REMINDERS, EVEN for lifelong cat lovers

Please NEVER use cheap litter, we learned this the HARD way.  ONLY USE DUST-FREE LITTER!

NEVER use a covered litter-box, I don't even recommend it with DUST-FREE LITTER, as still I believe it hinders a cat's breathing not to mention if the litter doesn't get changed enough, ammonia could build up and cause severe damage to your kitty.

COUGHING (without producing a hairball) should IMMEDIATELY TELL YOU TO TAKE YOUR CAT TO THE VETERINARIAN, It could be a matter of life and death (and in our case; death was the outcome, all because we waited too long, were unaware of this, had NO IDEA.)

I SWEAR by wet (canned) cat food and if you cannot afford the BEST wet; Friskies in chicken, fish, and turkey flavors BUT ONLY pate' and/or flaked food should be fed.  NOTHING WITH GRAVY IN IT!  (THIS NOT ONLY SAVED OUR DIABETIC CAT, MJ; BUT it actually REVERSED THE DIABETES!)

I'm also going to mention two more things:

It is HORRIBLE to have your cat's nails removed AND INDOOR cats live longer lives.

I have only had and have maybe 5-6-7 very close friends whom I love & trust in my life; HUMAN friends.

I have HAD NEARLY 35 feline and 12 canine friends, AND I LOVED AND TRUSTED ALL OF THEM.

(Sort of a sad realization, but true.)

After a devastating 2 months, 2 losses; I just felt compelled to post this in hopes that maybe someone's kitty will NOT have to go through what our little girl just did.

Thank you for reading, and if you don't believe in canned cat food, Google it, Google diabetic cats.  Things have changed, veterinarian medicine has come a long way since our first diabetic kitty.  Don't EVER let your vet put your sick kitty on that DRY food for kidney disease, diabetes, or ANYTHING.

It is NOT WHAT CAT'S ARE MEANT TO EAT!  Natural food is a way around/to manage many issues if your cat is suffering from an illness.

Please keep this in mind and love them like there's no tomorrow very sadly, sometime there is not one.

I'm really so sorry to hear you've had so many recent losses. What happened to your babies?  It sounds like you really went through the ringer with products that were not appropriate for them.  Thank you for looking out for the rest of us by warning with the voice of experience.

I do think that every cat is different and products that are harmful to some, might not have adverse effects on others.  I guess I am thinking of the warnings to only use certain kinds of food.  I didn't actually know anything about feline nutrition with my first few cats and raised one on kibble  - Poppy  lived a long healthy life and passed at 17. My others were raised on Friskies sliced or gravy canned food -  Wesley lived to be 19 and Milo to be 14, passing away from cancer.  Lucy lived to be 17 - basically all my cats lived well into their senior years eating the kinds of food your cat had such problems with.  So I think there is a lot of room for individuality there. 

I agree that coughing calls for a vet visit.  It can be something relatively easy to treat to something very serious.  And even if it's not very serious, it's still uncomfortable for the cat so it's best to follow through with coughing as soon as possible.  I'm really sorry you lost a cat under these circumstances.  It's especially hard when we wish we'd done something different but I'm sure you did the best you knew at the time. 

Totally agree that declawing cats should only be done when medically necessary - otherwise it is cruel and inhumane.

I've used a covered litter box before - in fact that's what I have now.  However,  Paul has gotten too big for it so I put the hood on the bathroom floor, at which point Chula ran in to make it a little house.   I didn't notice any problems with using it covered, though, although I think you've raised some excellent points against using one.

Again, thanks for the warnings. 

Thank you, and Momma-Kat's "babies" are all four still with us.  They're 9 now.

Yes, I agree all cats are different.  With regard to the food, up until 4 years ago; (and approximately 30 cats) we only fed dry kibble.

And about 14 years ago when our first cat (Max) became diabetic; even then no one knew the issues with even GOOD dry food.

Yes, we were lucky too (up until then) having several kitties live into their twenties!

BUT, looking back; we also lost a few to kidney disease which may or may not have been due to dry food.

Since our first experience with a diabetic cat, about 10 years later one of Momma-Kat's babies (MJ) became diabetic and in those ten years BOY HAVE THINGS CHANGED!

I am very glad you've not had issues with health over the years, but just for the heck of it, why don't you Google "dry cat food".

I'm not saying you'll go out and start feeding them strictly what I recommend; but it really isn't very good.  Even the medicated dry food our X-vet tried to sell us during MJ's diabetes period (as wet truly reversed this, and she is thankfully happy, healthy, and lost much needed extra weight)- even that dry food is on the "Not good for cats" list!

