DEAR READERS: As promised last week when I presented my dog food recipe after having been deluged with requests, I am posting the recipe for cats. May all enjoy!

DR. MICHAEL FOX'S HOMEMADE DIET FOR CATS

1 whole chicken, cut in pieces, or 1 pound hamburger, ground lamb or turkey

1 cup chopped chicken hearts and gizzards

1/2 cup peas, chickpeas or lentils

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon fish oil

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin

1 egg

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped canned clams in juice

1 teaspoon nutritional yeast

1 tablespoon calcium carbonate, calcium citrate, lactate or human-grade bone meal

Combine all above ingredients. Add enough water to cover ingredients. Simmer, stir and add more water as needed until cooked and thickened. Add an egg or 1 cup of cottage cheese. Immediately after cooking and cooling, debone the chicken parts, but do not feed your cat the cooked bones since they can splinter and cause internal injury. Add a few drops of fish oil after the stew has cooled to room temperature. Stew should be thick enough to be molded into 1/2-cup muffin-size patties. You can add a little oatmeal, bran or mashed potatoes to thicken if needed. (Note: Some cats are allergic to fish, corn, beef and dairy products.)

When the food has cooled, put the portioned food in the refrigerator, where it should be good for three days. If you have cooked a larger quantity, freeze the patties and thaw as needed. Serve one patty to your cat three times per week with regular food. This recipe can also be put into a food processor and fed raw.

For variation, substitute 1 pound lightly cooked and mixed equal parts ground or chopped pieces of calf heart, kidney and liver. It is advisable to change up the basic ingredients to provide variety and to avoid possible nutritional imbalances.

If you are feeding only this recipe to your cat, it is safe and beneficial to add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of spirulina to the food two to three times a week.

Transitioning your cat onto the new diet should be done gradually to allow for adaptation and avoid aversion and digestive problems that a sudden dietary change may cause. Mix increasing amounts of your cat's new food with decreasing amounts of the old food over a seven-day period.

A daily multivitamin and multimineral supplement is also advisable. One that supplies essential amino acids and is recommended by feline vets is called Platinum Performance Feline Wellness. Designing Health Inc. also makes excellent animal (and human) supplements under the label The Missing Link. In a pinch, crush up one human "one-a-day" complete multivitamin and put a light sprinkling (about one-fifth of the pill or less) on the cat's food at one of the daily feedings.

Since obesity is so prevalent in companion animals today, weigh your cat at weekly intervals when putting him on a new diet, and adjust the amount being fed according to any decrease or increase in weight.

Note: Different animals have slightly different nutritional needs according to age, temperament, amount of physical activity and health status.

Keep teeth clean by giving a scalded raw chicken wing tip with skin on, thin strips of scalded raw beef heart or scalded shank meat to your cat to chew every three to four days. The tougher the meat, the better! Make sure it's scalded to kill the bacteria. Avoid addictive and potentially harmful dry foods that do little to keep teeth clean.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: My aunt, who lived in Woodlawn, Illinois, raised Rhodesian ridgebacks for years. She was hit head-on by a drunk driver in Oklahoma. At the time of the accident, her kennel girl was feeding the seven dogs. She said all seven went to the kennel gates and started howling in unison. -- M.L.R., St. Louis

DEAR M.L.R.: Many readers will appreciate your sharing the apparent reaction of your aunt's dogs to her sudden death hundreds of miles away. Skeptics may dismiss this as sheer coincidence and perhaps ask if this was the only time the dogs ever went to the kennel gates and howled together.

I have received many anecdotes that seem to present evidence of some extrasensory or psychic ability in animals. We must exercise some rigor in determining if indeed there is evidence supportive of my "empathosphere" theory, which I first presented in 1996 in my book "The Boundless Circle" and more recently gave several remarkable accounts in my book "Animals & Nature First."

Your account, pending confirmation that such group howling was a rare event and not triggered by some wailing siren or faraway dog, would indeed be what I call a classic example of animals' remote sensing and supports the concept of an empathosphere.

DEAR DR. FOX: I have a 3-year-old Jack Russell terrier who has a social problem regarding other dogs. We have tried personal training, but she still reverts to terrible behavior.

We live in a small community where residents walk their dogs. When my dog sees another dog approaching, she starts a loud guttural yelp that has people coming out of their homes to see if some wild animal is attacking. If I allow her to slowly approach the oncoming animal, she might just sniff, or she may snarl and bare her teeth. Otherwise she is a delightful pet, and gets along well with our Lhasa apso. She loves people.

What do you suggest we do? Would a shock collar work? I have tried having her sit and wait, but the yelp is awful. -- E.A.S., Fort Myers, Florida

DEAR E.A.S.: Sometimes it is best to accommodate an animal's spontaneous behavior because attempting to inhibit may cause complications, such as conditioned fear, anxiety, confusion and aggression.

