How We Check Facts
Cat care is full of confident claims with nothing behind them. KnowCatHub relies on veterinary bodies, registries, toxicology references, and published research.
Why sources matter
Cat care is full of confident advice with nothing behind it.
Three examples that are repeated constantly.
- The saucer of milk for an adult cat.
- The idea that a cat urinating on a bed is being spiteful.
- The claim that a particular ingredient causes a particular disease.
Each has been repeated so widely that it reads as common knowledge. Each is either wrong, or far more conditional than it sounds.
Sources for material claims are listed with the page. You should be able to trace advice that changes a health, feeding or safety decision to the document or study supporting it.
The source hierarchy
Sources are ranked, and a lower tier never overrides a higher one.
- Peer-reviewed veterinary literature. Primary research and systematic reviews in veterinary journals.
- Professional veterinary bodies. Consensus guidance and position statements from organisations such as the American Association of Feline Practitioners and the WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee.
- Veterinary schools and charitable specialists. Reference material from institutions such as the Cornell Feline Health Center and International Cat Care.
- Poison control services. Toxicity information from bodies such as the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center.
- Manufacturer and regulatory documentation. Used for product specifications and legal requirements, never for efficacy claims.
Blogs, forums and social posts do not support health, nutrition, safety or legal advice. A tertiary reference may be listed for narrow breed history when no current registry record survives, but the page must identify the uncertainty and must not use that reference to make a medical or care claim.
A claim repeated on a hundred websites has one source or none.
| Tier | Used for | Not used for |
|---|---|---|
| Peer-reviewed literature | Mechanism, dose thresholds, prevalence | Nothing excluded |
| Professional bodies | Consensus positions and care standards | Novel single findings |
| Schools and charities | Owner-facing explanation and framing | Settling a contested claim alone |
| Poison control | Toxicity and exposure advice | Nutrition guidance |
| Manufacturer and regulator | Specifications and legal requirements | Efficacy or health claims |
How claims are supported
Factual claims about health, nutrition, and food safety are supported by the strongest relevant sources available.
The documents, studies and professional guidance used for material claims are listed at the foot of the article and linked. The list covers the page as a whole rather than attaching a citation to every sentence.
When an important conclusion comes from one study or one population rather than a broader consensus, the article should state that limit beside the claim.
You should be able to follow an important claim back to the organisation or study that supports it.
When the evidence is thin
Some questions do not have a settled answer, and the honest response is to say that.
Where the evidence is genuinely mixed, the article reports the disagreement rather than picking the tidier side.
Where an answer depends on the individual animal, the food-safety scale has a verdict for exactly that: depends on the individual cat. It is deliberately neutral in colour, because it is a real answer and not a midpoint on a severity ramp.
Where we simply do not know, we say so and name the kind of professional who would.
A confident answer to an unsettled question is the most damaging thing a reference site can publish.
Dates and freshness
Every page shows when it was last updated.
The date changes only when the information on the page changes. It is there to help you judge whether the guidance is current.
Where only a date is known, a date is published. A date is never given an invented time to look more precise.
Numbers and ranges
Figures are published as ranges wherever a range is what the evidence supports.
A breed's typical weight is a range because cats vary. A water intake threshold is approximate because measurement at home is approximate.
Where a number is a rule of thumb rather than a measurement, the sentence says so.
A precise-looking number is not useful when the evidence supports only an approximate range.
Why chocolate is marked toxic
Chocolate contains theobromine and caffeine, which cats clear slowly. Veterinary and poison-control sources treat exposure as potentially serious, so the food-safety verdict is toxic.
The risk depends on the type of chocolate, the amount eaten, the cat's weight, and how long ago it happened. Those details belong in the explanation because the word chocolate alone cannot describe the exposure.
The sources support the mechanism and the need to seek professional advice. They do not support guessing a safe dose for an individual cat.
The answer stays within what the evidence can support.
When good sources disagree
Reputable bodies do not always agree, particularly on nutrition and on behaviour.
The rule is to report the disagreement rather than to pick the tidier answer and present it as settled.
| Situation | What the page does |
|---|---|
| Consensus across tiers | States it plainly |
| One strong source, no contradiction | States it and names the source in the sentence |
| Reputable sources conflict | Reports both positions and what separates them |
| Evidence is thin | Says so, and says what would settle it |
| Answer depends on the animal | Uses the depends-on-the-individual verdict |
| Outside our competence | Refers you to the appropriate professional |
Manufactured certainty is the most damaging thing a reference site can publish.
Review cadence
Different content decays at different speeds, so it is not all reviewed on the same clock.
- Health and food safety
- Reviewed when guidance changes, and on report
- Breed profiles
- Reviewed when registry or screening advice changes
- Behaviour and training
- Evergreen, reviewed on report
- Gear
- Evergreen by design, because it names no product
- Trust and legal pages
- Reviewed when the site changes
A reported error is not queued behind a schedule. It is checked when it arrives.
Claims we avoid entirely
Certain classes of claim are outside what this site can responsibly make.
- Diagnosing a condition from a description of symptoms.
- Recommending a dose, a drug, or a treatment.
- Stating that a product prevents, treats, or cures a disease.
- Asserting that a specific ingredient causes a specific illness without consensus evidence.
- Presenting a single study as though it settled a question.
- Publishing emergency guidance beyond the point where the answer is to contact a veterinarian.
The last one is worth expanding. For a genuine emergency, the useful information is short: recognise it, and get professional help now.
Detailed home management of an emergency is not information a website should be supplying.
If you believe something published here crosses one of these lines, tell us and it will be reviewed.
Units, rounding, and conversions
Cat care is written in two measurement systems and read in both, which is a small source of avoidable error.
Weights are given in kilograms and grams, with pounds alongside where a figure is commonly quoted that way. Food quantities are given in grams rather than in cups, because a cup of one food and a cup of another differ substantially in weight.
Conversions are rounded to the precision the original figure justifies. A source that says a cat weighs about four kilograms does not support a conversion to 8.82 pounds, and printing one would invent accuracy that was never there.
A converted number is never more precise than the number it came from.
Temperatures are in Celsius. Ages are in weeks for kittens and years for adults, because that is how the veterinary literature is written.
Naming and terminology
The same thing has several names in cat care, and choosing the clearest one matters.
The rule used here is to lead with the term a reader is most likely to use and to give the clinical term alongside it once. A page about a cat drinking more says exactly that, and names polydipsia once so the word is recognisable at a consultation.
British spelling is used throughout, including behaviour and colour. Drug names are given as the generic name rather than a brand, since brands differ by country.
Everyday wording comes first, with the clinical term added where it helps at a consultation.
Breed names follow the registry that recognises the breed, and where two registries disagree, that disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.
Where guidance differs by country
A good deal of cat care is the same everywhere, and some of it genuinely is not.
Vaccination schedules, which parasites are present, what is available without a prescription, and the legal position on microchipping all vary between countries.
Where that matters, the country a piece of guidance applies to is named rather than left to be assumed. One country's schedule is never presented as universal.
A schedule that is right in one country can leave a cat unprotected in another.
Product names are the most common trap, since the same brand can contain different active ingredients in different markets. That is why drugs are named generically here.
Last reviewed .
How this site works
Read the Method Before You Trust the Answer
KnowCatHub is written by an editorial team rather than by a veterinarian. What it offers instead is stated reasoning and the sources behind it, named and linked.