what cat food for male cats

[chrissyk]

chrissyk you were posting at the same time as me. One last question - what qualifies as straining? Is it very obvious? He sits in there but I don't see him obviously having trouble going just that he sits there - last night he sat in one are for a while - covered up like he went (but I saw that he didn't) went to the other side of the litter box and did the same thing. He doesnt' act like he's in pain but it just seems weird to keep going back to the litter box so often that has us concerned. Then yesterday I noticed that he went more normally (a more significant amount) once but that was it.

What you are describing IS straining. Did he go at all today? Has he been in and out of the box as you describe? I'd be very concerned that he is fully blocked right now. That is deadly within 24 hours. If he is going in the box but is not passing urine, please take him to the emergency vet asap. They at least need to check his bladder to see if it is distended and hard.

If he is not fully blocked (he is passing some urine), the 2 remedies that our holistic vet had us give to our cat are Apis and Arnica. The Apis would usually relieve the irritation w/in 15 minutes. What you are describing sounds more like a blockage, though, and that needs immediate attention.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

K-and-J

Kitties are resilient--if they are letting you know by unusual behaviors that they are sick--then they are really sick. The great things is--they are generally good healers if they can get diagnosed .

 

[kayeandjim00]

He did go this morning but not what I would qualify as "a lot". He was at the vet yesterday and they said his bladder was actually empty even though he'd been away from his litter box so long. I will continue to monitor him tonight -he has not been going to the litter box this afternoon - he's actually slept most of the day but this seems to be more of an issue later in the evening so I will continue to watch him really closely tonight and see if he is still passing urine or not if not we will definitely pay a visit to our animal emergency hospital I don't want to take any chances. Thank you again for your help. It's been most helpful to have someone who's been through this!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I'd take him first thing to the vet in the AM and request a repeat procedure. If they get no urine--ask them to do an IV until they get some urine!

I'm with Chrissy--if it is that serious..there is no time to waste.

P&PD for your kitty furbaby!

 

[chrissyk]

He did go this morning but not what I would qualify as "a lot". He was at the vet yesterday and they said his bladder was actually empty even though he'd been away from his litter box so long. I will continue to monitor him tonight -he has not been going to the litter box this afternoon - he's actually slept most of the day but this seems to be more of an issue later in the evening so I will continue to watch him really closely tonight and see if he is still passing urine or not if not we will definitely pay a visit to our animal emergency hospital I don't want to take any chances. Thank you again for your help. It's been most helpful to have someone who's been through this!

When he went this morning, was it more than a drop? If he's in the box tonight and he's not passing urine, he's blocked. You need to call the emergency vet immediately if he is in there straining and isn't passing urine. Mine slept fine all night last night and ate TWO breakfasts this morning. He was completely obstructed with a tennis-ball sized bladder the entire time. We found that out when we rushed him to the emergency vet.

If he's not fully obstructed tonight, he still needs to see your vet tomorrow. They need to flush his bladder one way or the other to determine what kind of crystals are causing the partial obstructions. Trust me...this problem does NOT get better on it's own. The emergency vet today said that 2-3 incidences of blockage in a male=time to do the surgery. I don't know where this vet was 7 years ago, but I am glad that my cat has finally met a vet who has a clue.

 

[kayeandjim00]

This morning was definitely more than a drop. I would classify it as pretty close to normal just not as much as it sometimes is. We just cleaned the litter box again and we are going to watch him for the evening and see what he does. Either way I will call the vet again in the morning (he did ask us to do that) and let him know what's happened the past day and see what we should do next. I will watch him closely tonight and if necessary will definitely take him to the emergency vet. I am glad our vet is very proactive as I would not want to continue to put him through this. I will definitely talk to him about the surgery and at what point it might be something for us to consider. This would be his first issue - he's just turned 1. Thank you again to both of you. :

 

[chrissyk]

This morning was definitely more than a drop. I would classify it as pretty close to normal just not as much as it sometimes is. We just cleaned the litter box again and we are going to watch him for the evening and see what he does. Either way I will call the vet again in the morning (he did ask us to do that) and let him know what's happened the past day and see what we should do next. I will watch him closely tonight and if necessary will definitely take him to the emergency vet. I am glad our vet is very proactive as I would not want to continue to put him through this. I will definitely talk to him about the surgery and at what point it might be something for us to consider. This would be his first issue - he's just turned 1. Thank you again to both of you. :

At least you know the last time he urinated and the approximate quantity. It does sound like he's having some sort of partial obstruction. Mine would do this off-and-on and then suddenly end up fully blocked. His bladder needs to be "flushed," but after our 2 blockage experiences this week, I'm of the mind that our emergency vet is correct...the right way to flush out the grit is with a catheter. The 7 years of treating this with subcutaneous fluids just didn't work.

