Cat with food agression/panic

[shadyferret]

Hi,

I'm new but I have a perplexing issue with my cat and I thought I'd ask a group of cat lovers for some feedback. I did ask my vet's office, but my cat's primary vet is unavailable until next week so one of the other doctor's will review it and get back to me sometime this week, unless they can't find a solution. Hopefully they'll know what to do, but I like additional feedback.

I have a male, middle-age, obese cat named Mojo, who's pre-shelter information is not known. All we know is that he was neutered before he arrived, was surrendered to the shelter after coming into someone's house and stealing cat food, and when I adopted him I discovered he has issues with human hands in certain positions, how he's touched, and that someone shot him (grr..).

Mojo also has megacolon, which means that its important that he eat small frequent meals to prevent any blockage from occurring. He is fed 4 times a day, roughly every 6-8 hours (its actually a very tight schedule... so tight my other cat wakes me up every morning almost right on time). His condition is pretty severe so I can't be too lose with that, but he's doing well on medications and I've put him on a diet because obesity aggrevates the condition. It was a light diet because I didn't want to stress him out, and he lost roughly a pound in 5 weeks but then his diet wasn't effective anymore. So I tried to reduce his food again by 1/8th, and everything fell apart.

Mojo's every waking is pretty much spent begging for food, stealing food from the humans (even stole a pizza roll right out of a person's lap), slapping food out of people's hands, attacking the garbage can, trying to eat his toys, attacking the closet door where we keep the food, licking carpet where food probably fell, haunting the kitchen, sitting in front of the food closet, licking the bowls clean and then some for about 10 minutes, and pushing the other cat away from her food. I feed them seperately but the doors don't close very well so sometimes he gets through. He's become so aggressive with getting her food that he will sit there and cry at the door dividing them and it stresses the other cat so much I have to be with her and comfort her to eat!

I immediately went back to the old proportions but the behavior has stayed. This isn't new behavior, and previously I corrected it by spraying him with water every time he attacked the door. His night time behavior was far worse, but after about 3 weeks of spraying him every night, he finally gave up with directly disturbing me while I'm sleeping. I don't want to keep relying on the spray bottle unless there's no other solution because it doesn't solve the problem. For all I know, its adding to it.

Any ideas? I know its more of a "talk to your vet" kind of thing, but maybe my problem isn't unique and someone can help.

Thanks in advance!

 

[catsallaround]

Has the cat had bloodwork in your care?  I would stop the spraying.  I would get a full work up including thyroid.  What is he eating brand wise?  How did you come up with his current amount? Has he gained or lost any weight in your care?
 

 

[shadyferret]

He's had several blood panels done since February, the most recent in early May where they discovered that his thyroid count was high-normal, but not too high-normal. I haven't sprayed him in 2 months and I'd like to keep that streak going. He's clearly trying to communicate and I want to listen to him. He once jumped on my desk and tapped me on the nose with his paw, which used to be his way of saying "please pay attention to me" at night when he was stressed.

He's primarily on Hill Science Prescription wet food, where his food is alternated between food that's important to cats with megacolon (i/d) and another food to help him lose weight (r/d). The vet prescribed this diet and came up with the daily proportions. I broke down his portions to 1/4th can of i/d after every medication (so 2x a day), 1/4th of a can of r/d in the afternoon, and 1/4th of a cup of dried indoor light and optimum care from Hill Science, which I put in water. He used to be on a different food than r/d, but he hated that food and he seems to like r/d better. Oh, and the cans are 5.5" in diameter, not those 3" cans.
 

He gained weight in my care initially, about 1.5 pounds, but since I was able to finally get the megacolon condition under control, he's lost roughly a pound in 5 weeks. I'm actually guessing because his condition can make the weight numbers misleading so I rely on his body shape and monitoring the changes very closely. What I do know is that he's lost almost all of his giant abdominal pouch, his sides are a little smaller, and the tiniest hint of a waist is visible.

 

[violetxx]

I agree with Catsallround spraying can actually make things worse and is not a good way to train a cat. What you want to do is use positive reinforcement. So when he's eating at his regular hours give him positive reinforcement 

 to show him that eating is good when done at the right times and not when he's stealing food.

The next thing I want to mention is that this may be largely diet related. Cats tend to try and eat other things when they are not getting the proper nutritional requirements, and for cats and dogs good quality protein is a must! Unfortunately all Hills pet food products, even though its prescription food is poor quality and plant-based protein with useless carbs such as grains and fillers, so not only are they getting poor protein they are getting of bunch of useless calories which in turn may make Mojo gain weight and make his stools more frequent, stinkier and bigger because he's not digesting most of what he's eating.

