It was hot today. It was hot yesterday, and it will be hot tomorrow. The temperature reached 32° (89.6° Fahrenheit) this afternoon, and will be 37° (98.6° Fahrenheit), which is perfect if you are a human body, not as good if you are the environment in which human bodies must live.
Cat bodies must live in such heat, too. I am not worried about my beasts in general. Despite being covered in fur, they seem to weather the multitude of degrees well. Even so, they are not eating as much as usual. In terms of my oldsters, that doesn’t concern me overly much, either, since Renn and Neville will graze at the hard-food, if they don’t feel like eating soft-food at meal-times. They nibble some here, nibble some there.
Ironically,
my youngest cat worries me the most. Like the boys, she is a little off her
food. Imogen is still eating, just not as much and, so far as I can determine,
she has not eaten hard-food since she came to stay with me. Her previous person
had provided hard-food of a poor quality, which I don’t want to feed, as I
suspect Imo would want just that and nothing else. Her weight is excellent for her
age and size, so the amount of soft-food she has been consuming has been
sufficient.
The real anxiety is that, along with never observing her eat hard-food, I have never seen her drink water. I suspect that, eating only soft-food, she acquires all her moisture from that, like koalas deriving their moisture from eucalyptus leaves. However, as may be guessed, a reduction in the amount that Imogen eats means a reduction in the moisture she receives, which is especially problematic in such heat. (My boys drink an abundance of water from the many bowls in the apartment.)
I want to bring in a fountain for Miss Silky to try. Such devices have met with failure in my household previously, but I have not tried to tempt Imogen with one. She may find them interesting enough to use.
To
be honest, I don’t think that the heat, and Imo’s decreased moisture intake –
if there is indeed a decrease – will be a major difficulty. But I would like to
solve the problem before it becomes a problem.
Could you mix some water into her sift food? We hope little miss drinks something.
ReplyDeleteAlas, Imogen doesn’t like anything that’s adulterated.
DeleteOh cats, they do so enjoy keeping us guessing. Saku has a fountain, but still prefers to drink from a dripping tap. Only if he can't convince me to turn one on does he head to the fountain. But if he sees me catching him at the fountain, he backs away from it.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with Imogen.
Maybe she'll enjoy drinking from a fountain. Moving water is often quite enticing.
ReplyDeleteThat IS a worry. I will be watching here to see how she does. The thing with multiple cats is, one doesn't know what each individual cat is drinking daily. And as everyone uses the various litter boxes, there is no way to know from that source either.
ReplyDeleteAs sad an admission as it is, I can differentiate among the products the various beasts leave in the litter-box. I can tell by size, shape and placement. So far, Imo’s urine-lumps are still of a normal size, so I may be worrying needlessly. But I keep an eye on them nonetheless…
DeleteImogen certainly must drink water. Seney only liked running water directly out of the tap. Boy, that sure created some problems some days when no one was home to turn it on. She never took to the running cat fountain though. Precious loves her water in 4 different places but it must be refrigerator cold so I have to keep bottles ready and change out the dishes often. I even put ice cubes in her dish if I'm gone all day. Maybe Imogen would like cold better?
ReplyDeleteAs Poppy Q commented above, we mix filtered water into canned food, since Da Boyz will not drink water from a bowl, fountain, or faucet.
ReplyDeleteSure, the bowl of wet food might look like slurry sometimes, but they all lick it up happily, and there are plenty of pee balls in the litter box.
Imogen won’t touch the softened soft-food, unfortunately.
DeleteI never saw Derry drink anything until the last few years, as he aged. Nicki loved his fountains, Derry was scared of them (of course), even though he would watch Nicki drinking from them. I hope Imogen's water take increases...maybe some plain tuna juice in water would tempt her? There are other things like cat broths that might tempt too. In the end, you can only do so much, the reality is that we can't control everything, much as we'd like to.
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct that she gets plenty of moisture from the wet food.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that each cat has his preferences. I've had cats that like fountains and some that don't. Others like their water bowls in certain locations. You're correct to be concerned and keep vigilant regarding Imogen's fluid intake. The above comments gave you some great ideas. Hopefully they will help.
ReplyDeleteEric and Flynn both drank good amounts of water so I am afraid I have no advice. Maybe she likes to drink at night when she is not observed.
ReplyDelete!! That seems likely! Good thought!
DeleteIt took a few years before I saw Annabelle drinking water. But she is fussy about food intake in general. I guess we can say our girls are just finicky.
ReplyDeleteI hope Imogen gets some water when you're not looking. I've read that it's possible for cats to get enough hydration from their food, but I've always wondered about that, especially in summer heat. Let us know how the fountain works!
ReplyDeleteI love to drink water in a large bowl or a human glass =^x^=
ReplyDeleteThanks you John for your advice
=^x^=