Any Additional Suggestions to Keep FLUD Cat Healthy?

Update, took Mr Sparks yesterday for recheck on urine, post 3.5 weeks of being feed only canned Royal Canin Feline Urinary SO. Clean catch showed only trace of blood, no crystals of either kind. He has also lost weight, 10#.10 oz down from 11#.8oz and his black coat is no longer shiny and he has beginnings of dandruff. Permission granted to slowly switch him off the RC onto my choice of canned, providing is it low in phosphorous & magnesium. So my plan is Dave's Pet Food, the low P&M variety and one of the Cats in the kitchen, chicken variety. I'm adding 2 tbsp of water to his food, fed twice daily, he cleans the bowl within 2 hrs of serving, I have 2 water dishes and 1 water fountain spread out throughout the house, although he drinks only a few licks here & there. He pees 2 times daily, sometimes 3, poos are firm, goes 1 in 24-30 hrs as a rule.  Unless I suspect a problem, we go back in May for another urine check. Vet says he thinks the last bit of blood is from last of inflammation and feels it will clear in time. 

I"m looking for any other suggestions you may have, food recommendation, anything to shine up his coat again, ect. He's a big boy, vet says he can easily carry 13-14# without being overweight. I'd like to at least get back in the 12# range that he was a month ago. He's an adult male, 2-3 yrs old, I adopted him 2 mos ago from the shelter, knowing about the FLUD diagnosis. They said to get him on script urinary food but since I couldn't get him into my vet right away, I got him canned salmon morsels by Whole Earth Farms, grain free. That food & daily brushing resulted in a beautiful coat, unfortunately I can't feed that brand anymore. Hate seeing the weight loss and the dull coat again, that he came with 2 mos ago 

Thanks in advance for your patience on this new cat owner and all your advice.

The same thing happened with my cat's coat after feeding RC Urinary SO. After she was cleared of crystals (and with my vets approval), I started feeding her canned Dave's (the same you are planning on feeding your boy) and Nature's Variety Instinct (usually rabbit or duck). Her coat quickly returned to being shiny, soft and dandruff free after the food switch.

Good Luck...hope this helps some [emoji]128522[/emoji]

HelloMissKitty said:

The same thing happened with my cat's coat after feeding RC Urinary SO. After she was cleared of crystals (and with my vets approval), I started feeding her canned Dave's (the same you are planning on feeding your boy) and Nature's Variety Instinct (usually rabbit or duck). Her coat quickly returned to being shiny, soft and dandruff free after the food switch.

Good Luck...hope this helps some [emoji]128522[/emoji]

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Bless you & paws up, your note made me feel so much better. I looked at the Natures Variety Instinct and thank you, yes it's within the limits I need to keep him at. They carry that at my local pet store so I'll grab some cans and start the transition today. I've got 3 weeks worth of the RC to use up. My plan is 1/2 & 1/2, he actually likes the RC and has gobbled up everything I've given him, except for duck, that he tossed up. Once present supply weans down I'll order both aforementioned foods from Chewy.com Looking forward to him regaining the weight & having his shiny coat back.

Greypaws said:

Bless you & paws up, your note made me feel so much better. I looked at the Natures Variety Instinct and thank you, yes it's within the limits I need to keep him at. They carry that at my local pet store so I'll grab some cans and start the transition today. I've got 3 weeks worth of the RC to use up. My plan is 1/2 & 1/2, he actually likes the RC and has gobbled up everything I've given him, except for duck, that he tossed up. Once present supply weans down I'll order both aforementioned foods from Chewy.com Looking forward to him regaining the weight & having his shiny coat back.

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I'm glad I could help. Thank you for giving Mr. Sparks his forever home even with knowing his Urinary issues. A lot of people would pass on a kitty with that history without knowing that this is a manageable situation. You sound like you've done lots of research on how to keep Mr. Sparks nice and healthy [emoji]128522[/emoji]

My Kitty really loves the Dave's and definitely order through Chewy once your current supply is depleted-they have excellent prices and even more excellent customer service!

I would just continue to feed him the highest quality wet food you can. Weruva has several varieties that are low phos and good quality, high moisture content. Other good options would be Tikicat, Soulistic (at Petco) Merrick LID. 