Your dog's collar, and heaven forbid any choke chain collar you might be tempted to use, could possibly distort your dog's vocalizations. Putting her in a harness may be better.

Our late Indian pariah dog, Batman, used to scream bloody murder whenever we came home after leaving him in the house even for a short time. That was his way of greeting us and relieving his pent-up emotions in a most expressive and loud volley of cries and yelps. We half expected neighbors to call animal protection or the police because it sounded like he was being tortured!

Learning to love what and whom we live with regardless of certain behaviors and potential embarrassment is the kind of live-and-let-live attitude that seems ever more remote in these times.

TENDER LOVING CARE HELPS KEEP SHELTER CATS HEALTHY

Veterinarian Nadine Gourkow, Australia's Queensland University School of Veterinary Medicine and associates have published an elegant study demonstrating the benefits of stroking and talking softly to cats that go into shelters. Such gentling for 10 minutes per day over a 10-day period helped reduce cats' anxiety or frustration and elevated their production of infection-fighting immunoglobulin A. Non-gentled cats showed an increase of potentially harmful bacteria and viruses associated with upper respiratory infection, a common problem in cat shelters, while gentled cats did not.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.com.)

DEAR READERS: Many readers of this column have swamped me with requests for my home-prepared cat and dog food recipes, mostly because they do not have Internet access to them posted on my website, DrFoxVet.com.

So here is the recipe for dogs -- the one for cats will be in next week's column -- and seasons greetings to all!

DR. MICHAEL FOX'S HOMEMADE DIET FOR DOGS

1 pound lean hamburger, ground lamb or mutton; one whole chicken; or half a small turkey (all raw)

2 cups uncooked whole-grain brown rice (or barley, quinoa, amaranth, rolled oats or pasta noodles) or 4 cups chopped organic potatoes

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil (or flaxseed oil* or safflower oil)

1 tablespoon organic butter

1 tablespoon wheat germ

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon brewer's yeast

1 tablespoon calcium citrate, lactate or human-grade bone meal

*If you're using flaxseed oil, add it after the cooked food has cooled to room temperature.

Combine all the above ingredients. Add enough water to cover ingredients. Simmer, stir and add more water as needed until cooked. Debone the chicken parts, but do not feed your dog the cooked bones since they can splinter and cause internal injury. While the stew is still very hot, mix in a cup of raw, grated carrots, broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, sweet potatoes or yams. You can also add a cup of blueberries or chopped apple. The recipe should be thick enough to be molded into patties -- you can add oat bran, rice or buckwheat flour to help thicken it.

Then when it's cooled, add 2 tablespoons organic plain yogurt or kefir, 1 teaspoon spirulina, 1 teaspoon powdered ginger and 1 teaspoon powdered turmeric.

For a 30-pound dog, serve 1 cup of this recipe twice daily. Freeze the rest. You can even serve the patties frozen so your dog can gnaw on them in hot weather.

For dogs less than 30 pounds and for overweight and less-active dogs, use only 1 cup of uncooked rice in the recipe.

Transition your dog onto this new diet gradually. Mix increasing amounts of your dog's new food with decreasing amounts of the old food over a seven-day period to enable adaptation and avoid possible digestive upset.

For variation, you can use cottage cheese, well-cooked lentils, garbanzo beans, lima beans or a dozen organic eggs as meat alternatives. (Note: Some dogs are allergic or hypersensitive to some foods, especially soy, beef, eggs, wheat and dairy products.)

Give your dog a daily multivitamin and mutimineral supplement like Pfizer's Pet Tabs. You can also give your dog half of a human one-a-day supplement crushed up in the food.

Since obesity is so prevalent in companion animals today, weigh your dog at weekly intervals when putting him a new diet, and adjust the amount according to any undesirable weight changes.

NOTE: Different animals have slightly different nutritional needs according to age, temperament, amount of physical activity and health status. Large dogs require less food per pound of body weight, so adjust according to appetite and weight gain. And if your dog is deep-chested and prone to bloat, give him three to four smaller meals per day.

Keep teeth clean by getting dogs, especially toy breeds, used to a daily brushing. The best and safest natural tooth cleaner is a raw, scalded 3- to 4-inch piece of beef shank/soup/marrow bone, or thin strips of scalded raw beef heart or shank meat -- the tougher the better!

AN APOLOGY TO READERS

I apologize to readers of this column living in those parts of Florida served by the Palm Beach Post. The paper had sent letters from its readers to the wrong address. I just received almost a year's worth of letters from you all. I have contacted the paper and have been assured that it will send the letters to the right address in the future. And I'll work on getting your letters answered in the meantime!

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.com.)