Dennis Marple
Member Since 2016
Hi Everyone, I think it would take more room than is available to me to fully discuss the situation with our cat Buddy. I am leaving out the details. They are available on request.
Buddy is over 16 years old. Up until 1 year ago, his diet consisted of dry food, left out all the time, and canned food in the evenings. He began to exhibit classic symptoms, Hungry and thirsty all the time, and weight loss. A trip to the vet and the diagnoses was immediate. To summarize, with a combination of switching to canned food and insulin we brought the blood sugar down to acceptable levels ( we did home monitor during the diet change and lowered the insulin dosage in step with the lower blood sugar levels that resulted from the diet change ). That was all over 1 year ago. Here is where we are today. Blood sugar is within limits. Weight is back to normal. He drinks normal amounts of water. So you are probably asking yourself " why is this guy writing" ?
BUDDY HATES HIS FOOD! He does not want to be limited to eating 2 times per day. There are no waking hours where he stops complaining. He whines continuously. One of his signature whines is more like a crying/whine/growl/gag combo. It will send chills up your spine. He wakes us up at 5 AM every morning. He will eat after a couple of hours of prompting him with 3 or 4 different cans of Fancy Feast (or what ever kind of new canned food we are trying on that day ) . Do not even think about re-using any of these. Buddy does not eat leftovers. He won't eat them. He sits at his table and cries until we give in. The evening meal is the same way. It's not like we are too soft. This has been going on over a year. We have tried everything we can think of to find something that suits him.
What prompted me to write is, this morning there was no 5AM call, not even 5:30. I woke up at 6 and went looking for him, assuming he must be deathly ill. He was sleeping comfortably on the sofa. Let me explain. We have another cat. She still gets the dry food and canned food combo. Except now we can't leave the dry food down. We have to close the door put the food down, wait for her to finish and pick it back up. Last night, I forgot to pick the food up. I went in this morning and her bowl was empty. I don't mean low. I mean clean down to the very last, incredibly delicious, hi carb crumb. You could not find enough residual to carbon 14 date. Freddy, the other cat, never eats in this way. it was obvious that Buddy had been up during the night and engorged himself on the dry food.
I am finally down to the question. What can we do ? He currently receives just 1 unit of insulin twice a day to keep things under control. Is it against all cat health rules to consider letting him have more dry food, even if we need to increase the dosage ? Is there a canned food we may have not found that has been found to appeal to picky cats ? Is there a dry food that might not be as damaging to his diet?
Thanks in advance and Pardon my rambling.
Buddy is over 16 years old. Up until 1 year ago, his diet consisted of dry food, left out all the time, and canned food in the evenings. He began to exhibit classic symptoms, Hungry and thirsty all the time, and weight loss. A trip to the vet and the diagnoses was immediate. To summarize, with a combination of switching to canned food and insulin we brought the blood sugar down to acceptable levels ( we did home monitor during the diet change and lowered the insulin dosage in step with the lower blood sugar levels that resulted from the diet change ). That was all over 1 year ago. Here is where we are today. Blood sugar is within limits. Weight is back to normal. He drinks normal amounts of water. So you are probably asking yourself " why is this guy writing" ?
BUDDY HATES HIS FOOD! He does not want to be limited to eating 2 times per day. There are no waking hours where he stops complaining. He whines continuously. One of his signature whines is more like a crying/whine/growl/gag combo. It will send chills up your spine. He wakes us up at 5 AM every morning. He will eat after a couple of hours of prompting him with 3 or 4 different cans of Fancy Feast (or what ever kind of new canned food we are trying on that day ) . Do not even think about re-using any of these. Buddy does not eat leftovers. He won't eat them. He sits at his table and cries until we give in. The evening meal is the same way. It's not like we are too soft. This has been going on over a year. We have tried everything we can think of to find something that suits him.
What prompted me to write is, this morning there was no 5AM call, not even 5:30. I woke up at 6 and went looking for him, assuming he must be deathly ill. He was sleeping comfortably on the sofa. Let me explain. We have another cat. She still gets the dry food and canned food combo. Except now we can't leave the dry food down. We have to close the door put the food down, wait for her to finish and pick it back up. Last night, I forgot to pick the food up. I went in this morning and her bowl was empty. I don't mean low. I mean clean down to the very last, incredibly delicious, hi carb crumb. You could not find enough residual to carbon 14 date. Freddy, the other cat, never eats in this way. it was obvious that Buddy had been up during the night and engorged himself on the dry food.
I am finally down to the question. What can we do ? He currently receives just 1 unit of insulin twice a day to keep things under control. Is it against all cat health rules to consider letting him have more dry food, even if we need to increase the dosage ? Is there a canned food we may have not found that has been found to appeal to picky cats ? Is there a dry food that might not be as damaging to his diet?
Thanks in advance and Pardon my rambling.