I'll give you an example, a friend of a friend knows a dog owner who feeds their dog strictly vegetarian 

, because they're vegetarian. This is BAD for dogs and even worse for cats (who are obligate carnivores) and whats happening is that he will attack people who have meat on them (hotdog, steak, eggs) because his body is craving it soo bad, and it's one reason top chain predators have the instinct to hunt and don't just eat grass or leaves. There are actually studies proving that humans who do not eat enough meat are prone to depression, suicide and violence (but that's for another thread). Its likely that he's showing this aggression not because he's sick or has behavioural issues but because of nutritional deficiencies. If you think about the natural world, acts of aggression or violence are precisely the way a predator would accomplish hunting in order to obtain his protein, so we may see it as unnatural, but dogs and cats were once wild and life was once all about survival of the fittest.

To monitor his weight more closely you could pick him and weigh both him and you on a scale and then subtract your weight from it, works great!

Make sure that when you do begin decreasing his food, to do it very slowly to prevent fatty liver which can be lethal if not treated quickly enough. Basically its caused by a cat loosing weight to quickly and the cat begins to use up its fat reserves resulting in an accumulation of too much fat in the liver. Some symptoms of it include: loss of appetite, blood in stool or vomit. Not trying to scare you but I just want you to be aware dieting a cat has to be a slow process. He should not be shedding pounds in a week but ounces. Also if he stops eating, bring him to the vet ASAP.

Keep us posted on his progress. 

 All the best! 

 

[shadyferret]

Well while I may be a vegetarian myself, I'd never purposely feed a carnivore animal a vegetarian diet because I know they can't process the cellouse like a herbivore or omnivore (it’s what makes a kitty throw up). I do try to be grain-free with my other cat and keep an eye out to make sure there's lots of taurine in her food, but with Mojo... I'm always open to trying new things to make him feel better, but it’s difficult because the last time I tried to change his diet to food he'd actually liked, he got quite sick and he had to have multiple enemas. Mojo needs a high-fiber diet because it helps his digestive system and I don't know of any high-fiber animals. I know part of the reason he was prescribed the Hills Science Prescription i/d is because it has that fiber and it’s very easy for the system to digest and pass, but obviously I don't want him to be malnutrition just to be able to have a successful litter box trip.

However, I did just buy my other cat loads of Rabbit Au Jus that I now can't return and she hates it! And here I thought cats love rabbit.

I can carefully add it to his diet and slowly transition him to make sure that it doesn't cause digestion problems (I do mash his food now). It will take time, but I can be plenty patient for Mojo's sake. What does suck is that the calories aren't listed on the cans and I've noticed that before, even on their websites. At best you get the company's generic feeding instructions. Does anyone know a good way or source to figure out a food's calorie count? It also says that it’s "intended for intermittent or supplemental feeding only." Is rabbit not supposed to be a regular meal??

I've used positive reinforcement to get him to eat before, back when I first adopted him and he was so scared that he wouldn't eat unless I showed him lots of love, so I can try again but for a different goal.

Some of what you said makes me a little sad because I was hoping Mojo's occasional frequent bowl movements were caused by function returning to his colon and it was causing excess movement when working in parallel to his medicine :/ Well I wouldn't know for sure anyways until I take him off his meds and I can't do that until he loses weight.

I'll use your tip about the weight scale when he gets closer to his goal or if he doesn't seem to be losing any weight, but Mojo hates being picked up with a passion. He still has pounds to go before he's near his ideal weight so I wouldn't call it a pressing matter.

I remember that the vet said its best for the cat to lose between 0.5 - 1.0 pounds a month. I wasn't aware of the liver issue though, so thanks for mentioning that.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[violetxx]

Have you looked up any threads on megacolon? We had a cat with megacolon and never truly figured out how to make it 100% better, the nice thing though is that my mom is a nurse, so when are kitty got impacted she could remove the stool herself after the vet showed her how. I remember with Lucky we had him on prescription foods most of his life and he hated it, lost his playful personality, began becoming underweight and developed CRF which I think ultimately was from feeding him such a nutrient poor dry food. If I could have done things differently I would have (feeding him raw), but at the time we just assumed our vet knew the most about nutrition.. but that was not the case. I know its really hard to change around his food, we did that with ours often as well, and sometimes he would be okay and other times he would become impacted. Is he on exclusively dry or wet prescription?

What I would do is research megacolon to the max, the site has a lot of useful information on using fibre foods as well as megacolon. There may be people with past experiences on this site or somewhere on the internet who may be able to provide you with some knowledge about whats worked for them. I would say Mojo loosing weight should the last thing on your list. First you need to figure out whats best to feed him and work on his aggression, and once that's stable than start dieting him, otherwise it may be too much stress on him.

