I just had my 9 year-old cat in for teeth cleaning on Friday; the bill was $150. That included bloodwork, anesthesia, dental, nail clipping, her yearly exam and a couple vaccinations. Even when we bring our dogs in for dental work the bill isn’t over $250. Maybe you could get a second opinion or a cheaper estimate from another vet? I think it is very important to keep your pets’ teeth healthy; like others have said it can lead to severe bacterial infections if not treated.
I had my older cat (15 years old) at the vets for some work on her backside (renal glands?) and during the exam he showed me the condition of her teeth. He took most of the tartar off in about 2 minutes. He showed me the before and after including all the stuff he knocked off. Also showed me how to do it myself.
He originally wanted my cat to stay overnight for the gland work but relented to my request to try again because my pet would have gone catatonic with an overnight stay. The total bill was $91.50.
Let’s all please pretend this is anywhere close to grammatically correct, mmkay?
Amen.
I hope you were shortening things for the sake of simplicity, Armadillo.
Muscle meat is nothing at all like a predator’s diet. Just feeding muscle (i.e. a chunk of meat) and nothing else would produce animals that are severly malnurished. Most of the time the problem shows up as rickets at muscle tissue has very little calcium, and the calcium/phosphorus ratio is off.
But only feeding meat would also not provide enough vitamins
Predators usually eat their prey’s liver and internal organs including the instestines with its fill in addition to muscle tissue. As a matter of fact, muscle is not even eaten if they have enough of everything else.
So, if you’re putting mice in a blender your cats may be getting a true predator diet. Feeding hunks of meat isn’t even close.
My sister’s vet recommended a recipe that included (I know I’m not remembering all the ingredients) salmon oil, peas and carrots (but no corn, no corn!), ground turkey, a little tuna (the fish is what was giving the little male kitty his urinary problems), and a crushed multivitamin.
I think bone meal was included in there somewhere too. I really need to ask her for the specific recipe. Not saying it would work for all cats, but it was one that the vet recommended, for what that’s worth.
I agree that animals deserve to be well cared for, but I volunteer at a cat shelter. Our one little shelter has almost 100 cats with no homes. They certainly aren’t getting $500 dental cleanings at the shelter - although they do get excellent medical care at our shelter - and they get even less care if they’re out on the street. It’s far better for a kitty to have a caring home, food, a warm bed, and someone who loves them than to be given up because a person can’t afford all the expensive treatments available. Will the cat have a shorter life without the teeth cleaning? Maybe. Would it have a shorter life if the owner gave it up and put it in a shelter? Definitely. Would the cat have an unhappier life if the owner put it in a shelter? DEFINITELY. Of course our shelter asks prospective owners if they can afford to care for their new kitty. But as long as the owner can provide food and litter and basic veterinary care, the rest of the stuff is not worth denying the kitty a home over.
You’ve got a point. Better to have someone give the cat a home than for the cat to go without the home, even if that person has a somewhat crappy attitude.
I think there’s a difference between wishing you could take better care of an animal but not being able to, and saying that you’ll never do that, and basically acting hostile at the whole concept of paying kind of a steep price for a procedure that is, by any definition, humane and certainly not frivolous.
A raw diet may well improve dental health. However, how are you ensuring that the nutritional profile of what you feed is adequate? Note also that the typical raw diet is not the cat’s ‘prey model’ diet anyway - unless your cat is in the habit of taking down cows, sheep and chickens. He could be armed, I suppose. Also, I am unaware of any reliable sources that indicate ‘grain and rendered fats’ contribute to poor dental health.
It’s possible to get commercial dental foods (e.g., Hill’s t/d). These have been established to be efficacious.
It’s also possible to give your cat routine dental care yourself - you can get cat toothbrushes and toothpaste, or use can use gauze wrapped around a finger, and dipped in saline solution. Possible … in theory. Try this with some cats, and they will get their dental care by gnawing your finger bones.
So, you ‘love’ your cat, but if his teeth needed $500 of attention, you would let them rot out of his head rather than provide the necessary care? That sounds like an odd sort of love to me…
I’m sure Mixie was just being brief but I can assure you that the rawfeeding lists suggest a wide range of organ meats along with the muscle meats/bones. On the cat lists there are usually discussions on where to find pinkie mice and/or older ones, game hens and quail.
Our vet told us our 10 year old (she’s 10! damn, I hadn’t realized she’d gotten so old so fast…) had some tartar but in general was good. If we had the funds in the next couple of years, we should get them cleaned, and that they were having a sale in April (or something).