If you can get the crystals under control with an acidifier, then that is great. If not, I hope that your vet will consider your cat a candidate for the surgery. I should never have waited all these years to insist that our cat get the surgery done.

BTW, there are 2 cats in your signature. Is the other one also a male? If so, you might want to consider covering that one with pet health insurance. The one with the blockages is going to be excluded (or at least anything bladder/kidney related will be), but the other one can probably still be covered. We covered our other cat once our male started getting sick so often. Knock wood, we've never had to use her insurance...just having it is peace-of-mind, though. I wish that we'd covered our male before his first blockage. We used "Veternary Pet Insurance" for our other cat, but there are a few carriers out there.

 

[Tiggeroo]

just hanging in the box too long is def. UTI. Act fast as early on is cheap fix, later more expensive.
My cat didn't like Science Diet or Nature's Own ( I think). So he's on Purina. It's been a couple months so far so good. He drinks a decent amount. If I go with half a can of canned a day and some water how do I know if the canned food is ok. Does it have to b e urinary care also? Is canned always more low ash. I wouldn't mind making him his own but I've never been able to get him to eat any people food other then cheese curls and popcorn. He doesn't touch anything. He really doesn't care for canned food either. What is an acidifier. Does he need to go to the vet to have one. How can I find some good holistic preventitive methods. Right now I suspect all is clear. But I don't want what really to be happening is a slow build up and then another emergency.

 

[chrissyk]

just hanging in the box too long is def. UTI. Act fast as early on is cheap fix, later more expensive.
My cat didn't like Science Diet or Nature's Own ( I think). So he's on Purina. It's been a couple months so far so good. He drinks a decent amount. If I go with half a can of canned a day and some water how do I know if the canned food is ok. Does it have to b e urinary care also? Is canned always more low ash. I wouldn't mind making him his own but I've never been able to get him to eat any people food other then cheese curls and popcorn. He doesn't touch anything. He really doesn't care for canned food either. What is an acidifier. Does he need to go to the vet to have one. How can I find some good holistic preventitive methods. Right now I suspect all is clear. But I don't want what really to be happening is a slow build up and then another emergency.

Methagel is an acidifier, and there is a pill form of the same stuff (called Elamel or something similar). It acidifies the urine so struvite crystals can't form. They form in alkaline urine, apparently. For years, we "acidified" our cat's urine with vitamin C and cranberry powder. It just didn't work for our cat. I don't know if the methagel will work or not. I hope so. However, in our case, I'm done putting him through blockage after blockage. That's why we're insisting that the surgery be done now.

I don't know if canned food always has lower ash. I do know that our vet told us to feed only canned food...no more dry food. Our cat was a real chowhound on the dry food for the longest time, so I'm quite sure that that didn't help. Our vet also told us to add water to the wet food, to make it even more liquidy.

As for holistic preventative methods, we used them for years...I'm very positive on holistic veternary medicine, but it did not solve the problem for our cat. I just can't put him through this anymore. I have beat myself up a lot for "failing" to treat him naturally, but at this point he is suffering and I can't have that. My gut feeling is that this just does not go away on it's own unless you're one of the lucky few who can keep your cat's urine in the correct pH range and prevent crystals and bladder stones from forming.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

chrissy--is their seafood in your kitties foods?

 

[chrissyk]

chrissy--is their seafood in your kitties foods?

In 2 of the 3 canned flavors I finally just got a clue about that, though. We're switching them to all chicken, turkey, and duck. I don't think that that's the entire problem for our cat, but I'm quite sure that it's not helping.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I wonder if that will help a bit.

Our kitty--despite antibiotics and stuff redeveloped his problem b/c of the seafood. My vet asked us one day what we fed him and suggested ridding of it. He never had a reoccurance until daddy made a boo boo and bought a seemingly benign cat food that had hidden "fish meal" in it.


ETA: Teehee..my word got bleeped b/c without the separator it caught the filter and that is soooo not what I was meaning! (the word was boo boo).

 

[Tiggeroo]

My last cat had several uti's. I could always peg it to a slip in his food. Other then the first one the others caught early and treated quickly with antibiotics. He lived a long life and never needed the surgery. The food I gave him was the old purina ut food. So I should sprinkle vitamin c and cranberry powder over his food?

