Disclaimer
KnowCatHub publishes general information. It cannot examine your cat, and nothing here replaces a veterinarian who can.
General information only
Everything published on KnowCatHub is general information about cats. It is written for a general audience and it does not take account of any individual animal.
It is not professional advice, and it does not create a professional relationship of any kind between you and this site.
You remain responsible for decisions about your own animal.
Information here describes what is generally understood about cats as a population. Your cat may sit outside every range on this site and still be entirely healthy.
No professional relationship
Reading this site, emailing us, or acting on something published here does not create a veterinary, medical, legal, or other professional relationship.
A veterinarian can only advise on an animal they are able to examine, and in most jurisdictions a valid relationship requires exactly that examination.
We have not examined your cat and we never will. Nothing written here is tailored to it.
Correspondence with us is not confidential in the way a consultation with a professional is, and it is not covered by any professional privilege.
Veterinary matters
Nothing on this site is veterinary advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
No article here should be relied on to identify what is wrong with a cat, to decide whether a cat needs to be seen, or to choose or delay a treatment.
Content on this site is not written by veterinarians. Where a named veterinary professional has reviewed an article, that person and the date of their review are shown on the article itself.
Where no reviewer is shown, none has reviewed it. At the time of writing, no article on this site carries a veterinary reviewer.
This site does not recommend, calculate, or describe a dose of any medication, prescription or otherwise.
Do not disregard veterinary advice, or delay seeking it, because of something you have read here.
Emergencies
This site does not provide emergency guidance beyond identifying that a situation is an emergency.
If a cat is struggling to breathe, collapsed, having seizures, bleeding heavily, unresponsive, or straining to urinate without producing urine, contact a veterinary service immediately.
For a suspected poisoning, contact a veterinary practice or an animal poison control service without waiting for signs to appear.
Do not use this website in place of that contact.
Breathing
Open-mouth breathing, gasping, or laboured effort.
Urination
Straining in the tray without producing urine.
Collapse
Collapse, seizures, or unresponsiveness.
Poisoning
Any suspected exposure, before signs appear.
Who we are not
It is easier to trust a site that is specific about what it is not.
| KnowCatHub is not | Go to instead |
|---|---|
| A veterinary practice or clinic | A registered veterinary surgeon |
| An emergency service | Your nearest out-of-hours veterinary service |
| A poisons helpline | An animal poison control service |
| A behaviourist offering a treatment plan | A qualified feline behaviourist, via your vet |
| A pharmacy or dosing reference | The veterinarian who prescribed the medication |
| A breeder, rescue, or rehoming service | A registry, a recognised club, or a local rescue |
| An insurer or a price comparison site | A regulated insurance provider |
| A laboratory or diagnostic service | Your veterinary practice |
Contacting us does not create a professional relationship of any kind, and we cannot advise on an individual animal.
Nutrition and food safety
Food-safety verdicts on this site describe what is generally understood about a food and cats as a population.
They do not account for an individual cat's age, weight, medical conditions, medications, or diagnosed allergies.
A verdict of generally safe means generally safe for a healthy adult cat as an occasional food. It is not a recommendation to feed it, and it is not a statement about your cat.
A verdict is not a quantity. Where an article gives a portion, it is a general guide and not a prescription.
Feeding decisions for a cat with a diagnosed condition belong with the veterinarian managing that condition.
Products and gear
This site does not rank, rate, or endorse products, and it does not test them.
Gear guides describe the properties an item needs in order to do a particular job. Applying that to a specific product is your decision.
Where a page carries advertising or an affiliate link, that is disclosed on the page. A commercial arrangement never determines editorial content.
At the time of writing this site carries no advertising and no affiliate links.
External links
This site links to external organisations, including veterinary bodies and charities.
Those links are provided because the organisations are the sources our content was checked against. We do not control their websites and are not responsible for their content.
A link is not an endorsement of everything an organisation publishes, and an organisation's guidance may change after we cite it.
A link does not imply a commercial relationship, approval, or endorsement.
Where you are matters
This site is read internationally, and veterinary practice, medication availability, and legal duties differ by country.
Where guidance names an emergency number, a regulator, or a poison control service, check the equivalent for your own country.
Local law takes precedence over anything written here, including rules on ownership, breeding, restricted breeds, microchipping, and outdoor access.
Medication names differ between countries. Paracetamol and acetaminophen are the same drug, and brand names vary widely.
Nothing on this site is legal advice.
Accuracy and currency
Content here is checked against published guidance at the time of writing, and each page shows when it was last updated.
Veterinary understanding changes. A page that was accurate when written may not remain so, and we cannot guarantee that every page reflects the current position at the moment you read it.
The updated date tells you when the information on that page last changed.
Where evidence is genuinely mixed, articles say so rather than presenting one side as settled.
Liability
To the extent permitted by law, KnowCatHub accepts no liability for loss or harm arising from reliance on this website.
That includes loss or harm relating to an animal. Decisions about an animal's health and care are yours, and where they are clinical they belong with a veterinarian.
Nothing in this disclaimer limits any liability that cannot lawfully be limited, and nothing here affects your statutory rights.
In particular, nothing here excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
Where a jurisdiction does not permit an exclusion set out above, that exclusion applies only so far as that jurisdiction allows, and the rest of this page continues to apply.
Breed information
Breed profiles describe tendencies across a population. They do not describe the individual animal in front of you, and they are not a prediction about it.
Temperament varies widely within every breed, and early handling frequently explains more of the difference than ancestry does.
Health information in a breed profile identifies what is worth asking a breeder about. It is not a diagnosis, a screening result, or a statement about any particular cat or line.
Where a life expectancy or a disease frequency is given, it comes from a published study or registry figure and is attributed. Where no such figure has ever been measured, that absence is stated rather than filled with an estimate.
Nothing in a breed profile should be read as endorsing or discouraging the purchase of any breed, breeder, or individual cat.
Behaviour and training
Behaviour guidance here describes general approaches that are well established. It is not a behaviour plan for a specific animal.
Behaviour and medicine overlap constantly in cats. A sudden change in behaviour in an adult cat is a veterinary question before it is a behavioural one, and pain is a common cause of aggression, hiding, and house soiling.
Serious cases, including aggression that causes injury, self-directed behaviours such as overgrooming, and long-standing house soiling, need a veterinary behaviourist working from an examination and a history.
No article here should be used in place of that referral, and none is written with a particular household in mind.
Images
Photography on this site is generated and illustrates generic subjects. No image depicts a specific identifiable animal, and no image is a photograph of a medical condition.
Images are used to illustrate a subject and are never evidence for a claim. Do not compare a photograph here against your own cat in order to reach a conclusion about its health.
Diagrams and scales illustrate a relationship or a severity ordering. They are not measurements of any particular animal.
Sources and organisations we link to
Pages here link to veterinary bodies, universities, registries, and poison control services because those are the sources claims were checked against.
Those organisations are independent of this site and have not reviewed, approved, or endorsed anything published here. Naming one as a source says only that a claim was checked against its published guidance.
Their guidance can change after we have cited it, and their pages can move or close.
We do not control any external site and are not responsible for its content, its accuracy, or its availability.
Last reviewed .
Related statements
The Rest of the Small Print
These statements are written to be read, not to be skipped. Each one is short enough to finish.