Our dog, on the other hand, had terrible tartar and nasty breath. I found half of a tooth on the floor one morning and we had her into the vet the next day. It had broken off in a good place (not causing pain) but the bill for extraction and cleaning was something like $400.
The little one (just turned 2) doesn’t have any buildup and is not going in for a cleaning unless we have to.
Mmmmm…mouseshake!!!
Of course I was. I wasn’t sure if anyone was interested enough to really get down and dirty with the details. That’s why I said “looks something like this” which, to the nekkid eye, is just what feeding time looks like. That hunk of meat might be half a mackerel, might be deer liver and turkey ribs, might be just a hunk of pork muscle. My critters get a percentage of meat, organ meats, and bone content that roughly approximates a prey animal. They get a Ca : P ratio of 1.2:1 which mother nature has ever so conveniently built right into the structure of the prey animal. I’ve actually just done complete bloodwork on all the animals to check up on this, and shore 'nuff, their Ca : P levels are perfect.
I appreciate the concern, but blending mice is not exactly necessary. They get meat, bones, and organs from everything from mice to deer, which–granted–is not exactly feral-cat-fare, but certainly better than what’s going to be found in your average bag of dry food. Feeding whole prey is not necessary either, as long as they’re getting the right ingredients in the right ratios.
For anyone listening in who’s interested, it’s really not as complicated as it sounds 
That’s kinda harsh. What does that make the going rate for for cat love? I’m trying to imagine the sign at the animal shelter that says “you must be this rich to adopt --> $$$$ <–”.
$500 is a lot of money to a lot of people. It was wise to ask the question in the first place because it doesn’t require anywhere near that amount to knock off some tartar. Unless you plan on french kissing your cat it is not necessary to polish their teeth for good health. Wild animals manage to do just fine without a dental plan. And yes, it is possible to do it yourself, just as it is possible to trim their nails and clean their ears.
I would define the love of a pet in terms of the time spent caring for them. There is no price tag for getting scratched the first time you trim their nails. Training them to put up with it long enough for the promise of a little loving can be a very rewarding event to a cat owner. God knows what a vet does to them but there’s certainly no guarantee it was done with the same love and attention an owner can give.
In what way? I ensure they’re meeting their nutritional needs by knowing what they are, and being certain they’re getting the right foods to meet them. Are you asking how I know the chicken and lambs and deer are getting the right food? Well, I don’t, really, I try to feed as much grassfed meat and wild game as possible, and really the only true ‘hole’ in the diet is the potential for depleted omega fatty acids in factory-farmed meats. This can be made up by feeding some salmon oil once in a while.
Uh huh, neither is “Chicken Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Wheat Flour, Poultry Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of natural Vitamin E), Ground Rice, Natural Flavors, Beet Pulp, Lamb Meal, Rice Bran, Brewers Dried Yeast, Dried Egg Product, Potassium Chloride, Salt, Choline Chloride, DL-Methionine, Taurine, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, Inositol, Niacin, Copper Sulfate, Ascorbic Acid (source of Vitamin C), Riboflavin Supplement (source of Vitamin B2), Manganous Oxide, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (source of Vitamin B6), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate (source of Vitamin B1), Biotin, Calcium Iodate, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (source of Vitamin K activity), Folic Acid.” You’ll note that three of the top five ingredients are grain sources completely inappropriate to the diet of an obligate carnivore. And that’s a premium quality kibble, too.
I may not be able to provide a strict diet of mice and squirrels and crickets, but I’m as certain as it’s possible to be that a thoughtful raw diet is a whole hell of a lot closer than what you’ll find in a bag of dry food.
I’m aware of very few reliable sources on companion animal nutrition.
These have been established by research funded by Hill’s to be efficacious.
You’ll pardon the skepticism regarding any nutrition research funded by Hill’s, Nestle, or any of their subsidiaries.
I still see no reason to feed an expensive prescription “dental food” when real food will prevent this problem and so many more in the first place. That’s the mindset that drives me nuts in the veterinary field. Instead of going to the root of the issue…
Meanwhile, enough with the hijack, if anyone’s truly interested in the subject, feel free to email me, I’m happy to oblige, or point you to far more experienced subjects than myself.
~mixie
Err, sources than myself.
I’m hoping that there are alternatives for people who can’t afford it, so they don’t simply let the animal suffer.
Mixie’s right about commercially made pet foods. They’re nasty. Our cats have been much healthier since eating the home-prepared food. (My sister tried the raw food diet, but the cats wouldn’t go for it.)
