The Effect of Starvation

I would like to feed all my cats only soft-food, good quality tinned products. That’s not going to happen. Some will simply not eat the best that I can provide (Cammie). Some eat too little soft-food (Tungsten). Some eat soft-food today but not tomorrow, but maybe the next (Renn). I have attempted to give them different brands, different flavours. If I had fed them only soft-food from the moment they had come to me, perhaps I would have succeeded in keeping them on such a diet. However, that was not the case, so I do now what I can.

And what I can do is try another experiment. When I get home each day from work, I feed the beasts a soft-food dinner. I give them a similar meal, which they know as ‘snack’ about eight o’clock. In the interval, they are free to nibble on the hard-food. I have now removed this option. It has resulted in a better and fuller consumption of the soft-food I give them at snack-time. I am only into the third day of the experiment, but I like what I see. I may extend the experiment to other times.

But what a fuss it has created. The period between dinner and snack-time is now filled with prowling carnivores seeking a kill with which to slake their hunger; cringing mendicants grovelling at my feet, begging for scraps; vultures swirling about looking for scant pickings in a land of immortals, and self-pitying whiners who bewail the skeletal remains of once sleek and stout bodies. You would think these cats were Oliver Twist in the workhouse.

And when, after the snacks have been disbursed, after time has been given for digestion, I put the hard-food bowls back down, they have the gravitational pull of red giants on tiny asteroids. Last night, I observed something I had never observed before. Have you ever seen pictures of a family of cats, all eating at once, all from bowls arranged in a close-set line? Perhaps that is your family. It’s not mine. I feed my animals practically in separate rooms. But last evening, Tucker and Renn were too hungry to wait, too hungry to dislike one another’s proximity.

You can see how I am abusing the cats by the gaunt and boney form that Tucker has become. He’s virtually a stick, and I am being made to feel appropriately bad for it. But starvation loves company - and company loves its food.

The Kola Report: Improvement

Kola is feeling better at last. He is not back to normal, but he is getting there. I had to put food into him by syringe for a couple of days, which neither of us liked. He would eventually curl up on the bathroom floor and refuse to move at all while I struggled to fit the syringe tip through clenched teeth. He would not take any kind of food voluntarily, from my finger or a bowl, so I had to resort to the syringe.

But now he is eating on his own again. He still has little appetite for hard-food but, because I started giving him soft-food whenever I thought he would want it, he has eaten more of that in the last day than he would under normal circumstances. This will, I hope, provide enough nourishment to push his recovery still further.

I love seeing signs of recovery in sick cats. (It would be better if they were never ill in the first place, but that’s like a desire to have been born rich instead of working to get there. Which I haven’t, by the way.) First, Kola started wanting water. He asked for it from the tap, which was fine by me. He seemed lacking in the confidence to jump up onto the counter by himself (that has since improved, too), due perhaps to weakness from his ill health, so I would lift him up.

Then he started eating solid, albeit soft, food on his own. Small amounts at first, too small to warrant a cessation of the syringe method. But yesterday I realised that he was eating more on his own than I would be able to give him otherwise, and since the syringe caused him so much distressed, I decide to push more food at him instead. As aforementioned, I gave him food outside the regular mealtimes, which he seemed to appreciate.

He has also begun talking more than was the case in the past week, and when I come into the parlour, he wants attention, about which he has been apathetic. Even that came back in stages. He first accepted pets without much reaction, then he lie down for them, next he purred, and finally, last night, he started flexing his front paws, kneading the air.

As I wrote above, Kola is not his old self yet, but a few more days should take care of that. I want to thank all those who expressed sympathy for the floofy one's plight and good wishes for its betterment. It helps knowing that others care. I wish I knew if he had what Renn had had (and if so, why it hit him so much more severely than it did my big boy) or whether it was something independent, or perhaps caught because Renn’s cold weakened him. In any case, it’s on its way out, and Kola is on his way back.

First Renn, Now Kola

More than a week ago, Renn went to the hospital to treat whatever was making him think he had to wet, when he really didn’t. When he came home the next day, he was much better. He did, however, bring home a cold. I am certain that he caught it at the hospital, where all the sick animals are. The cold expressed itself almost entirely in sneezing; long series of sneezes, in fact. But his appetite was good and he even played.

