- Joined
- Feb 20, 2023
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Hi All! It was a rough couple days last week when we noticed one of our 9 year old cats was favoring his hind legs, started peeing outside the box, and had much deeper almost "yelling" type of meows. I took him to his primary vet who immediately recommended bringing him to the ER for a potential urinary blockage.
Long story short, it appears he had crystals in his bladder which grew enough to create a urinary blockage. After they inserted the catheter and drained him, he was feeling much better. They monitored him for ~36 hours during recovery and checking kidney levels and such. After ~24 hours, his levels began to normalize thankfully and he came home and is back to his usual playful self.
The vet prescribed a urinary care diet and recommended Royal Canin SO wet and dry food. The problem I'm having is that he is EXTREMELY picky when it comes to wet food and wants absolutely nothing to do with the prescription food. The ONLY brand he will eat is Fancy Feast grilled wet food of varying flavors. No patte, no flakes, just grilled. There are really no flavors of RC wet food aside from "tiny morsels in gravy" from what I can tell. I've tried mixing in a small portion of the prescribed food with the Fancy Feast, but he realizes my trickery and is not interested. I've also tried giving him Purina Pro Plan and Hill's urinary care wet foods as well with 0 luck. He just walks away from the bowl and is not interested.
The good news is that I've always had good luck with different dry foods for whatever reason. His main dry food has always been Nutro's Chicken & Rice Hairball Control. From what I've seen, his water intake has always been pretty normal, but since this whole debacle, I've added a water fountain and an extra bowl of water near the areas of the house he hangs out to encourage some additional drinking. I've noticed him drink a bit more lately and put a camera near his dishes to monitor eating/drinking overall. We also added an additional cat box in the basement.
Luckily, he has been eating the prescription RC Urinary SO dry food for the last week so I'll be sticking with that.
So now to my question... I've been reading that dry food is typically the cause for bladder crystals (please someone correct me if I am wrong). The vet is insistent on making him eat the prescription wet food, but I'm not sure how you can force a cat to eat something they aren't interested in. Am I able to feed him his regular Fancy Feast wet food as long as he is continually eating the RC SO dry food? I am hoping with the extra drinking, the prescribed dry food would be enough to change the overall pH of his urine to dissolve the crystals, but I'm just not sure. Kind of lost on what to do and what my options are.
Sorry for the novel, thank you for reading.
Long story short, it appears he had crystals in his bladder which grew enough to create a urinary blockage. After they inserted the catheter and drained him, he was feeling much better. They monitored him for ~36 hours during recovery and checking kidney levels and such. After ~24 hours, his levels began to normalize thankfully and he came home and is back to his usual playful self.
The vet prescribed a urinary care diet and recommended Royal Canin SO wet and dry food. The problem I'm having is that he is EXTREMELY picky when it comes to wet food and wants absolutely nothing to do with the prescription food. The ONLY brand he will eat is Fancy Feast grilled wet food of varying flavors. No patte, no flakes, just grilled. There are really no flavors of RC wet food aside from "tiny morsels in gravy" from what I can tell. I've tried mixing in a small portion of the prescribed food with the Fancy Feast, but he realizes my trickery and is not interested. I've also tried giving him Purina Pro Plan and Hill's urinary care wet foods as well with 0 luck. He just walks away from the bowl and is not interested.
The good news is that I've always had good luck with different dry foods for whatever reason. His main dry food has always been Nutro's Chicken & Rice Hairball Control. From what I've seen, his water intake has always been pretty normal, but since this whole debacle, I've added a water fountain and an extra bowl of water near the areas of the house he hangs out to encourage some additional drinking. I've noticed him drink a bit more lately and put a camera near his dishes to monitor eating/drinking overall. We also added an additional cat box in the basement.
Luckily, he has been eating the prescription RC Urinary SO dry food for the last week so I'll be sticking with that.
So now to my question... I've been reading that dry food is typically the cause for bladder crystals (please someone correct me if I am wrong). The vet is insistent on making him eat the prescription wet food, but I'm not sure how you can force a cat to eat something they aren't interested in. Am I able to feed him his regular Fancy Feast wet food as long as he is continually eating the RC SO dry food? I am hoping with the extra drinking, the prescribed dry food would be enough to change the overall pH of his urine to dissolve the crystals, but I'm just not sure. Kind of lost on what to do and what my options are.
Sorry for the novel, thank you for reading.
. I give him the over the counter purina urinary care wet food, purina hydracare, and hill science prescription dry food.
