Dear Dr. Fox: I am writing in response to a letter from J.S. in Brick, N.J. She wrote about her tortoiseshell cat throwing up. I was surprised by your answer.

Your column helped solve my 16-year-old Himi's vomiting problem by suggesting wet food over dry and by recommending a book: "Your Cat."

Our cat was throwing up three to four times daily and was listless and failing. We immediately put him and his buddy on commercial wet food after trying organic, which was horribly expensive and loaded with vegetables. They are offered wet food three times a day, and I keep a bowl of Hill's ID laced with a capsule of fish oil.

Both cats are doing beautifully. The vomiting is down to a minimum, and Himi is heavier, happier and friskier than he has been in years. Please tell your reader to try the wet-food route. It certainly changed our cat's life, and ours. -- P.W., Palm Beach, Fla.

Dear P.W.: All cat owners, pet-food manufacturers and veterinarians take note. This is one of many letters I have received that documents the physical and psychological benefits of good nutrition for cats.

What is most notable is how frisky and happy cats often become when their diet of the same dry junk food every day is radically changed. This reminds me of Morgan Spurlock, the young man who ate at McDonald's exclusively for a month as an experiment and became lethargic, fat, depressed and physically sick before the month was over.

Dear Dr. Fox: Our cat has a mega-colon. For many years, we fought with her every other night, trying to administer oral meds for it. Sometimes she needed more than just meds. Being a massage therapist, I thought I would try massaging her tummy and try to get things moving. It worked.

I give her tummy rubs every day or every other day. I now have her off the medicine. She is 17 years old and going strong.

I use a vertical stroke from the top of her rib cage to her lower abdomen, which seems to work well. She now has a bowel movement about every other day. -- J.F., Bayville, N.J.

Dear J.F.: Many thanks for confirming what I have long maintained: the therapeutic benefits of massage therapy for pets.

My books, "The Healing Touch for Cats" and "The Healing Touch for Dogs" (Newmarket Press), document the many benefits of people learning how to give a regular massage to their animal companions. Cats especially become very demanding for such attention.

As a little boy with parents who were way ahead of their time when it comes to finding safe alternatives to conventional medicine, I was taught how to massage my lower abdomen whenever I was constipated.

I appreciate you sharing how well massage therapy can work on cats. Far too many suffer from chronic constipation and mega-colon today. Even after undergoing colonic surgery when medications fail, some have to be euthanized.

The first preventions are an active life with other cats and a "natural," whole-food, raw or partially raw diet with no cereals.

To order Dr. Michael W. Fox's newsletter, Animal Doctor, on providing the best care for your animal companion, send a check or money order for $2 and a long, self-addressed, stamped envelope to Newsletter, P.O. Box 167, Wickliffe, OH 44092.