Our little girl Tammy (15 yrs) is temperamental and has a history of being very finicky. She also does not like it when we are away, so she got into one of her typical moods when we left for an extended anniversary weekend (despite my brother-in-law housesitting in our absence). Which sometimes means her going on a mini hunger strike.
But it’s been a couple of weeks now and instead of her resuming eating at her normal volume, her consumption has gone in the other direction, rapidly dwindling down to zero. At first, she stopped eating her normal food but would still nibble at the treats that we save for special occasions. For the next few days, that’s all she was eating, but at least it was something.
Now even that has stopped. The vet has prescribed some Serax (which is an appetite stimulant) and some potassium (because she was suffering from a deficiency since she’s also in the very early stages of renal failure). We lost Tammy’s brother Max to kidney failure a few years ago, so we can identify the early signs of nausea and frustration (at this point, even when she tries to eat, the food just falls out of her mouth).
Needless to say, we’ve tried dozens of different brands–soft and hard–to see if anything works. We’ve tried a variety of treats and even baby food (at the vet’s instruction). No dice.
So after taking her back to the vet tomorrow (to see how much weight she’s lost and if they have any other ideas), we’re going to do a grocery run for a variety of people food that we’re hoping does the trick. She’s never been very interested in our food in the past (except for cheesecake, of all things), but at this point, we’re open to any suggestions.
We know we’re not too optimistic, but we don’t want to give up without exhausting all non-invasive options. Anything work for you cat owners that seemed unlikely but was actually effective?
When my older girl wouldn’t eat I was also open to anything. One thing that worked was to buy some of that jar/canned gravy at the grocery store and pour a little on her wet food. Usually she’d lick the gravy and then end up eating some of the food, sometimes she’d only lick the gravy.
There was almost a week where she wouldn’t eat anything at all. I finally got some Cheez WHiz of all things (don’t you all judge me!) and I’d put some of it on her paw and she’d end up licking it off. Sometimes that would stimulate a little bit of appetite.
One of the things that our vet suggested when one of our cats was refusing food was to try very ‘fragrant’ fish, like tinned mackerel, sardines or herring. Warming it slightly in the microwave can make it even more fragrant, which might just be the temptation she needs.
I hope she improves soon.
I just wanted to add that, given that she’s an older cat, perhaps her teeth are bothering her? You might want to puree the fish to make it easier for her to eat (which also solves the potential problem of bones).
Our vet recommended the same thing, get smelly food and heat it slightly to make it smellier.
We went through a drawn out session of this with our cat, his problem was an upper respiratory infection and he went about three weeks. He finally nibbled a french fry and then started eating.
You could try putting some of the food on her paw - she will lick it off just to get her paw clean.
You could try grilling some fresh mince/ some fish (brown and crispy and fragrant on top)
Liver? My cats would eat styrofoam if it had liver sprinkles on it.
Raw egg?
Milk formulated for cats (ie NOT cows milk)
Best of luck
From the madrabbitwoman and her elderly cat Holly.
I have a doberman in congestive heart failure right now. The one thing that really sparked her appetite was minced boiled chicken livers. Just plop them in boiling water for a couple minutes (not too long, they get rubbery) and run through your food processor for a couple pulses. Right now, for breakfast, Grace gets three eggs scrambled with sour cream (in the mini mixer) and microwaved for 45 seconds. then 1/4 c of minced chicken livers are added to cool it down and add protein and calories. The egg and sour cream mixture is still pretty liquidy, but Grace thinks it’s great. I can hide her pills with the chicken liver solids and she eats the whole thing.
It’s possible she’s got an over-active thyroid and is losing weight because of the hyperthyroidism. That’s what happened to my Tosh, who’s 16ish. She started losing weight pretty rapidly, and seemed to lose all interest in her food. We tried feeding her wet food, but she’d just lick it and never ate anything appreciable. Had her tested, and yep, hyperthyroid.
Recently, she started throwing up a lot, like every day. We’ve since switched her food from Iams to Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Diet, and it seems to be working. She seems to like it a lot better, and more importantly, it’s staying in her. I think she’s gaining some weight now, which is a good thing.
Now, if we could just stop the pooping outside the litter box, we’d have our perfect cat back.
