Background: Chronic stress is implicated in behavioral and health issues in cats, but methods for recognition, evaluation, and measurement of stress are lacking. Cortisol concentration is typically used as an indicator of stress.Objectives: To evaluate use of an enzyme immunoassay to quantitate hair and nail cortisol concentrations (HCC and NCC) in cats and evaluate associations between HCC and NCC and behavioral, physical, and environmental correlates of chronic stress in cats.Animals: Forty-eight adult, owned or community cats.Methods: Cross-sectional study. Nail clippings and hair were collected from cats.Medical history and cat daily lifestyle questionnaires were completed by owners or caretakers. A commercial laboratory performed cortisol extraction and quantification using a validated enzyme immunoassay kit. Correlational and regression analyses were used to evaluate associations between HCC and NCC and behavioral, environmental, and medical factors.Results: Hair and nail cortisol concentrations were significantly associated (r s = 0.70; P < .001), but HCCs varied widely within and among cats. Cats with litterbox issues had significantly increased HCC (P = .02) and NCC (P = .001) as compared to cats without litterbox issues. Cats with groomed coats had lower HCCs (P = .02) as compared to cats without groomed coats, whereas cats with dander and mats had higher NCCs (P = .01) as compared to cats without dander and mats.Conclusions and Clinical Importance: The quantification of NCCs might improve identification and evaluation of chronic stress in cats. The variability of HCCs in individual cats warrants caution using this measurement in chronic stress studies.

Background Use of diets with increased concentrations of dietary fiber is thought to be beneficial in the management of dogs with large bowel diarrhea. Objective To determine whether feeding a diet with high concentrations of soluble and insoluble fiber to dogs with acute colitis would be superior to feeding a diet with typical fiber levels. Animals A total of 52 dogs with acute signs of large bowel diarrhea housed in an animal shelter were entered into the study; 11 dogs per diet completed the protocol. Methods In this randomized, prospective study, dogs with a fecal score of 4, 5, 6, or 7 and signs of acute colitis were fed a high fiber diet (4.54% soluble; 15.16% insoluble fiber) or a standard diet (0.6% soluble; 5.33% insoluble fiber) and fecal scores compared over the course of the study with significance defined as P < .05. Results All dogs fed the high fiber diet (11/11; 100%) had a fecal score <5 on the day of adoption or day 9, which was statistically different (P < .04) than dogs fed the standard diet (6/11 dogs; 55%; 95% CI: 23‐83). The proportions of stools with a fecal score >4 were greater (P = .0001) in the dogs fed the standard diet (29/48 samples; 60%; 95% CI: 45‐74) compared to the high fiber diet (8/50 samples; 16%; 95% CI: 7‐29). Conclusions and Clinical Importance The results support feeding the high fiber diet described herein to dogs with acute large bowel diarrhea.

The adverse effects of minimum wage legislation demonstrate how a government policy presumably intended to help people worst off in society can actually end up causing far more harm than good. In this case, the victims are unskilled laborers. By making it illegal for employers to pay unskilled workers wages equal to their marginal revenue productivity, it causes unemployment for all workers whose productivity happens to be below the minimum wage. It also widens the wage gap between whites and minorities because there are disproportionate numbers of unskilled and uneducated minorities compared with whites.