Atlanta Daily World

KITTY LEARNS ABOUT BEAUTY THE HARD WAY

By MME. QUI VIVE

This is a story about a cat. It's a sad story, but it has a happy ending AND a moral - a moral for every beauty-conscious woman, whether she loves cats, hates 'em or is just plain indifferent to the breed.

We happen to like cats and we've always had two or three around the house, getting them as kittens and raising them as they should be raised - with proper diet, lots of play and, most of all, a great deal of love. That's all kitties really need to be happy.

Seven years ago, however, we acquired a full grown cat: adopted him since his mistress had to leave the country and couldn't take him with her. Because, even at the age of five, he was the youngest of our feline family, we re-christened him Baby. And, frankly, Baby was a mess. His first mistress had loved him to be sure, but she definitely didn't know how to raise a cat.

Unlike our own soft-furred kitties, Baby had fur which was coarse as wire. His skin was even worse. It was dry and flaky, not with the flakiness of dandruff in humans, but a real scaliness, with flakes the size of fish scales.

Immediately, we realized that Baby was suffering from a vitamin deficiency. But what to do? It is practically impossible to change the diet of a cat once he's food grooved. And, despite all our efforts, Baby refused to eat anything which his first mistress had not given him.

We bought vitamin pills by the hundred, but they were all wasted. We'd pop them down his little pink mouth, he'd gulp them down we thought. But no! Tricky little devil that he was, we'd find them an hour later -- under a chair or hidden in a corner. He'd just make believe he swallowed them, but hold them in the side of his mouth and, at an opportune moment, spit them out.

We finally gave up and decided we'd be resigned to the "ugly duckling" in our cat family.

Then, six weeks ago, Baby had a fall and hurt his hind legs. This too, was unusual, since cats rarely fall. So off to the "Vet" we went.

Well, the good doctor fixed up his legs, but, best of all, was the "side job" he did. He was really shocked when he saw that cat's fur and skin. He even attributed the fall to the vitamin deficiency: said his legs were just not as strong as they should be. Furthermore, he found that Baby had a damaged nervous system which was affecting his middle ear. And all this because he'd lived his twelve years on a vitamin-deficient diet.

We told him about our efforts to give him the needed vitamins and he showed us how to give pills to a cat. It takes two people -- but it works. And he put him on an extremely high vitamin and mineral supplementary diet - TWO one-a-day vitamin capsules and a pill just full of minerals twice a day.

In three weeks the results were remarkable. His fur became soft as a kitten's: his skin lost all its dryness. And best of all, now after six weeks, he's lost all his nervousness, his legs are strong and healthy again and he runs and jumps and plays like a 1-year old.

We are going to continue the treatment for the rest of his life. But we think the moral is obvious.

How many of us spend, only Heaven knows how many beauty dollars down the drain, buying creams for our faces and lotions for our hair and complaining that in spite of all, skin and hair remain dry? Dermatologists, dieticians and beauty experts are constantly exhorting us to eat well-balanced menus, not only for the sake of our health but for our looks. They stress the need for proteins, for vitamins, for minerals - every day.

But we go our merry way eating what we please and thinking it doesn't matter. Then when nervous systems go awry, looks begin to fade and we feel just plain miserable, we wonder why.

Take a lesson from Baby, who learned about health and looks - the hard way!

Distributed by King Features Syndicate