My coworker (first time cat owner) adopted a stray kitten she found in her parents’ backyard over the summer. The kitten was too small to be away from its mother, but mom was gone. I don’t know what my coworker did during that period of time, what she was feeding the kitten.
I know the kitten needed a deworming treatment and she got that done, and it seemed like everything was going ok.
She finally went to get the cat spayed this past week and they did blood work and found that the cat’s levels were elevated, enough so that they refused to do the surgery. The only specifics I know is that the white blood cells were ok, but specifically the cat’s kidney levels were really high.
A couple of weeks ago, I found out that in addition to dry food (I don’t know what brand), the cat’s main source of food was canned tuna. Not cat food canned tuna. Human canned tuna. Because she thought that would be something really nice, a way to spoil the cat.
I explained to her that it probably wasn’t a good idea to exclusively give that to the cat as wet food, that fish in general wasn’t nutritionally balanced and that there can be a lot of chemicals (mercury, other metals that fish absorb) that make it not a good idea for us to eat it every day, let alone a seven pound cat....in the nicest way possible
She was surprised to hear this and it seemed like she probably wouldn’t do it anymore, but now that the blood work has come back with these levels, I’m wondering if all that tuna for months could be the cause.
The vet hasn’t called her back to follow up with what the next step is, so neither of us have a diagnosis.
I know the kitten needed a deworming treatment and she got that done, and it seemed like everything was going ok.
She finally went to get the cat spayed this past week and they did blood work and found that the cat’s levels were elevated, enough so that they refused to do the surgery. The only specifics I know is that the white blood cells were ok, but specifically the cat’s kidney levels were really high.
A couple of weeks ago, I found out that in addition to dry food (I don’t know what brand), the cat’s main source of food was canned tuna. Not cat food canned tuna. Human canned tuna. Because she thought that would be something really nice, a way to spoil the cat.
I explained to her that it probably wasn’t a good idea to exclusively give that to the cat as wet food, that fish in general wasn’t nutritionally balanced and that there can be a lot of chemicals (mercury, other metals that fish absorb) that make it not a good idea for us to eat it every day, let alone a seven pound cat....in the nicest way possible
She was surprised to hear this and it seemed like she probably wouldn’t do it anymore, but now that the blood work has come back with these levels, I’m wondering if all that tuna for months could be the cause.
The vet hasn’t called her back to follow up with what the next step is, so neither of us have a diagnosis.
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