 

[shadyferret]

I researched megacolon back in March, although I didn't look up nutritional information so much. I usually give Mojo his enemas when he needs it, but sometimes I opt to pay for it because Mojo has trouble trusting me and I'm trying to build trust and companionship. He finally trusts me enough to find me a source of comfort when he's scared or hurting. Considering he's been sick most of the time I've had him, most of what he knows about me is in relation to his sickness. From what I understand about megacolon, there's a chance for it to reverse itself, but its based on the severity of the megacolon and weight. Mojo's case was pretty extreme, where his uretha was actually partially compressed by his megacolon, so he doesn't have a high chance of a reversal.

And see, while you could tell Lucky lost his playful personality, I don't know what Mojo's would-be normal personality is except that he wants love. I'm pretty certain the condition was developing when we first adopted him because he had litterbox issues from the start, but I let the woman at the shelter influence my thoughts on the matter I don't think he was ever properly introduced to toys because he finds toys frustrating. He gets his paws on a toy and immediately tries to bit through the spinal cord while gutting it with jack rabbit kicks. When it doesn't do what he expects, he either tries to bite through the toy or throw it away and stare at it as if there's something evil about it.

I've done food trials with my other cat, who has numerous allergies, but it just sucks to have to risk him getting impacted and either pay money every time to give him an enema or do it myself and have him trust me less :'( For what its worth, I've already added the little bit of rabbit to his food. His diet is almost exclusively can food, but I give him one dry food snack, in water. He likes crunchy food but he gets impacted if he gets too much completely dry food. I tried raw once but he wasn't a fan. Could've been the brand though.

I'll renew my efforts on researching megacolon. Perhaps I can find a good food trial to start with and see how he handles it. I disagree with the diet being last priority, though. Diabetics aren't told to first get control of their diabetes and then diet, but do both since they are usually related. I have no intention of putting him on a streneous diet. He could lose a quarter of a pound a month and I'd be okay with it.

But arguably, there's a more important reason he needs to be on a diet and that a quarter of a pound per month might be too little. He's on cisipride and if you look up the history and current information on cisipride, you'll find that its banned for human use but okay for animal use, so long as its not used long-term (I don't know how long is long-term). There are alternatives to cisipride but they don't have the success statistics behind them and currently cisipride does work for him. My goal is to get him to lose the weight while carefully reducing his meds, and then taking him off his meds when he's at his ideal weight and see if he has successful litterbox trips each day for the next few weeks. If he doesn't, then hopefully his medication needs are reduced enough that a better long-term alternative will be successful so I can nix his cisipride. I'd like to nix the meds that dehydrate him while I'm at it since sub-q fluids are not fun, but Mojo tolerates it since I always time it to occur during one of his meals.

As I'm sure you know, megacolon is a work in progress and these are all just theories until I try them out. I will try though.
 

Thanks for the ideas!

 

[violetxx]

Wow your boy has been through a roller coaster, but you are doing a great job, not many cat moms would adopt a boy with so many complications, I will be sending positive healing vibes his way

I guess when it comes to megacolon symptoms may vary, for us Lucky was already lean so when he developed it caused him to loose weight, so for Mojo it is always possible that his weight has contributed to his megacolon or may be the cause. One thing to keep in mind, is when you are going to make changes (i.e. food amount, medication dose), keep a journal of the effects. Say you lower the dosage of Cisapride and lower his food volume and he gets worse, how are you going to know which variable set him off and you'll end up back at square one, which is not fun at all

I guess my reasoning for it, is even if you reduce his calories and he's still stealing food it may be counteractive, that's why I suggested waiting on the diet.

Here's a link I came across on constipation, you may find some of the suggestions useful: http://www.littlebigcat.com/health/constipated-cats/

Dr, Hofve recommends a diet low in fiber (low residue) which reduces the stool size but is high in protein, moisture and fat. So feeding him canned is a step in the right direction, however i/d is packed with undigestible carbs which will pass right through him and give him bigger bowl movements, but ultimately finding what works for him is key even if its a temporary solution. Does Mojo drink a lot of water?

How is his aggression going? Is he still stealing other food?

Another thought that crossed my mind is probiotics, those may help regulate his bacterial flora which may aid in healing his colon. You had mentioned he didn't like the raw, if possible I would still try and get him on it just because the rewards are high.

Keep us posted on his progress!!

 

[shadyferret]

Lol, Mojo can use as many healing vibs he can get.

