Teeth out not eating well

binkyhoo

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Its been 3 weeks now that Binks had her front top canines out. She seems well in all aspects except that she is only eating 1/4 of what she used to. She is losing weight. She spends time eating crumbs off the kitchen floor and the carpet when she has 3 bowls of food there????? Picca?

Any help?
 

sharky

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Is Binks eating dry or canned food ???
 

mews2much

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I dosent sound like Picca.
Coco had that with anemia and ate strange stuff.
She would try to eat the carpet and fake trees.
I would call the vet.
 

nil4664

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Maybe she's eating crumbs because she can pick them up with her tongue. If shes eating dry, maybe try crunching it into smaller pieces. If she's eating wet, maybe try adding broth so she can lap it up, at least for a while until she learns how to eat with her new setup. Just a thought.
 

the_food_lady

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Originally Posted by binkyhoo

Its been 3 weeks now that Binks had her front top canines out. She seems well in all aspects except that she is only eating 1/4 of what she used to. She is losing weight. She spends time eating crumbs off the kitchen floor and the carpet when she has 3 bowls of food there????? Picca?

Any help?
Pica is where they eat unusual, inedible things (eg: cats with anemia will often eat cat litter). It's possible kitty is eating crumbs because they're very small easy to lick up. Sounds like cat could be having pain. Possible infection? Did Vet prescribe antibiotics following the extractions? When my cats have dentals that involve extractions, because they're older, I request they be given a prescription of antibiotics.....eg) Convenia (it's a shot, it lasts for 14 days).

I'd be contacting the Vet to report how kitty is doing. Removal of the canines is pretty extensive, due to the length of the tooth and root.......and I'm sure it's more painful than with the removal of other teeth.....but really, go back in for a check-up as soon as you can, before kitty starts losing too much weight -which can lead to other problems.

what are you feeding? dry or canned?
 
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binkyhoo

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Dry and canned. I am baffled. She has a buffet of choices. Darn.

I am going to try making her wet food more soupy with a little water.

I dont think she has an infection, she has had the antibiotics.

Thank you all.

I will bring her back in to the vet if things don get back to normal soon.
 

white cat lover

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More specifically - what dry & what shape is the kibble? I'm thinking the kibble might be too big for Binks to comfortable eat??
 

the_food_lady

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Originally Posted by binkyhoo

Dry and canned. I am baffled. She has a buffet of choices. Darn.

I am going to try making her wet food more soupy with a little water.

I dont think she has an infection, she has had the antibiotics.

Thank you all.

I will bring her back in to the vet if things don get back to normal soon.
Prior to the dental/extractions, which food did she eat the most of?...or what was her usual diet? Was it dry, and now you're offering canned but she's like some cats that don't really like canned, isn't used to it....prefers the dry but it's causing discomfort?

Maybe try making the kibble into much smaller bits. I'm just thinking about how I'd go about doing that, if I had to. I think what I'd do is, sprinkle some on a large flat cookie sheet, put a tea towel or towel over top of the food..then take a rolling pin and roll over it, to break it up?

What antibiotic was she on following the dental, and for how long?
 

momofmany

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My toothless Stumpy does much better with wet food when it is in a bowl with sides (about 1" tall), and I push the glob of food off to one side. He uses his tongue to lick up the food, and it helps him if he has something to push the food against to work it into his mouth. I also give him as much juice as I can, and will add a little water to make it more mushy for him.

For dry food, Stumpy just sucks up the chunks (he did this 2 hours post surgery). He actually manages fairly large kibble, but I don't buy anything with pointy edges. Max Cat is fairly large kibble, and he has no problems with it because the pieces are rounded along the edge.

Give Binks some scritches for me please. The poor baby!
 

laureen227

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Originally Posted by the_food_lady

I think what I'd do is, sprinkle some on a large flat cookie sheet, put a tea towel or towel over top of the food..then take a rolling pin and roll over it, to break it up?
put it into a gallon baggie, 1st, & seal [w/little or no air, btw! or you can poke a tiny hole w/a fork for air to escape] then kitchen towel & rolling pin or large can [like a soup can, full, of course!] - that way, no teeny kibble crumbs escape!
 

homebrew311

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after my jimi had a few teeth taken out, he had the same problem. my vet said that his mouth was probably sore and to try giving him some meat baby food. i did that and he loved it. he cannot eat dry food anymore and i only give him canned now.
 

natalie_ca

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Chynna had most of her teeth extracted last April. She has one canine tooth, all of her front small ones and a few small back ones.

Her mouth was sore for several weeks afterwards and I had a hard time getting her to eat the wet food. I used a hand blender to really pulverize the wet food and mixed it with a bit of water to make it thinner (not like soup), more like a thin gravy, so that she could eat it that way.

She didn't like me to put it into a bowl because her chin would get dirty, so I started putting a few tablespoons onto a salad plate. She ate it much better (most of the time) from there, but not always.

I found she sometimes ate much better if I caught her sleeping and took a plate of the liquid food to her and put it under her nose, on my bed
. She would wake up from the smell and lay there and lick the plate clean. If that didn't work, I would sit there and feed it to her from a teaspoon and let her lick it from the spoon.

After about 5 or 6 weeks she wanted more "texture" to her food, so I would still pulverize it with water, but I would keep some back. When I fed her I would put some unpulverized wet on the plate and lightly mix some of the liquid food into it. Not completely, but enough so that when she ate she was licking up the liquid and still getting texture.

You may also have to play around with the type of food you give. Chynna can't chew very well, so if I give her chunky food, she tends to lick the gravy bits and leave the food behind. After much experimenting I found one type of food that she eats consistently and other than human chicken and beef when I'm having it, the canned cat food is all she gets, unless she eats the "Purina Cat Chow" from Abby's bowl, which I now find that she does on a daily basis, several months after her surgery.

Just be patient and persistent, try all kinds of wet food and work out different textures until your kitty finds something enjoyable.
 

Ms. Freya

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I'll second the poster who suggested breaking the dry food into smaller bits. You can also try adding a bit of water to it (just dampen it so them can still pick it up like usual, but it's not crunchy.

Cotton had several more teeth out recently (he has no front teeth other than his canines) and we found that adding the water to his dry was just the thing once he was healed enough to come off wet food (he hates wet food so he'd go try to steal Freya's dry while we weren't looking)
 
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