I bought this book recently after losing one of my precious cats suddenly due to gastrointestinal issues and now dealing with another young pet cat who was diagnosed with IBD. I was at my wit's end trying to save the life of my Siamese mix, Sam, and my conventional vet was not able to help. After a very expensive trip to a premier veterinary school at a college campus 2 hours away, and after poor Sam endured surgery, feeding tubes and commercial food for almost 2 months with no improvement, we were told drugs and prescription foods were the only way to help Sam. Out of desperation, I began deep research and found Michelle's book. Though Sam is still in the early stages of recovery thanks to this wonderful book, he is improving slowly. "Raising Cats Naturally" is the BIBLE of proper cat care and nutrition. Michelle lays out the steps easily and anyone can follow the instructions. Her explanations of cat physiology are second to none. Without her book and guidance, we may have been on the road to losing our precious Sam. But now he and our other pet cats are beginning to thrive...and they absolutely LOVE the raw food diet adopted from this amazing book!

Lin Svitko
Whiting, Indiana

I bought a copy of this book and am very pleased with it, although I have not yet transitioned my cats over.



I do have a couple of minor quibbles, and they mostly have to do with proofreading. There were several passages where better proofreading would have made things more understandable... for instance, there is a recipe given for anti-ringworm shampoo and rinse, which is easy enough to follow... however, in the book there is no mention of how often the stuff should be used (three times, each time one week apart, which advice I was given in e-mail from the author).



Also, since I used to work doing typesetting, proofreading, pasteup, etc. in the printing trades years ago, I believe that too many typos and other errors detract from the professionalism of the final product.



I personally am enthusiastic about self-publishing and print-on-demand publishing... however, I wish people would either hire proofreaders or else cajole their spelling-whiz friends into proofreading their books for them before publication (hey, maybe you could trade a copy of the finished book for proofreading?).

I loved the book and purchased one for my daughter. I like her fadless approach to cat raising. She has provided valuable information for anyone trying to raise their cats the healthy way. I thank her and my 3 Bengal cats thank her! Mitzy

I loved the book and purchased one for my daughter. I like her fadless approach to cat raising. She has provided valuable information for anyone trying to raise their cats the healthy way. I thank her and my 3 Bengal cats thank her! Mitzy

Using the homemade raw recipe in this book, I have now worked with five cats with gasto-intestinal disorders (IBD) - two of them slated for euthanasia when conventional veterinary medicine could not help them - and ALL of them have made a 100% turn-around and are now symptom-free! I've also worked with seven diabetics and all have either gone off insulin entirely or needed much lower doses. I personally share the companionship of nine cats, the youngest of which is 10, the eldest 19, and they all do fantastic on Michelle's homemade diet.

The book is thorough, yet easy-to-read, and I know it will be one of my most treasured, and often referred to books.

For those who have seen through the highly effective brainwashing that pet food companies have subjected us to, this book is a must-have. Cats, as obligate carnivores (meaning they MUST eat a raw meat based diet to be healthy), do very poorly on cooked grain-based foods. This book shows how to give them a proper diet based on raw meat and bone, which will result in lean, muscular, extremely healthy and beautiful animals who shed less, and leave a LOT less odor in the litter box. Cats fed this way are also more resistant to disease, and require fewer vet visits.

There are lots of other excellent books on how to feed a raw, species-appropriate diet to dogs and cats, but none of them are nearly as good on the CAT side. Michelle Bernard's book is best by far. She understands better than other authors how the dietary needs of cats and dogs differ. She also dispels the two most common fears people have about raw-feeding such as "Won't they get sick from the bacteria in raw meat?" and "Aren't bones dangerous?". I ask: What do you think they eat in the wild??? The truth is, the strong stomach acid of a cat will kill most excess bacteria, and what it misses passes through their short digestive tract so quickly that nothing has a chance to proliferate. As for bone, only COOKED bone splinters - raw bone does not. (And bone can be ground, for those who can't get over that worry.) In short, this is what they're MADE TO EAT! (Or at least as close as we can get, short of providing live prey.) Does it really make sense to feed COOKED GRAINS AND VEGETABLES to an animal that's designed to digest RAW MEAT AND BONE? Conventional pet foods couldn't BE more OPPOSITE to what cats need!

I could write a tome about how important this information is for cat owners, but I'll only say further that my own two kitties, who came to me as sickly 12-week old kittens, have been fed this way from the day I got them. They just had their 4th birthday, and aside from other raw-fed cats I have met, they are by far the most beautifully healthy cats I've ever seen!

If you're more than just a "casual" cat owner, please get this book! Feeding this diet does entail a bit more work than pouring a cup of kibble into a bowl, but the benefits make it worthwhile. Your kitties will LOVE you for it, and you'll feel very good about giving them REAL food!