Our 16-year old girl is in the early stages of renal failure, and while she’s always been a picky eater, she’s now reduced to only a few treats a day, and has undergone quite a precipitous weight loss (from 10lbs to less than 7 over a few months).
We have tried and tried dozens upon dozens of options–soft, dry, wet, raw–but nothing seems to work. Obviously, we are worried and so is the vet, and while we want her to eat, we’re hesitant about giving her an appetite stiumlant, because (a) it hasn’t really worked well in the past, and (b) we already give her pills, fluids, supplements, etc. plenty already.
One thing we discovered is that she seems to like the smell of rosemary. My wife was handling some in the garden recently and Tammy was licking and licking and licking her hands as if she couldn’t get enough. Will rosemary harm her if we sprinkle it on and amidst her normal food?
Or does anyone have any other suggestions? We’re going to try baby food (again; hasn’t worked in the past) and cheesecake (the only human food she’s shown interest in, though not recently), but are otherwise out of ideas. We know there are plenty of products at the pet store that claim to add that special bang to food, but any personal testimonials will be much more helpful.
Have you tried warming the various foodstuffs? Hot baby food or hot canned food smells like goat ass, but kitties will often eat more readily when they can smell the food. Try the veal if you’re doing the baby food.
The other thing you can try if she’s drinking really well for you is to puree the food into her water and let her drink it.
As for the rosemary, I dunno if it will hurt her or not. But, as bad as I hate being this blunt about the issue, the absolute worst case scenario is that she dies fast instead of starving to death. I say go for it.
When one of our cats was having kidney problems chronicled here, the only thing that I could get him to eat was canned tuna. He wouldn’t touch canned cat food – even the tuna cat food. Even though the vet didn’t want Soda to have too much salt, he basically said that anything I could get him (the cat) to eat was fine. Your vet may have other opinions.
A friend’s cat had similar issues and her vet gave her some kind of medicine that would stimulate the cats appetite. She would give the cat the medicine in liverwurst. It did seem to work, but made the cat drool quite a bit.
I’ve had luck with all-meat baby food. I asked my vet if it would be bad to feed a renal failure kitty pure protein; he shrugged and said “choose your battles.”
The other thing is, a renal failure cat with seek novelty. That is, you can’t feed him one thing all the time, he will refuse it after one or two tries. What you can do is feed him a rotating selection of flavors of the same foods. I’ve had luck with that, to a point.
Which bring me to my last point… if kitty doesn’t want to eat, kitty may be saying it’s time. Lost my Smokey cat in January to kidney failure.
I second that canned tuna suggestion, from experience. I would warm it up just a little as someone suggested…stronger smell and that “fresh kill” temperature I am told they like.
Our cat doesn’t like tuna, just licks up the juices. However, she would kill for salmon. You might try canned red or pink salmon; just make sure you sift out the bones.
With my Abby, who died last June, I resorted to syringe feeding her k/d mixed with water. I was hoping that food would make her feel better and eat on her own. I don’t think I’d do that again.
Sadly, I agree. I do hope you can find something she wants to eat, soon. I know how totally frustrating and heartbreaking that sort of situation is.
As far as the rosemary goes, a lot of the “natural” pet foods now include rosemary or rosemary extracy because it apparently makes for a fairly potent preservative. So I doubt it would hurt her. Maybe it’s sort of like catnip for her?
I don’t remember the Rx name, but when I had a cat who was about to put himself into liver damage from not eating after some external stress got him all higgledy-piggledy, I had pretty good success with whatever appetite-stimulant pills the vet gave. Sorry, all I remember now is that they were little, white, and worked.
Other suggestions:
canned sardines or anchovies (at this point, sodium be damned, it causes long-term problems and that seems to be a moot point here)
chicken thighs, lightly poached and then shredded finely
chicken gizzards, heart, other giblets they shove into the whole chickens at the grocery store, lightly cooked
there’s a ferret nutritional supplement called Ferre-Tone (and another called Ferre-Vite) that even dying ferrets still go nuts for (ask me how I know :() so it’s possible cats like it, too?
My experience is the same as others - kidney failure took my Tosha late last year. We put her to sleep after seeing how far she’d declined at a vet visit. It sucked, more than I can say, but was for the best.
Good luck with your kitty - I wish you all the best.
As a veterinarian, I deal with kidney failure cats often. A common problem is reluctance to eat. Nearly all veterinarians will agree that the more important thing is for your cat to eat something. Yes, high-protein food will shut down her kidneys faster than low-protein food, but starvation will kill her first.
As others have said, try warming up the food, try mixing her previous food with chicken broth or water, then microwaving it, try wiping a little on her nose so she licks it and tastes it. IIRC, rosemary is not a known toxin for cats, so you can try mixing that into her food.
Forced feeding with a syringe is an option that your vet can help you learn, but, as others have said, it’s not a fun activity for you or kitty. You can also talk to your vet about installing a feeding tube, but the anesthesia and expense needed for that is not an option for everyone.
Hello Again makes an excellent point as well. 16 is a really good run for a kitty. And, even if you pull her through this current crisis, the kidney failure is going to catch up with her and drag her down this slope again. Is it worth putting her through this?
One thing that may be worth trying is a different food bowl. Cats don’t particularly like bowls where their whiskers get touched so you could try a saucer - that is of course if you aren’t using one already. (I learned this from some cat encyclopedia I am reading. Yes, I need a life).
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. Sadly, nothing really worked and while we were away on family business this past weekend, she lost another 10 oz. We brought her to the vet yesterday, and it clearly seems in her best interests to put her to sleep while her discomfort is still minimal and her dignity intact.
I took a day off from work to keep her company. She’s laying in her favorite bed right next to me right now, curled up and adorable. The vet will be making a house call at 2 this afternoon and that will be that. :sigh: She had a good run, and it’s hard to see her go when she still has so much energy and affection (she’s not despondent or morose the way cats can be sometimes when they’re deteriorating). But while her spirit is willing, her body is failing her.
Goodbye, Tammy. You’ve been a sweetheart and a joy in our lives, and we’ll always love you.
I’m sorry to hear that. I was really hoping we’d be able to buy you guys a little more quality time, but when we didn’t hear back from you for a while, I figured we probably hadn’t.
This was the experience I had, too - canned tuna or canned salmon worked. Unfortunately, even that stopped working after a day. I was also trying to give her appetite stimulants, but even sick, she was wily enough to willfully regurgitate them, which made her problem worse.
Thank you for the kind words, everyone. My wife had a good cry when it happened, and we’ll be getting the little box with her remains, which will sit next to her brother’s, who died 3 years ago under similar circumstances.
We still have one kitty left, but he’s our outdoor boy, so no more cats in the bed or early morning wake-up mews. She was our first cat, so it will take some getting used to having her gone.
