, Hamako Hara.
Nekozuki's Voice
"Thank you for the wonderful book about a cat's letter to cat owners!", I immediately thought after reading Ms. Tanabe's Letter to Every Cat Owner from Cats. As a person who genuinely loves cats, I want all the owners to know what is written in this book, so I took the plunge and contacted the author, Ms. Kazuko Tanabe. When I consulted with her, I said, "I want as many people as possible to know about your book. What kind of information can we provide?" The author, Ms. Tanabe, promptly replied, "I'd like to spread information to people who keep as many cats as possible. We were able to deliver the contents of the book to everyone.We would like to express our gratitude to Ms. Kazuko Tanabe, the president of Japan Animal Aromatherapy Association, and Ms. Chie Shirai for sharing valuable content. Through this, we're strongly motivated to advocate the proper ways to care for our feline friends. Let's write a letter to cat owners and cat lovers all over the world! I would like many people to know the thoughts of Toraja. I'd like you to spread this letter for the cats too!
We hope that this will be an opportunity for all cat lovers to think about creating an environment where cats can live comfortably.
Yukako Futono Nekozuki's Owner
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