Actually, when I adopted him I thought he was overweight (turns out he was 4 pounds overweight) and I mentioned putting him on a diet offhand while filling out the adoption paper, and the woman got mad at me. She patted him and said that the solid feeling was muscle and basically acted like I was meanie for daring to think it. Now looking back at it, I can see all the signs that he was developing megacolon and that solid feeling was probably from his colon... over storing. In a way I'm a very glad I adopted him because that kind of attitude probably would've killed him. When I adopted him, the biggest problem wasn't initially the megacolon (since it wasn't yet known) so much as preventing the other person from returning him because that person couldn't handle a fearful cat, and trying to figure out why he had litter box problems.

Well, Mojo is a male, domestic short hair, middle-age cat and the odds of a cat fitting that description developing megacolon is something like 60%. Once the cat becomes over weight, it goes up to 80%. There's an article about it although I read back in March so the percentages may be off, but I remember the odds being insanely high for a cat like him.

Typically I reduce one thing at a time, but the journal is still a good idea since most effects from changes aren't immediately obvious. Mojo used to not be on a diet, and I tried having a light free feed at night, but he gained 2 pounds in 3 months. Even then he was anxious to get his paws on food and went for the other cat's bowl sometimes. My guess is that while it’s quite possible the increase in his food aggression and panic could be related to the food ingredients or that dividing his daily amount into 4 meals isn't filling him up enough, it probably stems from his time as a stray or during his time as an abused cat. Somehow I doubt the people who made him afraid of human hands fed him well. The vet came up with an answer for that, but we agreed that its best to wait and see if the problem isn't something else. I've been trying to reduce the meals down to 3 and a light snack so I can increase the size of the portion and see if that solves the problem, but he hasn't been okay with that. I did increase the portions somewhat by adding the rabbit.

Wow, that is a very detailed web article. The i/d seems to work for him in the sense that he hasn't had a blockage for months, with a couple of exceptions and those happened when there were diet changes. Since I started feeding him rabbit, I'll keep an eye for him and see if the grain-free food addition made a noticeable impact. If not then I'll try a food trial and see if there's something he's missing that can be found in a different diet. As for water, Mojo used to drink an unusually high amount of water for a cat but he drinks a normal amount now. It turns out he was being dehydrated by some of his meds and the condition itself. I give him at least a weekly sub-q fluid treatment and I have 3 sources of water, all 3 are running water like he and the other cat prefer, and I clean them out weekly.

He's on a probiotic supplements, but I was thinking about trying raw turkey for my other cat's special needs, so I could give him some of that and see if it helps.

Thanks for all the information! I'll let you know how he's doing when some time has passed and I've tried a few things out. The article says that some cats need more fiber, which seems to be Mojo's case but that's the medication I'm currently reducing. I reduced the cisipride last month. Mojo is on 4 separate meds and weekly or twice-a-week subcutaneous fluids. As incredibly odd thing to thank you for as it is, I appreciate that article's stool chart.

I've been suspicious his stools weren't quite right and that chart confirms it.

Well, since now all that can be done is trials and see how things go, 'til next time! I appreciate everyone's effort and helping me get information to figure out what he needs.

 

[shadyferret]

UPDATE:

I started giving him Wysong Venison and it did the trick. After the venison was finished, I did trials of different brands of wet chicken since they have a lower calorie count and I'm phasing i/d out. His mega colon first had difficulty with the new chicken diet but things seem to be work out on their own after 2 weeks. I haven't fed him raw yet since I want to give him some time to before I introduce another food that could cause him some temporary problems with his mega colon.

I guess you can chalk this up to proof that being on a prescription diet long term is not the way to go. Once you get a cat stabilized, give it a little time and then slowly start small trials of foods to switch. Mojo was on the prescription diet months before this happened. The vet assistants I talked to during that time kept assuring me that the grain count in i/d was at an acceptable level, and that he needed to be on i/d because it was the only food that could easily pass through his intestines in his condition while providing him the necessary fiber. To be fair I'm sure that's what they are told and that's what I saw in the short-term, so who's going to do long-term study testing on cats?

Lesson learned: always study your own cat for the long term.

 

[violetxx]

I am soo glad to hear

Great news!!

I know how you feel completely!!! My vet unfortunately doesn't know a whole lot about cat food either, so I happy to hear that you found away to control his megacolon without prescription food, I'm sure it will be a big shock to them!!

You have been an awesome kitty mom to Mojo, he's lucky to have you

 

[shadyferret]

Thanks! it's so worth it to see Mojo doing well despite his condition, despite the money. He even runs now and initiatives play more. The cat he used to scare during meals is now frequented by his affection instead.


I even bought online clothing that say "I love my rescue cat" and "rescue mom" (despite my phobic dislike of the word "mom" ). I just rescued a cat I saw a family delibrately abandoning that was so starved I had to force fed him because he didn't understand wet or dry food! After working intently with him, he's a happy, full kitty.