Take the @RoyalCanin Curiosity Saved the Cat Pledge and Help Shelter Animals #Cat2VetDay #Ad

       ***Disclosure:This post is sponsored by Royal Canin® and the BlogPaws® Pet Influencer   Network™ . I am being compensated for helping spread the word about Royal Canin® and National Take Your Cat to the Vet Day, but Newly Crunchy Mama Of 3 only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers. Royal Canin® is not responsible for the content of this article.***

As many of you know, we are a very pet-friendly household. Okay. I'll keep it completely real with you here. We have a zoo. Six cats and a dog keep us on our toes and shower us with affection every single day.

Yes. I just said SIX CATS. We have Noodles, Pringles, Truffles, Havarti, Cheeseball, and Mary Jane.

We got our first kitty, Noodles, after noticing mice were trying to come in out of the cold one fall. I wasn't having any of that, and didn't want to use poison since we had small kids and a dog at the time. So naturally, a cat was our most logical choice for combatting our little mouse issue. It worked like a charm.

After Noodles, we ended up stumbling onto a few rescue kitties. Pringles was on Death Row at a high-kill shelter in NYC. She was sick with a URI, scared to death, and listed as a New Hope Only rescue. Thankfully, we were able to scramble and apply with a rescue, and she was pulled in time to save her. We drove all the way to the Pennsylvania mountains to get her, and now she's Queen of the Castle.

After that, we rescued the others. We're done now. No more cats for us, as six is certainly quite the responsibility, and it's one we take seriously. After all, our four-legged family members deserve all the love and care we can give them. They love us back unconditionally, making them very valued members of our family.

Since all of our cats were rescues, we learned right away how important it is for cats to see the veterinarian on a regular basis. Most of our rescue kitties had some sort of underlying health issue that needed to be resolved upon their rescue, so we formed a very good relationship with our vet early on. She stressed to us from our first visit how cat health relies very much on preventative care and early addressing of any issues.

Many pet owners don't realize the importance of regular vet visits and  preventative care, and only take their cats to the vet when they're seriously ill or aging. This is a mistake that's commonly made. Half of all cats do not see a veterinarian on a regular basis. In fact, only one cat is seen by a veterinarian for every five dogs, despite the fact that 10 million more cats are owned in the U.S.

 Royal Canin® , a leader in pet nutrition,  recently commissioned a survey to better understand how pet owners feel about cat health, especially compared to dogs and learned some interesting things:

• Compared to dog owners, six times as many cat owners have not taken their cat to the vet this year and don’t plan to.

• Two-thirds of cat owners simply believe cats have fewer health issues than dogs.

• The older a cat gets, the more likely the owner is to take her to the vet only when she is sick. Thirtyone percent of those with a senior cat only take her to the vet when she is sick, compared to 20% for adult cats, 18% for adolescents and 17% for kittens.

Royal Canin has created the ‘Curiosity Saved the Cat’ campaign with the goal of raising awareness about the importance of preventive health care for cats. Inspired by the innate curiosity of cats, Royal Canin is supporting National Take Your Cat to the Vet Day on August 22 with a challenge to become more curious about our cats’ health.

Curiosity Saved the Cat.....Get it? I thought that was quite clever! It gave me a smile, since I know just how curious my cats tend to be, especially if it's 3:00AM and I'm trying to sleep. I can't tell you how many times I've heard scurrying, jumping and climbing, or even the crash of some inanimate object in the middle of the night. 

But I digress. 

Joining Royal Canin in urging more attention to preventative veterinary care for cats are the American Association of Feline Practitioners, the CATalyst Council, The International Cat Association and the Cat Fanciers’ Association. Like I said, this is important stuff here. Even the experts agree!

“Curiosity Saved the Cat” asks cat owners to pledge to see the vet this year and visit www.royalcanin.com/Cat2VetDay to ‘scratch’ their name on the pledge list. For every pledge taken through August 26, Royal Canin will donate a bowl of food to animal shelters across the country.

How cool is that?! Simply pledge to take your own feline companions for a check-up this year, and you'll be helping provide food to shelter cats around the United States. I feel really good about that, don't you? 

Check out this adorable video, "Cats Are", that  Royal Canin has released to bring awareness to this great cause. I'm sure you may recognize some of these kitties from YouTube and social media fame!

Will you join me in taking the Curiosity Saved the Cat Pledge? Not only will you learn a lot more about cat health and how to keep your kitties happy and healthy, if you take the pledge between now and August 26, you'll be helping shelter animals, too!

You can also follow Royal Canin on Facebook, on twitter, and on Instagram to stay on top of their latest news, products, and promotions.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Royal Canin®. The opinions and text are all mine.