Veterinarian shares 8 tips for looking after our most resourceful felines.

Barn cats are kings and queens at horse farms and ranches, keeping away varmints like moles, mice and consequentially, even snakes. But even the most independent outdoor cats can benefit from added protection and routine care.

For advice on caring for barn cats, we turned to Oklahoma State University's Assistant Clinical Professor with the College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Sarah Peakheart.

Purrr-use these top tips for thriving barn cats:

• Offer any outdoor cats (and dogs) a safe, warm place to sleep. A heated or insulated cat house is perfect for keeping outdoor cats in winter months cozy. Also, ensure they have plenty of food and fresh water. Consider a heated water bowl to help prevent frozen water during wintertime.
• Make plenty of noise before starting up your vehicles or farm equipment, especially during the colder months when outdoor cats look for places to stay warm, like under the hood of your vehicle. Dr. Peakheart warns others to, “Make sure you bang on the hood before starting the car to give them a chance to get out.”
• Construct a perch or loft area, so barn cats have a safe space from potential predators. “Offer them a few choices,” encourages Dr. Peakheart. “Cats love high perches or small holes they can dive into, if needed.”
• Spay and neuter to prevent litters, as well as to deter them from roaming away, fighting with others and overall, from channeling their inner ‘Tomcat.’

Read more: Caring for Barn Cats?

By Laura Reiman, MS, PMA-CPT

What Is Pilates?

Pilates is a mind-body conditioning method that trains the whole body for quality, efficient movement. This exercise modality emphasizes flexibility, strength, control, and balance through progressive and safe movement.

Pilates was created by a man named Joseph Pilates who went from being a sickly child with rickets, asthma, and rheumatic fever to a being a model for anatomy charts as well as a fitness pioneer. He was born in Germany in 1883 and spent his early years studying an array of Eastern and Western exercises and philosophies, borrowing ideas from gymnastics, bodybuilding, boxing, fencing, yoga, and other forms of movement to improve his own health and well-being.

During World War I, Pilates was interned in a camp on the Isle of Man where he was tasked with rehabilitating the sick and disabled within the camp. Continuing his exploration of acquiring a healthy body, Pilates helped his “patients” get better faster and strengthen both their body and their immune system. By the time he came to America in the early 1920s, he had devised his own movement method named “Contrology.” Contrology prioritized nourishing the body as a whole and was considered a lifestyle just as much as an exercise program. After his death in 1967, Contrology became known simply as Pilates.

While some people continue to practice Pilates just as it was created by the man himself, other practitioners have chosen a more contemporary approach, using the exercises and ideas Joseph Pilates extolled as a framework and building upon it using new research and knowledge about the body and what it needs today. It is this contemporary approach that lends itself so well to the equine body.

Read more: Pilates for Horses—It’s a Thing