My big boy’s cold left him swiftly; where it went was into Kola.

First Kola developed a cough, a kind of choking bark that resembled somewhat an attempt to dislodge something in his throat. I was worried that he too might have to see a doctor, but this phase passed, and developed into a genuine cold.

When I came home yesterday and opened the parlour door to release my foster-cat, he did not leap out with a cry, jubilant at being free. He did not seem excited at all. He remained where he lay, on the heated towels of the parlour’s couch. I knew something was amiss then.

The floofy one started sneezing last night. Like Renn, his sneezes come in gaggles, one after the other. Unfortunately, unlike his roommate, Kola has a stuffed nose that forces him to breathe through his mouth. He cannot smell, so he will not eat. I’m not sure if he has drunk from his water-bowl, either; he certainly has not asked me to run the bathroom tap for him, lately one of his favourite pastimes.

This is a more serious illness than Renn’s, and I will be watching Kola carefully over the weekend, a long one due to Thanksgiving Day on Monday. I may have to apply the syringe to Kola, just to put some food into him. I hope that won’t be necessary, as it is unpleasant for any cat, even if it is done expertly, and since this would be my first attempt at feeding the floofy one, my actions would not qualify as expert.

I am not otherwise too concerned, since I am sure this is a cold, and it will pass. But how quickly, I cannot say. The failure to eat and drink is my greatest fear. In any case, Kola will be spending the next day or two close to his parlour, no doubt on his warm towels. He doesn’t seem to believe in the adage of misery loving company, so I will let him be, to rest and recover.

Personalities

I’m sure I’ve written before that I find the personalities of my cats very interesting. I see examples of their individuality every day, of course, but I experienced one a little while ago that shows a fundamental difference between two of them.

Cammie and Kola, my two foster-cats, are starting to remind me of The Odd Couple. The fact that they both enjoy being in the parlour forces them to take each other into account, and I can see a lessening of Cammie’s unease at Kola’s proximity, and vice versa. (This does not mean that the Siamese princess doesn’t chase the other at high volume when she’s had enough for the time being). And, at least in a single instance, one is tidy and the other messy - or at least not as tidy as she should be.

Every morning before I go to work, I lock Kola in the parlour, to prevent him from being terrorized by Tucker. In addition to food, water, toys and the Track-ball, the floofy one is of course given a litter-box. I place that in the room just before I leave, to prevent the other cats from nipping in and using it. I wasn’t fast enough to stop Cammie the other day, and she left a little clump in the litter. She did not cover it, because she cares nothing for anyone’s opinion of her, good or bad.

I closed the door on Kola and went to get the scoop. When I returned a minute later, the clump had been covered with litter. No other deposit had been made, and Kola was lying where I had left him. He had quickly jumped down from the couch and finished Cammie’s job for her.

Thus are personalities revealed in just a few seconds.

The Imposter

I think the veterinary hospital may have given me the wrong cat when I picked up Renn. Sure, he is in many ways like my Renn, but he is, well, even more like my Renn than my Renn was.

He is extra affectionate: he has a new routine of crawling up to me after I’ve gotten into bed but before I turn out the light. He’ll purr in his rough way and bump his head against my hand. Also, he greeted me at the door when I came home yesterday, which he hasn’t done in a long time.

There is the lack of vomit: that has ceased entirely. Josie has thrown up a meal or two, Tucker has returned a small portion of dinner now and then, Cammie belches in her eerie and disturbing way, and even Tungsten upchucked last night. But Renn’s stomach is stable.

Then there is the eating. He is eating almost all of the soft-food I put down before him, even at breakfast, which has never been a meal he’s greatly desired. He actually seems eager to receive his food now.

Who is this animal? Where is my sulky big boy?

Considering the veterinarian did very little for him, I can’t determine the cause of this change. He received a small dose of Metacam to relieve any possible inflammation. Could that inflammation have been causing distress for so long? Was he getting better even as I took him to the hospital, and this is the culmination?

Whatever the cause, I like it. Renn is even taking his syringe feeding of Recovery better than previously, and isn’t as mopey afterward. That feeding won’t last much longer. It will be replaced by a weekly treatment for hairballs. I am not entirely unconvinced that a hairball resulted in all this trouble; perhaps it caused an irritation in his bowels.

