There should be a dog and cat forum.
I’ve got two cats that the vet dismissively calls “ancient”. One is 15 and the other 18. They’re big guys and at one point in their lives they were both well over 20 lbs. Moving from an apartment to a house had them both drop down to a more respectable 12 and 15. Still, the dismissive vet called them both fat the first time he saw them. The vet is newish to us as we only started seeing him about 3 years ago.
The cats ate only dry food. Wet food was for special occasions like Thanksgiving or when we had a party. They each have a bowl, we filled them with dry at 6 pm. They ate at it all day. “On demand” the vet called it. Said it wasn’t good for them as it made them fat.
2 years ago Plunket, the 18 year old, got very sick. It was his thyroid. He dropped to less than 8 pounds and it was scary. He looked like a cat head on a skeleton body. He also developed arthritis in his back legs. Dismissive Vet shrugged about the arthritis. "He’s old, " was his diagnosis and plan of treatment. About two months ago when Dismissive Vet was out, Secondary vet advised giving Plunket Joint Maxx sprinkle caps over wet food.
We couldn’t give Plunket wet food without giving Camry, the 15 year old, wet too. We started off with just a few spoonfuls of wet in addition to their usual bowl of dry a day. It’s a half a can each now. The thing is, neither is thrilled about the dry food. Plunket will still eat some if he’s hungry but Camry refuses it.
Camry also cries and whines all day for food. Will steal Plunket’s medicated wet if not watched. Has started going after our food in a big way. We cannot leave any food unguarded for any length of time because he will try to steal it. We can no longer leave defrosting meat in the sink. He has toppled over our garbage can in search of people food, but will not even look at dry food anymore. He has lost a significant amount of weight. Not sure how much since he doesn’t go to the vet as often as Plunket does. He’s not scary skinny like Plunket was when he was sick. Dismissive Vet will probably think it’s great. He does continue to lose weight, however.
So I’m thinking, if Camry were actually starving he’d eat the dry, which was perfectly fine food two months ago. It was so fine, in fact, that he had no want of or need for people food. I absolutely refuse to give him people food. He can starve first! But he wouldn’t, right? Also, what to do about his new, annoying behaviors? I can’t beat him with a stick even though I would like to. Stupid ancient cats.