Anyhow....Thanks again for the kind words.  I hope you don't think I'm being a know it all but after all the issues in the past, and the two diabetic cats, and now Momma-Kat whose lungs were so filled and inflamed from litter dust, we will never go back to dry food.  Her babies are also going to be taken to the vet on a regular basis as we've slacked on that in the past (hard when you take care of everyone's "throw-aways" and end up with 10 cats but now we're down to four, and they will be our last (unfortunately).  But in 9 years we'll be traveling the country and any sort of pet is just not going to be possible.

Take care and thanks again ,

Sandi

MJ (Momma Junior, looks just like her mom only HUGE)

Rudy (Momma's only boy)

Butterfly (my beautiful avatar cat)

Tiger (Momma's odd-ball striped tiger baby)

I am totally with you about dry cat food, and I am always getting on my soap box about it here on TCS.  I'm so old that it really wasn't around when I was a kid, except for the dogs.  Our dog and cat each got some Hills Frozen Horsemeat, and the dog got kibble with it as well.   But that was the early 1950s.  I remember when my best friend got canned food for her cat, it was Calo Cat Food, and you can't even find that on Google these days even as an historical entity.  It was all fish and pretty soupy.  Mostly all the cats back then ate table scraps and were just fine.  They also mostly went outside and id their own hunting so they had a varied natural diet.  

I agree with you totally about the "prescription diet" foods and the fact that MOST vets (not all) know little about nutrition because it hasn't been stressed in vet school, and the courses given are usually connected to or influenced by the pet food industry, so the vets assume that these foods are thoroughly researched and manufactured and are absolutely the best foods for the pets.  Yes, it is totally absurd to feed ANY dry food to a cat with urinary problems, or to feed a high carbohydrate dry food to a diabetic cat, but many vets assume that if the industry says it's the right diet for the problem, then it must be the right food.  So yes, keep educating people to the best of your ability and you will help these cats.  Sharing your personal experience in detail is good -- like the fact your cat reversed her diabetes when put on species appropriate food consisting of real meat (not plant) protein, moderate fat, and low carbohydrates.  You would be a great person to answer posts where peoples cats have just been diagnosed with diabetes because you can speak with the voice of experience. People want to know what you know and how you know it and how it can help them.



I'm not sure what litter you were using that irritated your cats lungs so badly, but using a non-dusty litter is definitely the way to go and these days there are many choices.  I have heard there are problems with the "light" litter, so if it was that one, please write a review and tell everyone.  Actually, please write a review about whatever litter it was that you think made your cat sick.  I can't speak to the subject because I have had no personal experience with it.  I use pine pellets (horse bedding) from Tractor Supply for most of my boxes and a very low dust unscented clumping litter in a couple of boxes for the fussy ones who will not use anything else.

I'm really sorry for your losses but glad you have learned so much from those experiences.  Most of us here have had losses, and we share what we have learned from them in hopes of helping other cats and their owners.  People come here and ask questions because they want to learn from the experience of everyone who is a member on this site, so I hope you will stay around and share what you have learned and help others.

KrazyCatLady13 said:

 
Thank you, and Momma-Kat's "babies" are all four still with us.  They're 9 now.

Yes, I agree all cats are different.  With regard to the food, up until 4 years ago; (and approximately 30 cats) we only fed dry kibble.

And about 14 years ago when our first cat (Max) became diabetic; even then no one knew the issues with even GOOD dry food.

Yes, we were lucky too (up until then) having several kitties live into their twenties!

BUT, looking back; we also lost a few to kidney disease which may or may not have been due to dry food.

Since our first experience with a diabetic cat, about 10 years later one of Momma-Kat's babies (MJ) became diabetic and in those ten years BOY HAVE THINGS CHANGED!

I am very glad you've not had issues with health over the years, but just for the heck of it, why don't you Google "dry cat food".

I'm not saying you'll go out and start feeding them strictly what I recommend; but it really isn't very good.  Even the medicated dry food our X-vet tried to sell us during MJ's diabetes period (as wet truly reversed this, and she is thankfully happy, healthy, and lost much needed extra weight)- even that dry food is on the "Not good for cats" list!

Anyhow....Thanks again for the kind words.  I hope you don't think I'm being a know it all but after all the issues in the past, and the two diabetic cats, and now Momma-Kat whose lungs were so filled and inflamed from litter dust, we will never go back to dry food.  Her babies are also going to be taken to the vet on a regular basis as we've slacked on that in the past (hard when you take care of everyone's "throw-aways" and end up with 10 cats but now we're down to four, and they will be our last (unfortunately).  But in 9 years we'll be traveling the country and any sort of pet is just not going to be possible.

