Jezebel's Insulin

On Monday February 23rd, we took Jezebel in because her "third eyelid" had been up and her ears were dirty. The vet didn't know what was going on with the eyelid, but suggested she might have fleas and said to use Advantage. I'm hesitant to use Advantage on her because she's old and has diabetes. He also said to increase her insulin to 3 units twice daily. That is up from 2.5 units twice daily.

So that is a bummer, but with the new dosage, her eyes are looking better, so maybe its a good thing.

Sophie is Limping

We don't know why, but Sophie started limping yesterday, so we took her in to see the vet today. They had to sedate her and do an x-ray. She's been favoring her front left paw. The vet says that the toes seem to be curled up a bit on that foot. I told them that she had to be redeclawed after I got her because whoever had her first did a bad job. They said that could do it. They also said that if she jumps down from a high spot, it could be really hard on her feet since she's missing her front toes.

We forgot to update the blog a few weeks ago, but the vet also says Sophie is heading into thyroid disease territory. I'm still in denial about that one.

Poor cat.

farley loves the sun

farley loves the sun
Originally uploaded by farlykat

Sunday morning, and Farley is sitting out in the sun. We took him to the vet this week for another round of blood tests. This time, the bloodwork went out to a lab for testing to see about his thyroid. It looks like he is doing okay for now, but his thyroid shows signs of problems. Hopefully we can keep that in check.

Although the kidney disease indicators were up this time, the vet says they aren't a significant increase. I've got to figure out a way to slow this progression down.

If loving him as hard as I could would fix it, he'd live forever.

Food Review: Sensible Choice

The cats don't care much for sensible choice. Sophie was the only one who paid much attention to it, but everyone else wandered off pretty quickly.

We won't bother with this one again.

Science Diet KD... Maybe not

So I was looking for a link to an image of the bag of science diet KD, and instead, I found all these articles talking about how it is at best a scam and at worst, I'm poisoning Farley by feeding it to him.

On the other hand, the vet says to go with it, and there are as many articles talking about how so-and-so's cat lived to be 19 on KD.

There is just no simple answer to this. It is so hard to know what to do, but on the face of it, it makes sense to me that a cat would not naturally eat brewers rice, corn meal, etc. And those ingredients are among the first in KD. Plus, the dry food is very low moisture, and he needs all the water he can get to help clean out his kidneys.

So, in spite of my post a few minutes ago, I may abandon KD in favor of a high-quality canned diet, with comparable dry food if he ever wants something crunchy.

3 days of KD

So for the last 3 days, I've managed to get Farley to eat dry KD food. I'm hopeful that by getting him to eat some of the special diet, along with some high quality foods for variety, that he will gain weight and his kidneys will stabilize, if not improve. He never eats much KD, though. This morning, he might have eaten about 1/8 cup. But some is better than none.

By the way, Farley voted for Obama, but Jezebel voted for Palin. She really loved that line about pitbulls and lipstick.

Fred is too young to vote and Sophie is a communist.

Food Review: Evanger's Seafood Dinner for Cats

I was really hopeful about Evanger's Seafood Dinner for cats. It is premium quality stuff. Unfortunately, it makes Sophie VOMIT. We tried it twice, and both times, she VOMITED.

The other cats were mildly interested in it, but not enough to deal with the hassle of separating everyone at meal time or cleaning up VOMIT.

Normally, Sophie only VOMITS when she eats beef. This didn't have any beef in it, but she VOMITED all the same.