Ready To Murder/suicide Me And My Cat.

[raypinciotti]

So frustrating! How can I make my 14 year old cat gain some weight? Long story short , constipation back in January, we got her in a liquid diet (canned fancy feast in a blender added water ) and ever since then she has become the pickiest eater ever. She wasn't like that before, she'd eat what was available.

I recently took her for a whole check up, everything is fine. Vet recommended royal canine 7+ to be proactive and protect her kidneys starting right now and that the weight loss was associated with her diet.

But I'm at the end of my rope. I have bought every dry food available, from royal canine to Whiskas and she won't eat it, I'm even importing some fancy feast dry food from the US that should arrive at the end of May. I gave her some boiled chicken breast, she ate part of it but after a few hours she didn't touch it, she'll eat canned fancy feast or a Whiskas pouch IF it's the right flavor, if not she turns around and goes to the yard. I just don't know what to do anymore. Should I buy her some vitamins or something?

 

[lisahe]

Senior cats often have a tendency to lose weight and muscle mass, so it's important to keep them eating. And cats also have a tendency to get picky so at this point, I'd feed the cat whatever Fancy Feast and Whiskas food she wants -- preferably high-calorie ones -- and try to work some other caloric canned foods into her diet (please see below on enticements). Given the previous constipation issues, you might want to look for foods that don't list byproducts at top of the ingredient lists: they could contain a fair amount of bone that contributes to the constipation problem. You might want to take a look at this page about constipation. It's on a raw food site but many of the ideas -- like feeding diets with more fat -- are good for any kind of food. Egg yolk is also thought it increase motility and keep food moving through a cat's system.

Of course this is just me but what I would not do is try to feed her more dry food. Yes, it's caloric but cats really need protein rather than the carbs that make dry food so caloric. (It's also the protein that helps maintain the muscle mass.) If you think your cat will keep eating chicken breast consistently, then by all means check out recipes for homemade cat food that include all the supplements a cat needs. One other thought on food: have you tried sprinkling anything on your cat's food to make it more enticing? Some picky cats (like one of ours!) will eat just about anything if there's a crumbled treat (our cat loves plain freeze-dried chicken) or small amount of egg yolk powder on top.

You mentioned that your vet gave your cat a full checkup and she looked fine. Did the vet run a blood panel? If not, a senior blood panel is a good idea at your cat's age and it helps give a baseline for kidney and thyroid disease, among other things.

Good luck!

 

[raypinciotti]

Thank you for the insight, I am so desperate and I am seriously losing my patience. The vet did a full blood panel, everything was perfectly fine, kidneys, liver, thyroid , etc . She also had a full physical. I mean the cat is the picture of health, she is active and has her routine, her yard etc.
I plan on going to talk to the vet again tomorrow about her diet or lack of interest in food and we'll see. I notice some days she eats well and some days she eats very little. But none of these days I've seen her eat enough to put on weight. Maybe a can of fancy feast every 12 hours?

I have another problem, I have no idea if she is eating crickets or small animals (not rats, just insects maybe small lizards? Although it looks lizard free I'm not positive) outside because she has a big yard and has access to it all night. At this point I'm like, could she have parasites? But the vet said nothing about parasites. I'll talk to the vet about this tomorrow too but, like she told me, if she had parasites they won't kill her, the vet was a lot more concerned with the blood panel and finding a disease. Once that was clear she told me it was the diet but didn't consider parasites.
I honestly feel I need her to be great for like a few weeks so I can have a break.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi! I've been in your shoes -
The main thing you want is to be able to feel a thin layer of fat over the ribs.

So, you have that kibble coming, --I'll tell you what. If she'll eat it by all means give it to her, just give her a ratio of more wet food than dry.

Can you keep her indoors all the time, at least for a while? It adds complications trying to figure out what she is or isn't eating when she is outside, I think.

Aside from the kibble issue, you can leave wet food out for up to 12 hours without it going bad. I would suggest having wet food available for her all the time, whatever favorite flavor she'll eat.

There is a product called Tummyworks, and also a product by Animal Essentials, Plant enzyme and Probiotic. See if your vet is ok with you trying one of these to help with her digestive system functioning.

Here are some toppers/enticements for you to try;

• boiled unseasoned chicken or turkey,

• sardines,

• tuna,

• tuna juice from the tuna can,

• canned kitten food,

• kitten replacement milk powder or liquid as an add-in,

• bonito flakes,

• heating the wet food slightly,

• parmeson or shredded cheddar cheese,

• fortiflora

• mackerel

• raw egg yolk once or twice a week (egg white must be cooked)
• her favorite kibble
• unflavored gelatin, it's protein

Good luck!

 

[lisahe]

Furballsmom gave a good list of things to put on top of food to make it more appealing -- these sorts of things can be really helpful! Kitten food can be good for another reason, too: it's often more caloric than food for all life stages.

I also wonder about parasites or some other problem that might have come up from the cat ( R raypinciotti , what is your cat's name, by the way?) eating bugs or salamanders outside. Might the salamanders even be toxic in some ways?

Since the cat's blood tests came out okay -- the kidney numbers are particularly important -- that makes me wonder if she's ever had digestive issues, like vomiting or bloody stools. (Our previous cat also lost her appetite when as she aged; she had fairly mild kidney disease but it was likely IBD that was probably a larger factor.) Beyond that, the fact that your cat apparently eats well some days but not others makes me wonder about nausea. Does she lick her lips a lot? That's often a sign of nausea. It's worth asking your vet about nausea, too, particularly since there are medications that can help ease it. Our pickier cat seems to have low-grade nausea that comes and goes, affecting her appetite. We haven't had to get her medication for it but changes in her diet have helped. Feeding homecooked food with a supplement seems to help most of all; our vet thinks the supplement's ingredients, which include pancreas, are what make it so helpful.

