getting her to eat royal canin so

[sylorna]

hi
Dynah was diagnosed with bladder crystals today. The vet has her on royal canin so wet as of today. Problem is that she is excessively picky about her wet foods.. Even if there is a batch that is slightly different she'll refuse to eat. Fortunately her favorite is pate turkey so the chicken flavour is close. Tonight she looked at me like I was crazy and meowed for the other dish in my hand.
I've locked her in the bedroom with it... Any other thoughts? Should I mix the two for a bit?

 

[Columbine]

Shadow hated the royal canin s/o too. Hand feeding it morsel by morsel helped a little. FortiFlora (used as a seasoning instead of a probiotic) can tempt cats to eat. If she likes tuna, some tuna water mixed in might help tempt her. Freeze dried chicken treats crumbled over the food might tempt her too.

Mixing the two might work, but in your situation, I'd really be wanting to get her eating the vet diet only to give the crystals the best chance of dissolving. Having said that, getting some of the s/o into her is tons better than getting none of it in. The food can't help her from its tin :lol3:

If nothing works, you could call the vet and ask if she can recommend a different brand of urinary food. There are several options out there. Just make sure it's a prescription diet - there are non prescription urinary diets out there too, but I'd guess they're more preventative than curative.

Lastly, Shad hated the s/o wet but liked the dry (in the days when I didn't know any better). I'm not suggesting you feed the dry version, but you could ask for the smallest possible bag of it and grind a little (5 ish pieces of kibble, say) up to use a a topper for the wet. That might work too.

 

[sylorna]

Thanks for the suggestion. I decided to mix. The plan is to decrease the amount of her current food daily and hopefully she will take to it. I'll just add a few extra days on once she's on so only. If that doesn't work your tuna water might help. Picky cats can be such a pain

 

[Columbine]

You're right there. Shadow's as picky as they come. More food ends up in the bin (or the dog ) than in him some days. We currently have a food he loves, buy I know it's only a matter of time before he starts refusing things again

Good luck with your girl. Hope surgery isn't needed

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I've got a very picky eater too, but luckily he doesn't have any medical problems.  But still, I want him to eat a good food, and even that is hard.  I don't want him to only eat ONE food, so I try to slowly mix in new foods into the one food that he does like, and even then I have to add toppers, and he HATES FortiFlora

.  I've found the best toppers for him are crushed Wholelife products, like 100% freeze dried chicken, salmon or cod.  All is takes is a tiny amount.   But when introducing a new food to him, I literally can add only about 1 tablespoon to the mix for about a week.  He is such a pain

.  Good thing he's cute

 

[sylorna]

I'll think about that. Tried crushed greenies on top of the mix tonight. So far no luck, and I know she's hungry because she was begging for dinner. I've locked her in a room with it for a bit. That used to help when she was a kitten.

 

[lyssa366]

I had this issue with my cat as well, he HATES pate form food, he wouldn't even look at it when I first gave it to him. I put him on the dry food first, he ate that like it was candy (some cats have expensive taste buds), and later he ended up having more urinary issues so I put him on both wet and dry, and since he doesn't like pate form, I found these few ways worked for him.

Try adding a bit of warm water to the wet food, or putting it in the microwave for a few seconds, anything you can do to get it warm. When you warm up wet food, it brings out the aromas which are very appealing contributors to whether or not a cat will eat the food, they also just might like their food warm, every cat is different.
Or maybe just add a bit of water so you can mix it up, but don't make it soupy, she might eat it if its a little bit more watery. 

Is she strictly on a wet food diet or are you giving her kibble as well? If she really wont eat the wet food alone, try asking your vet for a sample of the dry kibble, or as far as I know, most vets will allow you to buy the bag of food and then returning it if kitty doesn't eat it. If you go that way, and she ends up liking the dry food, I highly suggest trying a mixture of both wet and dry Urinary S/O, it worked the best for my picky kitty;

I was giving him half a can of wet food a day, and 3/4 of the amount of dry food suggested. So he was getting a quarter can of wet food in the morning mixed with a quarter cup dry food and a little bit of water so that I could mix it together and I guess because there was kibble in it that he liked, he ended up eating it. And then he would get another quarter cup of kibble to eat throughout to nibble on, and then I'd repeat in the evening with another quarter cup of kibble before bedtime so that he wouldn't starve overnight.

Of course you would tailor it to your own kitties needs. 

The vet said that what I was doing was great, as long as he was getting moisture and liquids into him, his urinary problems should go down. One of the main points of the Urinary S/O diet is so that kitty will drink more water so that they pee more and everything in their urinary tract gets cleaned out, reducing the risks of urinary problems, there's also of course the nutritional side to it helping as well. 

 

[sylorna]

thanks Iyssa!

Those are some great suggestions.  I spoke to the vet tech this afternoon and she consulted with the vet. We were told to bring back the wet and bought a small bag of the dry.  That stuff must have some serious stuff in it!  She gobbled it down like it was candy.  One of our other cats had to be restrained in another room because she was trying so hard to get to it.  It made us laugh.

I'm going to stay on the dry right now because she'll eat it without issue...maybe I'll have more luck with the wet once she gets more used to the flavours of the dry.  Here's hoping her water intake goes up in the next day or two.  

Thanks again guys.  it's been such a stressful few days and I couldn't have made it through without you! 

 

[lyssa366]

SO glad to hear! I always knew cats have an expensive taste! I have my kitty on just dry right now and he drinks a whole bowl of water in a day, its crazy how good that stuff works, I'm sure you'll notice soon. Keep us posted on how shes doing

 

[sylorna]

Thanks
she's definitely drinking more now, which makes me feel good. I was wondering how long it takes until people start noticing a difference. She's been eating the dry for about a week now. She generally seems happier and more comfortable. .. coming out from under the bed more often, snuggling more, playing more. I havent done an official check but i think shes stopped bleeding as well. She still takes her time in the litter pan though. At least she's eating and drinking right?