Cat food for cat who has reduced ability to smell the food?

I've tried searching, but I didn't come up with anything on this subject.  I'm sure there is, but I couldn't find it.

I believe Cynthia's not eating her food because she can't smell it. She will look like she's hungry, sniff the bowl of food, and then walk away.  I'm trying to find something (pate preferably) that will smell strong enough that maybe if she smells it she will eat it.

Anyone have any suggestions?  The Nurse at the Vet Hospital suggested maybe dehydrated food.  I'm going over to the store and look at what they have in a few minutes.  (I have to be down in that area anyway).

Thanks for your help.

Most wet pate cat foods smell pretty strong to me, but you can increase the smell by heating it for a few seconds in the microwave or adding warm water to it. You can also add strong smelling toppers like a bit of tuna water or bonito flakes or freeze-dried meats and organs.

Actually, that's a classic sign of nausea. We had this issue with Lazlo, and I found a number of different toppers - sometimes they'd help him dig in, but often not. When we gave him cerenia, he ate. So do consider the possibility that she's nauseous. In fact, it's worth trying something just to see, rather than driving yourself nuts trying to find the right food or topper. It may be due to bile - if so, you can talk to the vet about using famotidine or ranitidine (pepcid or zantac - zantac also helps with motility), or the cerenia or odansetron.

Toppers that have strong smell:

Bonito flakes crushed up
Freeze dried chicken or beef liver, powdered (the beef is usually very hard, so I use a grinder to powder it)
Freeze dried cod or salmon
Tuna juice or clam juice
Watered down baby food (beech nut has no corn starch) drizzled on the food
FortiFlora (though this has animal digest in it - if she's sensitive to that, that could be an issue)

LDG - A little bit of history, which I omitted from my original post (due to being in a hurry):

We are currently feeding her via feeding tube because her weight dropped to under 5 pounds.

She does eat on her own, just not enough to gain or sustain weight.

We are feeding her Iams Intestinal Plus vet food mixed with Clinicare (high calorie supplement).  We feed her 40 ml 4 times a day.  The vet wanted us to feed her 60  ml 3 times a day, but that caused her to vomit. 

Medicine, she gets 1/2 Pepcid and steroid in the morning, and 1/8 of an anti nausea pill 30 minutes before each feeding.  She also gets 1/8 of mirtazapine every 3 days.

We are thinking it might be a case of not being able to smell the food, because she will act like she's hungry, I put a bowl of food for her and she'll sniff it and walk away.  This is food she used to love.  She still does eat some of it, and also dry food, but Not enough to ever hope to get the feeding tube out of her.

Tuna juice, baby food, or FortiFlora doesn't work.

I just got some samples of Honest Kitchen freeze dried food to try, haven't done that yet.

I will try the clam juice.

I asked the vet last night about sardines, but she said not a good thing to give a cat.

I will also try warming up the food a little bit before I offer it.

I was hoping to find a wet food that stunk to high heaven, but I dunno. Probably would be crappy quality too

Aw little Cindy... :rub: :heart2:

Well, there have certainly been cases where the anti-nausea med prescribed didn't work for the animal. If you're using cerenia, maybe she needs onedasteron or reglan (which helps with motility via gastric emptying). Or perhaps pepcid isn't the right antacid for her - maybe zantac would work better.

Is there a reason to suspect she can't smell the food?

I thought that was the case with Lazlo while he was on chemo - but ultimately, it wasn't about smell. :dk:

Also, maybe she'd do better with cypro as the appetite stimulant that mirtazipine. I'd chat with the vet about trying other things - and I'd change just one thing at a time.

Poor little Cindy has been through so much, including a 5 hour visit to the eVet on Friday to replace the tube that came out.  It didn't take that long to replace, but emergencies kept coming in.  I'm sure she thought she was being left there again   

The anti nausea med she's getting is the onedasteron.  we started with Cernia but there was some issue, I don't remember what it was.  We also started on 1/4 pill of the onedasteron, but it seemed to make her sleep all the time.  Something was, we were concerned, so asked about reducing the dosage to 1/8.  Once we did that, she perked right up.

The only reason I have to suspect maybe she can't smell is she acts like she is hungry, sniffs the food, then walks away.  She does eat sometimes, and she tolerates the 40 ml of food 4 times a day we feed here.  She does vomit occasionally, but not very often.  Before the onedasteron, she had a massive amount of vomiting.

The mirtazapine works, but again we cut back from 1/4 to 1/8 because it was making her awfully manic.  We did ask about other appetite stimulates, and the Vet told us there were some but with not so great side effects. 

I will make a note of the alternate drugs you mentioned to discuss with the Vet when we go for Cindy's Tuesday appointment.

The good news is she has put on a little weight, but if we can't get her to eat enough on her own to sustain it, we're looking long term feeding tube I guess.