I am ready if the other Renn returns, as he may; for now, I enjoy watching the new, healthier, happier Renn eat his soft-food. I haven’t seen this fellow for a while. I hope he stays.

Renn Returns Home

Renn is back home and doing well. When I brought him home yesterday, he spent some time sniffing cats and objects, then joined the others in a soft-food dinner. He ate a good-sized portion, though his portions are not large. Despite his size, he is not a big eater. But he did eat. Soft-food, then hard-food, then soft-food again at snack-time. And he ate soft-food again for breakfast. He hasn’t eaten so much soft-food in such a short time for months, it seems.

He drank a great quantity of water last night, and not long after dinner, visited the litter-boxes and left two deposits, one of each kind.

I’m not complacent about these developments, as pleasing as they may be. His sudden appetite may have been due to going without food at the hospital, or relief at being home, or familiar smells of food. Renn will be watched closely for some time. He will also have his food supplemented by syringe for a little while, and be put on a weekly injection of hairball remedy, like Josie.

These words give the impression that I am not happy with what my big boy achieved last night, and I am. Wetting in a litter-box demonstrates that he is not blocked in the appropriate passages. He is not constipated and…he has not vomited since returning home. Furthermore, any food he consumes is a step in the right direction. I’m not complacent, but I am not pessimistic, either. In fact, I think he has turned the corner of whatever was bothering him. Renn was in a good mood last evening, which was fuel for my optimism.

I want to thank those who expressed good wishes for Renn’s health, and also those who offered suggestions. I’ve learned much from other members of the Cat Blogosphere, and continue to do so. As regards sending a sample of Renn away to grow a culture, I was told that there was simply nothing to grow, since nothing was found. The inflammation that the doctor suspected of being the cause of Renn’s discomfort was merely a guess, since no signs of real infection were found. Nonetheless, this little mystery cost me $300.

Yet, though nothing really was achieved by his hospital stay - except the discovery that he is actually in good health (not an inconsiderable thing to learn, really) - I would do it again. The one time that I don’t take action may be the one time action is needed. My cats depend on me to keep them well and, though there are many other things on which I could spend my money, I find that I tend to spend it on my cats when I do have it. As Renn crept up to me in bed last night, purring and rubbing his head against my hand, I know it goes to a good cause.

Renn Goes to Hospital

Renn had to go to the hospital yesterday. For a week or so, my big boy has been vomiting thick liquid. Initially, it was clear, then it turned yellow. I thought it may have been a hairball. After all, the symptoms were similar to what Josie had shown recently; my Chubs is much better since she commenced receiving regular doses of a hairball remedy. But Renn stopped eating, which wasn’t any sign Josie exhibited. I began feeding him a nutrient-rich food called Recovery. As the name suggests, it’s for convalescent cats. It is easily digested and high in what the animal may be missing. Renn disliked the process of forced-feeding - but who wouldn’t?

This seemed to be working. The vomiting abated, he started to eat hard-food again and eventually some soft-food. But last night, I noticed his continued trips downstairs to the litter-boxes, where he remained an inordinate amount of time. Following him down, I watched him try to use a litter-box. After several minutes of attempting to leave a deposit, two tiny drops had been produced. He was also crying.

With memories of Tucker’s urinary blockage in mind, I whisked Renn off to the veterinary hospital. My regular doctors have someone on-call for such emergencies, so at 9.30 at night, my big boy was being examined. His bladder was empty, and his bowels not close to being full. There was no blockage. He was kept overnight for observation.

This morning, a sample of urine was taken from a fuller bladder. He pH level is very good, and there were no crystals that could be found. It was possible that an infection was caught in its earliest stages, but it would, I thought, be unlikely to produce the effects of an infection in its later phases. The doctor believes a very mild inflammation may have been exerting pressure, telling Renn that he had to go, when he did not. He has been given an injection to reduce any possible inflammation. He will be coming home in a few hours.

I may have to isolate my friend for the night, in order to see if he leaves any deposits in a litter-box. Hopefully, by keeping an eye on his wanderings and litter-boxes that are free of anyone else’s results, I won’t have to lock Renn up until tomorrow morning. He likes to sleep on my bed, near the bottom, with periodic forays toward my head for reassuring pets.

Please excuse the old picture. I didn’t have the time to get a recent one of him. And if you will, spare a moment to wish him good health.