My cat Sunny died today. He had kidney failure, and we just found out yesterday. For the past few weeks, we knew something was wrong, he just wasn’t being himself. So we took him to the vet and his blood work came back showing that he had serious kidney failure - all of his tests came back extremely high for different levels of stuff in his blood that indicates kidney failure.
The vet said that he was so sick that we should euthanize him as soon as possible. I didn’t want him to feel bad any longer than he had to, so we took him in tonight. He died as me, my mom, and my boyfriend were right next to him. I cried a lot.
Sunny was 13 years old. He loved to go outside and was the king of our yard. All the neighbors knew him and loved him. He was a friendly guy, and he loved to hunt, and would bring us “gifts” that he had caught for us. He loved to drink water out of the faucet and would loudly demand us to turn it on for him several times a day. He was super cuddly and loving and we will miss him so much.
Finally, does anyone know anything about kidney disease in cats? I want to do whatever I can to prevent my other cats from developing it. Should we change their diets and if so, how?
Very pretty cat. He sounds a bit like our Mick, also very loving and in your face (especially when you want to read) and demanding with the water faucet.
I know that male cats are more susceptible to urinary tract diseases. We try to keep our cats healthy by keeping their water fresh and buying the fancy, expensive cat food from one of those “Pet Boutique” kind of places rather than the Cat Chow from the grocery store…but both of ours are pretty young still, and I have no idea if that’s going to make any difference in the long run.
I’m sorry for your loss, nyctea scandiaca. We’re very lucky to have cats as pets. You had a wonderful Sunny for 13 years. . I know what it is to cry for a beloved pet. After a while, you’ll remember the good times, and remember that he was lucky to have found you. Think of him always as lying in the sun with a blissful look on his face.
One of my cats had to be euthanized recently because of acute kidney failure. He was a rescued cat that lived on the street for some indeterminate time. The vet said that he might have eaten contaminated food that wore down his kidneys.
The best thing you can do for a cat’s kidneys is to keep him well-hydrated. If your cat doesn’t drink a lot of water, you can try various things to keep him drinking: leaving a tap dripping in the bathroom if he likes his water that way, leaving the toilet bowl open if he’s a toilet water fan, putting a bit of juice from a can of tuna or salmon in his drinking water (in this case, you can’t leave the water sitting around for long).
As The Superhero writes, there are special diets that can help prevent crystals forming in the urine of the cat, causing urinary tract problems or blockage, but this is not the same as kidney failure.
Hey Nyctea, sorry about Sunny. He looked like a big ball of fluffy love.
If you can afford it, I’d strongly advocate a higher quality diet than the grocery store Iams/Science Diet. My cat was recently diagnosed with Struvite crystals and the vet put him on the Science Diet S/D plan (I believe, I’ve long since tossed the bag). After doing some research I found out that most of the cat chow grocery store brands are full of junk that contributes towards these diseases. I posted about it on my blog and several of my readers pointed me towards higher quality foods that are low-grain/no corn. Seriously, they are feeding CATS corn now. Also, most of the research shows that if they’re willing to eat wet food, it’s good for them (increases water intake etc.).
I put my cat on Innova Evo and Wellness wet food about a month ago, and aside from the fact that he has had no recurring crystals, holy crap, he looks so much healthier. He put on solid muscle weight, his coat is fluffier, sheds less etc… I also bought a water fountain to increase his water intake.
Other brands I was suggested were Felidae, Wellness, California Natural (Innova Evo is manufactured by Natura which owns many brands, including California Natural), Wysong Uretic (and as a note, I’m planning on mixing this with my Evo just because I’m paranoid) and various raw food companies.
Again, some cats are more sensitive to these issues than others. My parents’ cats are very healthy on regular cat chow. My cat ended up more sensitive and needed a higher protein and low grain diet.
We’ve lost more cats to kidney failure than everything else combined. I asked the vet if we were doing something wrong, and she basically said that something’s gotta give eventually, and in cats it was very often the kidneys. Frustrating and horrible as it is, there’s not much you can do but make sure there’s water and give the best life you can.
(Our Halley has kidney failure right now. We’ve lost Tuffy, Orson, and Irving to it.)
I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ve lost dogs to kidney failure before. I’m going to reiterate the point jsgoddess made: domestic animals are living longer than they have in the past, and sometimes body parts just give out. Cats are masters at hiding illnesses; often until it is too late.
Sorry for your loss. I know how painful it is, I’ve had to euthanize so many pets when they are suffering at the end . I second the reccomendation for a really good cat food. I have four cats, two of them are 19 years old. One of these was diagnosed with mild kidney disease over six years ago. I changed their food at the time to a high quality food (non-supermarket) and then a couple years ago changed it to Pet Promise. They are doing very well on it, no signs of kidney disease now. It’s also very inexpensive for the high quality you are getting. I’m only paying $14 for an 8 lb. bag of dry food. I also give them about a tablespoon a day of either regular tuna or Trader Joe’s Tuna for Cats, this is just as a treat. From what I’ve heard kidney disease is pretty common in dogs and cats. I lost my 14 yr. old dog to it as well as an 18 yr old cat years ago, however this was before I knew just how bad the suparmarket petfood was.
Yeah, we’ve switched over from Iams to BG–a grain free food. Our extremely tubby cats are now much slimmer, and our slim cats are still slim. We really made the switch because Cosmo has some sort of dietary allergy, but it’s been a good choice even beyond that.
