Sunday, June 14, 2015

A Plan for Cammie



Not long ago, Cammie suffered an infection that produced ugly sores on either side of her head. These were defeated by a prescribed counterattack of steroids and anti-biotics. This was, however, just the latest – albeit the most severe – episode in a series of such appearances, and are probably due to an allergic reaction of some sort. Many cats are allergic to the food that they habitually eat. In Cammie’s case, that may be fish.


The plan that I have adopted is to wean her off fish in her diet. This is, as with everything related to cats, easier written than done.


The Siamese princess is very particular about the soft-food that she consumes. She will eat nothing but Fancy Feast brand, and only a select number of flavours. These all contain fish. Her favourite varieties are overtly fish-based. She will eat a couple of others but not enthusiastically. Right now, I am serving her chicken flavour, which contains fish. That ingredient is far down on the list, and is a general ‘fish’, rather than a described species, so I will count chicken flavour Fancy Feast as less fishy than others. She does eat it. Perhaps it is the fish taste – however deeply hidden it may be – that appeals to her. But a reduced amount of fish is at least a first step.


Cammie will eat nothing else in the way of soft-food. Fortunately, she does eat the hard-food I serve. It is Orijen brand, and the current flavour contains no fish. It is a very good food and gives her all the nutrients she requires. She need not eat any soft-food in regards to nutrition; I would still like her to have some, though, for the moisture content, and the variety. I think cats like soft-food.


To show how exacting my latest perma-cat is when it comes to her menu, I give this illustration. Just this afternoon, I was preparing the portions for dinner. The new foster-cat, Noah, is at the stage where he will eat anything, so I am giving him the best food in the hopes of getting him addicted to it when he eventually becomes fussy. A portion of this food fell on Cammie’s dish. It was about a quarter the size of my smallest finger’s nail, and was off to the side. When presented with her meal, Cammie refused even to dip her nose to smell it. It was sent back to the kitchen (she disdained even to complain, such was the enormity of the culinary crime), the offending particle was removed and the dish placed before her again. This time, she ate.


And so my search for something else that she enjoys continues. Every new brand, every new flavour is presented for her decision. It is always ‘nay’. I will keep trying, however, for some day I may hear a feline ‘yay’, and that will be worth everything that went before.


9 comments:

  1. Haha Miss Pops is exactly the same - she loves the feast, but will not eat any with fish. We have to serve her the beef or chicken or turkey types, any with meat in them. Other brands will not do and get left for the flies.

    It always makes me smile when I think that when we were kids there seemed to be only one brand and flavour of cat food sold in NZ and cats seemed to love it, although if I remember they probably only got one meal a day at dinner time and were probably hungry all day.

    Julie and Poppy Q
    xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. She is, indeed, a princess. :-P

    Good luck with the food. I've pretty much given up on Derry -- it's Whiskas chicken and ProPlan chicken and liver for him; he won't eat anything else and no doubt wishes I'd scrap the canned food entirely in favour of kibble. ::sigh::

    Yes, well-loved and well-fed cats certainly do become picky!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I sure hope you can find something for her to eat that she isn't allergic to. That is a hard thing to do. Wishing you luck.

    ReplyDelete
  4. cammie; keep yur dad a guessin; it keeps him on hiz toez.....

    we may have posted thiz bee fore; if sew; please for give; but ask yur dad to see if de "fish" is "shrimp".....s

    hrimp haz bee come a no go heer in trout towne; sum times de word shrimp iz far down de list, purrhaps if yur dad can do away with de shrimp based feasts, it will help ?? !! ♥♥

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not feeding Cammie any more shrimp, and as for 'fish' being shrimp, who can say? My plan is to get her off any seafood all together; shrimp will be the first to go.

      Delete
  5. What a good cat dad you are. Being proactive rather than reactive is usually the best way to go. A lot of the seafood for cats is from or prepared off shore. Only heaven knows what actually is in the tin. Can you cook, John? Some nice, tender , home cooked fillets would be wonderful. I'm sure Cammie would enjoy them. Pergaps some chicken Gerber baby food in a jar. If she liked that, and many of them do, you could gradually add and then up amounts of tinned food.
    Cammie is in our prayers. And, again, thank you for loving her and giving her a wonderful life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hadn't thought of baby food, though I recall reading of it fed to cats. I will try that.

      Delete
  6. Ernie has allergies too...we think they are mostly environmental, but he has had some food allergies too. Fish, fortunately, is not one. But he did have a reaction recently to beef I think. So no more beef foods for him. I hope you can find something Cammie will like.

    Island Cat Mom

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hopefully the reactions Cammie is presenting stop once fish is off the menu. As for the teeny tiny portion that was on the plate...she truly knows what she wants and how to get it.
    Sasha has started to eat his dinner with the other cats again. But for several weeks he insisted on being fed away from the fursibs. What we cat parents won't do to keep our cats healthy and happy!

    ReplyDelete