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Feline Advisory Bureau Courses

FAB11 INTERMEDIATE AWARD
An Intermediate Award in Feline Friendly Nursing
Suggested level: Trainee VN

Written and tutored by members of FAB’s Feline Expert Panel, Behaviour Panel and COAPE.

OCN Accreditation - Intermediate Award 12 Credits. Click Here for details of accreditation.

Essential cattitude: By looking at how the cat has developed alongside man we can consider whether is ‘domesticated’. Looking at the history and nature of man’s relationship with cats will help us understand how adaptable to our lives it really is. By looking at the stages of development we can understand the building blocks of cat personality what they have to do to survive in the wild. Our lifestyle also affects the cat’s behaviour enormously. How does this impact on cats, can it help us understand how to keep them health and happy and can it influence behaviour within our homes? By understanding the process of communication and the signals which cats are sending out, we can read them better and respond more appropriately.

Understanding the feline client/preventive healthcare/compliance: Cat people are different to dog people and how well we understand the different levels of commitment and the intensity of the relationship between clients and their cats can help to improve communication and compliance. The unit will cover the basics of preventive healthcare with these things in mind and look at ways to improve compliance.

Recognising & alleviating feline stresses & health risks in practice: By understanding innate feline behaviour (unit 1) we can start to understand the stresses involved in bringing cats to the practice – both from the feline and human point of view. Again being able to recognise different levels of relationship will help in dealing with different cats and owners. Incorporating many of the principles of FAB’s cat friendly practice it is possible to reduce stress and health risks and make a visit to the practices less fraught.

Breeds, inherited disorders and handling: Any nurse in practice will be expected to instantly recognise a cat breed (no matter how rare!), so it is important to have a grasp of the different breeds, how they developed and what, if any, breed characteristics there are. We will look at some of the more well known and understood inherited disorders in some of the breeds and how clients can be advised on these. This unit will also look at handling the cat in the practice and how this can be optimised for even the most basic procedure.

The reproductive cat / ethical breeding: Most of our pet cats are neutered these days. However, both breeders and owners whose cats have accidental litters still expect nurses to have a basic understanding of cat reproduction. From behaviour in oestrus to the different stages of birth and common kitten problems, this unit will give essential background information.

Lifestage issues: When FAB developed its WellCat for life programme it rethought the lifestages of the cat, taking into account how the cat develops both physically and behaviourally and looking at the different ages and stages when body changes occur. The six lifestages bring a logical approach to preventive healthcare. The cat is also very specialised where nutrition is concerned, so an understanding of what a cat needs and how this changes throughout life can help to promote health and avoid problems such as obesity. At what stages are additional risks for certain common diseases and what tests are suggested at different ages will be explained in the context of disease prevention and early intervention.

Correspondence.

Each Unit of the course notes is e-Mailed out to students as a separate e-Book. Students also have access to the FAB Student Resource Centre where additional support and course material are available online. The Resource Centre gives you access to a range of rich media content to complement the formal course notes, including video, sound, graphics and pictures, web links, and additional written content.

We supply you with a specially designed ‘template’ on-line to assist you in writing your coursework using your own computer and preferred word processing software. Your coursework is submitted to your tutor via the internet, marked and returned back to you the same way.

Nine months with two runs per year:
1: February 1st to October 31st.
2: September 1st to May 31st the following year.

OCN registration deposit £45 + Course fee £395.

Please click on the 'Enrol' button below for details.
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