Thank you, you folks are awesome and so appreciated. You've made this whole thing so much easier. Honestly, even not knowing what I was getting into with the diagnosis didn't worry me as much as the litter box     We dealt with some pretty major diseases with our Greyhounds and Whippets the past 20+ years, so I knew that we could handle daily care & financially, whatever was involved. Now the litter box thing, don't laugh to much, I can't stand them, well just the smell, cleaning it daily no problem. I was concerned buddy boy would use the house & not his box for his business. Thankfully he's as much a neat freak as I am. He has 2 boxes, mostly does poo in one & pee in the other. He even let's me know when he's done the smelly stuff and keeps me company while I clean up. Gotta love that boy. He's turned into the perfect indoor pet for this old retired couple. It's been a match made in heaven, I expect our bridge angels had a paw in this adoption.

You had me laughing out loud over Mr. Sparks' supervising his litter box cleaning and raising the high alert [emoji]128680[/emoji] when it needs cleaning [emoji]128569[/emoji][emoji]128569[/emoji].

In all seriousness though, you are promoting his good potty habits by providing two litter boxes (clearly a preference for him) and keeping them clean so kudos to you!! Mr. Sparks is a lucky little man.

I'm looking for treat suggestions for Mr Sparky. With his FLUD diagnosis I'm not seeing anything on the store shelves that I can feed as treat. I'd love to get him an interactive toy puzzle but the ones I think he'd like best are treat motivated. He actually doesn't like kibble that much, which is good under the circumstances but I could have used the dry version of the RC prescription food for treats. Am working on transitioning fully over from RC script to Dave's low P&M & NVI grain free rabbit. So far so good, he likes both canned versions, no vomiting and no difference in poo.

Thoughts appreciated so much.

For treats, I give my girl:

1. Natures Variety Instinct Raw Boost Minis:
https://www.chewy.com/natures-varie...gclid=CN71jNm-uNECFUpNfgod-NwEPA&gclsrc=aw.ds

2. PureBites:

My girl is obsessed with both!

HelloMissKitty said:

For treats, I give my girl:

1. Natures Variety Instinct Raw Boost Minis:
https://www.chewy.com/natures-varie...gclid=CN71jNm-uNECFUpNfgod-NwEPA&gclsrc=aw.ds

2. PureBites:

My girl is obsessed with both!

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I forgot to mention that eat treat of both of these really can be broken into multiple pieces so a package lasts quite a while [emoji]128522[/emoji]

Thank you so much for the info and links. Will definitely look into them. If Mr. Sparks likes them, maybe I can finally get him a play puzzle    I've really been worried that I'll undo all the good from the canned foods by giving him the wrong treats.

I think probably the most universally appealing of the two would be the freeze dried treats (PureBites etc) . The brand I gave you the link to is one of many brands of freeze dried treats. I currently have this kind on hand at home:

https://www.chewy.com/cat-man-doo-c...gclid=CN6CsdyGudECFQ1sfgodnk8DaQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

One thing to note: you can buy freeze dried treats that say "dog" on them. The only difference is you get a bigger bag and bigger pieces but you can just break the pieces into appropriate cat sized pieces. It's a better value this way. Kitty just about climbs my leg when I break these out [emoji]128522[/emoji]

Freeze dried treats come in all kinds of varieties but you should probably stay away from the fish varieties due to Mr. Sparks' (Good Boy [emoji]10084[/emoji]️) urinary history.

HelloMissKitty, which of those treats you suggested are the most smelly? It occurred to me looking at the links that before all the food change for 'good boy'  I did get him some Natures Variety Instinct freeze dried chicken, it was supposed to be a meal topper. He ate around it, guessing it didn't have any smell good?

I took Mr Sparks out yesterday, we had a bit of snow a few days ago. Put his pix up in the fur pictures and videos only section. The look he gave me when I set him down was 'seriously, was this necessary'  

I would suggest you try the PureBites. I saw someone post in another thread that they recently purchased duck PureBites and that their cat went bonkers over it. Kitty very nearly tries to climb my leg when I open the package so I'm thinking they must smell stronger?