A few years ago she had a cat that was on his last legs with multiple problems, one of which was constant diarrhea. Giving him the home-cooked food cleared that up, and he lived for quite a while longer. The cats have shinier coats and brighter eyes. There are a lot of cites indicating that commercial pet food isn’t that great. (Food Pets Die For was one of the first books my sister got, and this cite also appears to give some interesting information.)
By the way, you don’t have to cook your pet’s food if you are concerned about commercial food. The second cite lists some pet food companies that offer better alternatives. We used to feed our cats Wellness for years, and the cats loved it. (We had to stop giving it because the little boy cat and his urinary problems, but it would be still be okay food for cats with no urinary problems.)
But I’m sure if an animal shelter had a choice between someone who reacted angry, hostile and aghast at the notion of spending that much, and emphatically stated, “Never,” and someone who acted like they would if they could—well, who would you prefer to take care of an animal? One who would NEVER pay that much to relieve an animal’s suffering, or one who would (if they could), and didn’t act hostile about the concept?
Conversely, the shelter that I volunteer with will, and routinely has provided dental care to cats in our system that needed it. Once we rescue them from the E-List they get all the care they need. Add to that, we will not adopt to just anyone - we feel that our animals deserve a home where they will be taken care of and not just treated as something not worth a little bit of extra money. Our mission statement talks about affecting a culture change by which animals are perceived in our society and elavating their status. We would be doing them a disservice if we adopted them out to someone that wouldn’t spend $500 “on an animal”.
She did not say ‘I am poor, and I would not be able to pay $500 for dental work’. She gave no indication that she would be willing to pay $500 even if she had the cash. She said ‘but I won’t be paying $500 for his teeth to get cleaned. Never’. As I said, a funny sort of love. Less than $500 of love, for sure.
The going rate for cat / dog / lemur love is - doing what you can, and finding a way to get the necessary care even if you cannot easily afford it. The going rate for gerbil love is something else entirely.
But they are not wild animals, and hopefully they receive better care than wild animals. Hopefully we care for our pets more than we care for some random possum. Plus dental care is more than ‘knocking off some tartar’ - e.g., I doubt you’ll be doing an extraction at home (grab those pliers and yer off).
But sure, home dental care is a good idea as a preventative.
Heh. The author of Food Pets Die For appeared on Usenet a couple of years ago, and got roundly trounced, based on her complete lack of objective data to support her claims. Basically, these internet ‘cites’ are rarely worth the paper they’re not printed on.
Well, the point I’m getting at is - have you established what their nutritional needs are? I fear that many people who leap onto the raw and homecooked bandwagon do not, and nor do they know the potential consequences of screwing up the nutritional balance of the food.
First, ‘high quality dry food’ is somewhat of an oxymoron, although not entirely due to the carbohydrate content.
Second, there is no evidence that corn gluten meal is ‘completely inappropriate’. There is evidence that CGM is somewhat worse than animal-based protein sources (there are a couple of recent papers by Masayuki Funaba on this topic), such as in terms of risk of constipation, and risk of urinary blockage. However, the digestibility of CGM compares rather well with fish and meat meals.
Third, although cats do not need any carbohydrate in the diet, they can use a certain amount (c. <40% of the diet) generally without apparent distress. Also, cats would ingest a few % of carbs (grains) in their natural diet, via the stomach contents of their prey, so that a grain-free diet is not ecologically ideal. It is true that the cat is not designed for carb use and there is certainly no point to feeding carbs if there is an equivalent diet that meets the nutritional requirements.
There is some evidence that raw foods can be problematic, too. For example, Allan et al. (2000; Prev Vet Med 46: 183-196) found that feeding raw foods was associated with an increased risk of obesity. Having said that, any problems with obesity are the owner’s fault, regardless of the diet fed.
Well, there the 1000 pages+ of Small Animal Clinical Nutrition…
Well, they have been established to be efficacious according to the protocols of the VOHC .
There’s a fine line between skepticism and paranoia.
Well, a reason is that the nutritional profile of a ‘dental food’ is known, and (generally) matches what science currently says the profile should be. A home cooked / uncooked diet could also match the desired profile, but I wonder how many raw feeders have established that their diet indeed does…?
Although it may seem like I have a serious downer on raw / home foods, I should say that I do not have anything against them per se. However, the ‘evidence’ against commercial foods (and for home foods) is nearly all interwebwaffle, and the risk of fucking up the pet’s diet is real, if the home-feeder does not do their homework.