Cat is constipated with loose stool

jdm32393

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A few months ago I switched my cat to Weruva canned chicken. She originally was on Wellness canned chicken, but she didn't like it very much. She loves the Weruva, however, it makes her a bit constipated. She defecates about once every 3 days and every time she defecates, her anus looks red and irritated. Most of the stool has a shape to it, but it is really soft. There is usually also a small bit of stool that isn't shaped and is much more gooey. Occasionally, she will make a mess and track some out of the litter box with her. When that happens, I usually notice what appears to be a small amount of mucus. Though it never is much, and I never notice any blood. Her feces are also a really light brown. Pretty much like the color of Nutella (sorry if that ruins it for anyone!). In addition to the color and shape, it also smells pretty awful. They did a fecal test a few months ago, when she was on the food for only a couple of weeks, and it all came back negative (however, I believe they were mostly testing for parasites). 

The other day, she had gone to the litter box and I noticed that her anus was red looking as usual. So I took a warm wash cloth and wiped it, and a there was a small amount of blood. I immediately called her vet and they had me bring her in. The vet said that it looks like she is straining to defecate so they decided to switch her food to Royal Canin Gastro-intestinal dry cat food and Hills i/d canned food. I asked if I should mix it in with her current Weruva food and they said "no" and that I should only give her what they prescribed.

Because I rapidly switched her food, she has been having really bad diarrhea for the past few days. I tried calling the vet to ask about this, and I'm still waiting on a call back from them. Because my cat is having such bad diarrhea, I'm worried she will be dehydrated, so I decided to switch back to the Weruva. In the past, when I have switched food quickly, she usually does fine. My guess is that she is having trouble digesting the new dry food. 

The vet did say her anus looked irritated, but they didn't think that there was anything too serious, even though I found a small amount of blood. The just said it looks like she is straining to go, which I haven't noticed, but is definitely possible (as I said early, she only goes about once every three days). I wonder if my vet was a bit too quick to change her food up and this might be more of a fiber issue. Looking at Weruva compared to other brands, it looks like it has much less fiber. So I decided to add a bit of canned pumpkin to her food this evening.

Some advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm still waiting to hear back from the vet, but I decided switching her food back to stop the diarrhea was important. I'm also thinking about talking to the vet about just trying the Weruva + canned pumpkin. I should also note that loose stool has been a problem for her for a while. It was also a problem when she was on the Wellness canned chicken. They tried switching her to Science Diet Light with more fiber, but that didn't help either.
 
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jdm32393

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I also want to note, that I called her vet a few weeks after changing to Weruva. When I originally changed to Weruva, she was only defecating once every 4-5 days. Her vet wasn't too concerned about it and said that he wasn't too familiar with Weruva, but that it's quality is probably very high without many residuals. So she was probably able to digest and use a lot of it, which would explain why she didn't need to defecate often. However, that conversation was all before I noticed the problems noted above. 
 
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