Take care and thanks again ,

Sandi

MJ (Momma Junior, looks just like her mom only HUGE)

Rudy (Momma's only boy)

Butterfly (my beautiful avatar cat)

Tiger (Momma's odd-ball striped tiger baby)

Click to expand...

I totally agree with you that wet food is better than kibble any day, but I will definitely Google "dry cat food."   I give my guys a little bit of kibble at night to tie them over until morning but they get Fancy Feast the rest of the time.  Unfortunately they don't like the pates so I'm feeding them the sliced and gravy forms.  I'm reminded of that old saying:  the best cat food is the one your cat will eat.  

Also, I don't think you sound like a "know it all" one bit.  You sound like an experienced cat person who is offering the voice of experience in hopes that others can avoid learning these things the hard way.  

Thanks again. Fancy Feast is a bit too expensive for us. I do know others whose cats love it and if yours do, great because we all know how picky they can be!
I have a motto that used to be: Love, Laugh, Live
Am now adding: pet a cat
to that. Just thought I'd share.
Take care,
Sandi

I Googled "dry cat food" and just got a list of them for sale everywhere, no comments on good or bad, just a reminder of how many of them there are.  And most of the Hills ones have veggies now - potato, chick peas, barley, etc. and some labels seem to claim "vegetables" are a good thing.  It's all marketing.

I agree about the dry food. We unfortunately lost our first cat, Snuffy to a combination of complications with diabetes and a cancerous tumor on his nose. The problem we were having was that he absolutely WOULD NOT eat ANY kind of wet food we tried to give him. He would only ever touch dry food. So when he got diabetes, we tried putting him on wet food (prescription wet food this time of course) but he absolutely would not eat it! So we had to go with the prescription dry food. We treated the diabetes for 2 years before we got to the point where he only needed 1 insulin shot a day. But he was still on the decline from a tumor that was growing on his face (too dangerous to remove, it was on his nose and had likely spread to his brain). It started out benign, and after 3 or 4 years the last biopsy we had done on it (we had it biopsied every year came back benign 3 times, then a year later, the 4th one cane back malignant ) came back malignant and there was nothing left to do for him. And unfortunately he was an indoor-outdoor cat, so one day he just went outside and never came home :'(


Now we have three very spoiled indoor-only cats that are fed fancy feast and iams purrfect grain-free wet foods. We do have ONE small bowl of high quality dry food that we let them snack on throughout the day, but it does not get re-filled until the next day (meaning its one small bowl split between the 3 of them for the entire day). But we feed wet food 2-3 times a day (1/2 a 3oz can per cat per feeding).


Our litter is quite dusty, but the box is not one that is covered, and its in a well ventilated area. And the litter gets scooped 3 times a day.

I'm sorry, I should have told you to Google "is dry cat food good for my cat?".
ALSO, cats, in the wild are strictly meat eaters. Only eating grasses and other plants when they have a tummy ache, are bound, etc. Grain-free canned is the way to go, if you can afford it.
BUT, since you have been lucky thus far with dry food; I wouldn't force it on them. Perhaps a can of grain-free food every so often; as a treat. Sorry for not being more specific with the Googling.
Also Dr. Lisa Pierson, Google her, veterinarian with great up to date information, a very informative vet.
-Sandi

My problem is that I have a 15 year old cat that will only eat dry food. He is thin, so I try to get him to eat whatever he wants. He does eat some chicken breast in a pouch, some sliced beef  or canned mackerel every morning, but not much, he's a grazer. Then I have a little boy that was born outdoors and he will only eat canned food, he completely ignores the hard and cries. I agree with the coughing, we found that our oldster has an enlarged heart and fluid builds up in his lungs. He has been on lasix for 1.5 years and doesn't cough much anymore, he seems happy and still plays. We just have to love them as long as we can! Thanks for your warnings, I know all of them to be true, but there are always exceptions, like the ninety year old still smoking! They are definitely worth following to have a healthy, happy cat.

Yep -cats sure are picky!​

Hey, as long as your old boy is living a good life -so be it.

you are correct -not all cats are the same.

It's just a basic fact about them being meat eaters.  Sounds like your young one is off to a good start w//canned.

As for your older kitty -when they get old, especially if they seem like they're not wanting to eat; all you can do is give them whatever they WILL eat sometimes that just the best thing.

Good luck & take care,

Sandi

Love, Laugh, Live, Pet a Cat