Anyway, those are just more thoughts... it's often difficult to sort out what's causing eating and digestive issues so you definitely have my sympathy.

 

[Kefa]

How are her teeth?

 

[raypinciotti]

No vomiting no bloody stools, no flatulence . But I will check on the parasites thing with the vet. Hopefully she can sell me some tablets, vets usually like to give intravenous antiparasite medication but I just refuse to drive her all the way to the vet for a shot. She just stresses too much.

I just opened a can of fancy feast, not interested.....she MUST be hungry I have been out of the house for 7 hours and she's been inside .

I'm highly stressed about this but I'll try to keep calm and I'll talk to the vet again and try all the tricks you kindly posted here, we'll see . I need her to put on some weight, it stresses me out to see her so skinny.

 

[raypinciotti]

How are her teeth?

Teeth are fine. The vet said no reason to not eat.

 

[Furballsmom]

Try some tuna, --what else do you have that you can tempt her with?

 

[lisahe]

I'm highly stressed about this but I'll try to keep calm and I'll talk to the vet again and try all the tricks you kindly posted here, we'll see . I need her to put on some weight, it stresses me out to see her so skinny.

I know, it's horribly stressful, isn't it? (We've been there, too... the worst part is that cats pick up on our stress but it's so hard not to stress!) Particularly since it sounds like you and the vet have considered just about everything. I hope the vet is able to give you some ideas about either parasites or nausea.

 

[1 bruce 1]

The ingredients suck, but nutri-cal or nutri-stat has been helpful to us whenever we have kittens needing extra calories or adults go off their food. Most cats find it palatable but not on a plate, we take a 1/2 or so strip and smear it in their mouth (it's sticky) so they have no choice but to ingest it. It also seems to work as a mild appetite stimulant.
When you have a formerly food-centric cat that sucks up any bits of food they can find and then decide "nah", it's SO frustrating, but try not to get too upset if you can (preaching to the choir, I know, I am, LOL.)
Have you noticed any kind of sneezing or any kind of watery eyes or watery or crusty looking nose on her? I'm wondering if she has a mild URI, but I imagine the vet would have seen this. They can kill a sense of smell and no sense of smell = cats that think not eating is just dandy.

 

[LTS3]

You can try the liver shake: "liver Shake" Recipe For Inappetant Cats It'll make a lot so have ice cube trays ready to freeze all the extras for later use.

 

[raypinciotti]

The ingredients suck, but nutri-cal or nutri-stat has been helpful to us whenever we have kittens needing extra calories or adults go off their food. Most cats find it palatable but not on a plate, we take a 1/2 or so strip and smear it in their mouth (it's sticky) so they have no choice but to ingest it. It also seems to work as a mild appetite stimulant.
When you have a formerly food-centric cat that sucks up any bits of food they can find and then decide "nah", it's SO frustrating, but try not to get too upset if you can (preaching to the choir, I know, I am, LOL.)
Have you noticed any kind of sneezing or any kind of watery eyes or watery or crusty looking nose on her? I'm wondering if she has a mild URI, but I imagine the vet would have seen this. They can kill a sense of smell and no sense of smell = cats that think not eating is just dandy.

No sneezing, no Watery eyes, no crusty looking nose. :-/

 

[raypinciotti]

You can try the liver shake: "liver Shake" Recipe For Inappetant Cats It'll make a lot so have ice cube trays ready to freeze all the extras for later use.

Where do you get spirulina? I've never heard of it, is it human grade stuff I can buy in a holistic / whole food shop? Also, Idk how I feel about raw chicken liver ... It's available around where I live, it's just idk about how sanitary it is. Organic will be hard to find... Would it be OK to cook it? I'm going to do some shopping tomorrow, I'll buy everything on your suggestions lists I can find available. Sigh.....

 

[pegleg]

See if the vet recommends a calorie/nutritional paste. I've just used some to help an abandoned bag of bones put on weight.

It might help temporarily while you try the other options in the thread.

 

[raypinciotti]

This is the cat from above. This is her pretty face. What do you guys think? I plan on going with my list tomorrow to buy everything. I opened a bag of whiskas treats, I saw them at the supermarket and told myself whatever she ate maybe 7 of them? I put them on top of her food.

 

[LTS3]

You want food grade spirulina. Any health food or vitamin store will have it. Even the health food section of a chain supermarket might have it. Whole Foods, if you have one in the area, sells it: spirulina at Whole Foods Market - Instacart Of course, Amazon and other online stores sells spirulina. Read the ingredient list before you buy. You want a product that is just spirulina with no other stuff.

Raw liver from the supermarket is fine. You could lightly poach it in plain water if that makes you feel more comfortable.

 

[Furballsmom]

What a sweetie!!
She's a bit slim, but doesn't look like she's dangerously thin yet. Good for you for doing all that you can

 

[Furballsmom]

The ingredients suck, but nutri-cal or nutri-stat

I chuckled when I read this - I was thinking the same thing LOL, but hey, if it works, then by all means

 

[Furballsmom]

R raypinciotti hang in there, you're doing an awesome job of working to see that your furbaby does as well as possible!!