 

[chrissyk]

I wonder if that will help a bit.

Our kitty--despite antibiotics and stuff redeveloped his problem b/c of the seafood. My vet asked us one day what we fed him and suggested ridding of it. He never had a reoccurance until daddy made a boo boo and bought a seemingly benign cat food that had hidden "fish meal" in it.


ETA: Teehee..my word got bleeped b/c without the separator it caught the filter and that is soooo not what I was meaning! (the word was boo boo).

It's certainly worth a try. I'd love to rid him of the crystals once the surgery is done. It would be additional peace-of-mind for us to know that there was nothing in there to block him up even after the surgery.

I am missing him soooo much right now. I hate that he's away from us with such bad weather coming. He really hates storms

 

[chrissyk]

My last cat had several uti's. I could always peg it to a slip in his food. Other then the first one the others caught early and treated quickly with antibiotics. He lived a long life and never needed the surgery. The food I gave him was the old purina ut food. So I should sprinkle vitamin c and cranberry powder over his food?

The vitamin C and cranberry didn't work for us, but some people swear that the cranberry powder prevents UTI's from forming. I guess that it helps prevent the bacteria from sticking to the bladder. The vitamin C was actually forming calcium oxcilate (sp?) crystals in our cat's urine, and that can lead to bladder stones.

 

[720L]

Science Diet C/D

 

[Tiggeroo]

the surgery they wanted to do on my was to create a completely new urine opening. This surgery has some risks and not everbody is happy with the results. If he didn't get better we were going to do it. The surgery would have been half the cost of the 6 days in the vets office.

 

[kayeandjim00]

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone. I have learned so much on this thread about what to do and things to try in the future. Both cats are male chrissyk so I'm definitely going to have to check into the pet insurance for the other one. He did just go in his litterbox again and a decent amount so we were very happy about that. I'm still checking with the vet tomorrow on what the next step is and make sure we are doing everything we can as I don't want this to become a more serious issue. We're also stopping any of the "fishy" canned foods in the meantime just to be on the safe side. Thanks again everyone - I'll let you know how Tony (he's the orange and white one in my signature ) is doing.
Kaye :

 

[chrissyk]

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone. I have learned so much on this thread about what to do and things to try in the future. Both cats are male chrissyk so I'm definitely going to have to check into the pet insurance for the other one. He did just go in his litterbox again and a decent amount so we were very happy about that. I'm still checking with the vet tomorrow on what the next step is and make sure we are doing everything we can as I don't want this to become a more serious issue. We're also stopping any of the "fishy" canned foods in the meantime just to be on the safe side. Thanks again everyone - I'll let you know how Tony (he's the orange and white one in my signature ) is doing.
Kaye :

Definitely get the insurance on the other one asap then! I am kicking myself for not covering both of mine when I got them. I covered our female and my sister's puppy when our male started getting sick. My sister has kept up the dog's coverage on her own annually (DH and I paid for that first puppy year), and she says that she always will. We've used VPI for both, but I think that there are 2 or 3 other carriers out there.

You definitely need to know what kind of crystals your cat is producing, because it is just a matter of time before another one finds it's way into his urethra. I really like what the emergency vet is doing to "flush" my cat's bladder via the saline in the catheter. It gives us a fighting chance to start out with no crystals in the bladder when he has the surgery. I'd imagine that you might want to go the same route even if you could acidify the urine and prevent future crystals. I don't know if the crystal buildup ever really goes away even with urinary acidification (but it might in some cats or all I know...it just didn't with our cat).

Also, if you go away on vacation, your cat either needs to board at the vet who is aware that he has a history of blockages or else someone who would notice him straining needs to STAY with him (not check in once a day). We don't go away without our cat, period. Maybe this will change if the surgery solves the problem (after a few years of NO blockages), but I'd still have a pet sitter stay with my pet.

 

[kayeandjim00]

Just wanted to post a little update on Tony He's doing much better! Monday they were going to try for another sample and if they couldn't do that then they were going to give him an IV, keep him overnight and try again the next morning. They were able to get enough for a sample right away when we got there so he didn't have to spend the night. He has cystitis not crystals thankfully. He is on all the right medication already and he said from the looks of the sample he wasn't far from complete recovery He's much perkier and is spending very little "extra" time in the litter box. Chrissyk I hope your kitty is doing better after the surgery. Thanks again to everyone for the advice.