I’m having similar problems with a 19 year old cat. I had some of her teath removed for dental health and I know she can eat hard food but she’s still fussy. If she doesn’t get her thyroid medicine (rubbed into ears) she has trouble keeping stuff down.
Honestly, she is flat picky about what I feed her and would lick gravy off of caviar. One thing I noticed is that she will not eat soft food that touches the bowl. Not sure why. I have to put it on top of the hard food. First she’ll lick the gravy off, then eat the soft food, and then eat the hard food if it doesn’t get soggy. All of this hinges on whether she likes the food to begin with. She’s not a fan of beef unless it’s my steak dinner. She’ll eat that.
Gravy seems to be the order of the day as well as cat’s milk. I would look for cat food that’s heavy on the gravy and maybe add some chicken gravy to that. Also, people grade tuna. Cat seems to like that.
Earlier this year, our cat Esme just stopped eating, which caused fatty liver disease, which caused further loss of appetite, and we had to force feed her for several weeks until she finally started to eat on her own again. The vet gave us something called FortiFlora to sprinkle on her food. It’s actually a gut flora supplement, but it tastes fantastic, apparently. It worked great for Esme, and it’s the only thing that we tried that got her to eat on her own. If your vet doesn’t have it, it’s available on Amazon.
That’s what my co-worker had to do when her cat went on a hunger strike after my co-worker had the audacity to move to a new, better place. The cat had refused to eat for about 5 weeks, IIRC, and would only drink the water from a can of tuna for awhile.
When the dog was having food refusal issues we got a bag of those dehydarated liver chunks, ground it to a powder in a coffee grinder and sprinkled it on his food. He’d eat right through his bowl to the floor if he thought he could get at that liver.
This sounds like my cat exactly. Without her thyroid medicine she throws up. Part of the pooping problem may be constipation. You can feel the abdomen for signs of waste buildup. One of the signs is an extended anus because it’s backed up. My cat has trouble actually getting it out and will be in mid-poop because it’s too hard to expel. It drops where it drops. Your cat may need a laxative.
Thanks everyone for all the responses. Tammy ate a few more treats last night, which is good for the short term, but definitely not the answer for the long term.
Her teeth are fine, but we will ask the vet about the thyroid (though we had some blood work done recently, so I’d think they would’ve flagged something conspicuous). Ditto if there were any signs of fatty liver (though we went down that road with Max and don’t want to subject her to what what we know is a truly difficult and long-lasting regimen with such an uncertain outcome; hence, non-invasive).
Some of the canned cat food that are fish related (seafood medley, tuna feast, etc.) are certainly smelly, but we’ll kick it up a notch with some of the other suggestions. Ditto the livers.
The gravy idea is promising, but of the canned foods we’ve gotten with gravy, she definitely likes licking that a little, but it has never yet resulted in her consuming a chunk of two of the food itself.
I’m afraid she’s not a hunter, just a lover.
She’s gotten quite adept at shaking things off her paw instead of licking it off (we have to rub the potassium gel on her snout for her to ingest it). But we’ll also look into the FortiFlora.
The other thing the vet had us do was offer him anything and everything. If the weight issue gets desperate, the goal is just get calories in them. Best of luck!
Our 17 year old cat died a few months ago. Over the last 4 years he went from 28 lbs and was probably 7 at the end.
The last year or so we did everything we could to get him to eat as much as possible. One thing that helped was putting his food bowl up on the kitchen table where he had never been allowed. He seemed to think his food was something special when it was placed up there.
If it’s a question in the short term of just getting calories into the cat, perhaps some pure glucose (available at the drug store in diabetic supplies) in the water would help.
One last suggestion- I didn’t see it already mentioned. I’ve had several older cats with various issues including kidney problems, diabetes and cancer, who have stopped eating. The best luck I had was pureed meat baby food - they seem to all like the chicken best - given on a spoon or finger. Sometimes I watered it down a little with low sodium chicken broth as well. This seems to work well for the ones who don’t seem able or inclined to chew. When possible, I also added some cat vitamin supplement with taurine. I could usually get even the pickiest cat to take some of this several times a day.
For extra calories, I would sometimes add a small amount of olive oil or butter - the butter was a particularly popular choice. Helped with the regularity as well.
Any other ideas would be most welcome.