Bearbear Not Eating...stress Related?

[KalolaThomas]

Hi. BearBear is my 17 year old neutered male Ragdoll. I have had him since he was a kitten. We live full time in a motorhome for the past 5 years. Since January, BearBear has been losing weight gradually and starting to cry at night more. I had him to the vet and dental done and nothing seems out of order physically. His kidney values are slightly elevated, but nothing the vet thinks would affect appetite. I have been commuting 3 hours each week (stressor) to where my 95 year old mom lives in an adult family home. I stay at her house when I visit. I have been bringing BearBear with me. While we are there, he does not cry. His routine is much like at the motorhome, where he sleeps most of the time and I try and get him outside for exercise once a day. To get him to eat, the vet gave him a 3 day appetite stimulant last Saturday. It worked like a charm and, up through the rest of the week, he was eating normal amount of food. This Monday I drove back to the motorhome. Almost as soon as we were in the motorhome, he started crying. He has eaten only 1/4 cup of food since then and it is now Wednesday evening. I have read the stressor list for cats. He certainly has a lot of environmental stressors, as well as he might be picking up stress from me, as I have been working myself out of depression since January (Hmmmm, about the time he began to lose weight). I am looking at homeopathic anti-anxiety products now like Feliway, Rescue Remedy, etc. What have you found works for you? In what format? Diffusers? Liquid drops? Thank you so much for your help.

 

[molly92]

Kidney numbers are tricky. They only start to creep up well after damage has already started, and then sometimes the cat will have high numbers but no symptoms, or they can have low numbers but bad symptoms.

But even if it is early stages of kidney disease, you can't do a whole lot besides being careful with their diet, which if he's not eating is a moot point at the moment anyway.

Right now you need to get him to eat, whatever it is. Meat flavored baby food, deli meat, canned tuna, unhealthy cat treats-whatever it takes. 2-3 days without any food is grounds for a trip to the vet, because it can get dangerous very quickly.

Stress definitely affects health, whether there are underlying conditions involved or not. Cats internalize their stress and it can crop up in ways like lack of appetite. I think calming products would be great to try. Feliway definitely (it's not homeopathic by the way, it has real ingredients). It mimics the calming hormones that cats respond to. A diffuser will work better than the spray in the home, and for car trips the spray would be good to use on his bedding. Another product that I've heard great things about is Richard's Organics Pet Calm-those are drops that you put on the tip of their tongue. I had a couple customers who absolutely swore by it for stress-related health issues with their cats.

Something else to think about is that cats usually find a change in environment more distressing than being away from their people. Some cats are exceptions, if they especially crave human company or are good travelers, but otherwise it's usually best to leave the cat in one spot and have someone check in on them if you're gone more than a couple of days, so if that is at all an option you could try it next time.

 

[maggiedemi]

Hi. You said 1/4 cup of food, is that dry food? Maybe try feeding him some canned food pate instead.