? Newbie - smelly cat poop?

[LBX]

A week ago my family adopted a senior, diabetic cat. He is currently on 2 units of Caninsulin per day, which we give to him while he eats his breakfast. He is on a diet of Purina DM Dietetic Management, 1/2 cup kibble per day & 1/4 can wet per day. Injections are going well so far. Our vet gave him a once over, and we are in the process of getting a glucose meter so our vet can teach us how to take the cat's BG and how to do BG curves after the holidays.

The only issue we've run into is that this cat's poop smells crazy bad! I've had cats before but I've never had an experience with cat poop smelling this horribly, we have to take it out to the garbage right away. It's a prominent issue for us as we live in an apartment and the smell wakes up my partner when the cat goes at night. The shelter did warn us that the cat was "smelly" but this wasn't quite what I was expecting lol. I have noticed that the cat's stool is somewhat soft (but NOT diarrhea) and is consistently a tan/beige colour. I was wondering if this common with the high-protein diabetic cat diet, or is this something I should be asking my vet to look into? Thanks.

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi @LBX and welcome to you and your kitty. How lovely of you to adopt a senior diabetic cat!

Regarding the poop......I’m not sure if the Purina DM dietetic management food would cause smelly poops or not as I haven’t used it.
But the tan / beige colour may have something to do with the absorption of the nutrients and may be worth while asking your vet about that. He may just need a supplement such as pancreatic enzymes added to his food to correct that. Your vet will be able to advise you with that.

I’m so glad you are going to home test the blood glucose levels. We recommend always testing before every shot to see it is safe to give the dose and testing again during the cycle to see how low the dose of insulin is taking the cat.
Here is a link to help you with that.
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

Is your kitty on Caninsulin once or twice a day? And is the 2 units once a day or twice a day?
Make sure you are feeding 30 minutes BEFORE you give the insulin as Caninsulin acts fast and is quite harsh and your cat needs to have food aboard before the shots. Also do feed during the first half of the cycles as well as before the shots.

Here are2 links to how to use Caninsulin
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/introduction-to-cannisulin-vetsulin-n-nph.231602/

https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/beginners-guide-to-caninsulin-vetsulin.231587/

 

[Critter Mom]

Welcome to you and your little one.

It's wonderful that you've given this sugar kitty a place in your home and your hearts, although perhaps not your nostrils!

On a serious note, the symptoms you describe - loose stool, tan/beige in colour, foul smelling - hint at a possible issue with the pancreas. If your vet's not already done so, I'd ask them about testing for pancreatitis (Spec fPL test) and also testing for B12/folate levels and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (fTLI test).

Blessings of the season to you all.


Mogs
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[Howiesmom]

My Howie also has really smelly poop...like it wakes you up when he goes downstairs and Im sleeping upstairs! But the color is dark brown. He waivers between solid, soft and diarrhea despite being on S Boulardii so I just had all 4 tests done to check pancreatic function, folate, and B12. All came back normal EXCEPT high folate. When I had him on a bland diet of ground chicken and ground turkey to clear up the diarrhea a couple weeks ago, he wasn’t as smelly. So the only thing left for me to assume is that it’s the food he’s eating that causes the smell. @Critter Mom @Bron and Sheba (GA): Any other ideas/thoughts? It is obnoxious to come home or have a guest over and you have to immediately clean the litter box. I feel your pain, @LBX!

Merry Christmas

 

[Larry and Kitties]

My Dulce's feces smells terrible and is especially bad because he does not cover, All my cats eat the same food but only Dulce's smells terrible.

 

[Critter Mom]

Any other ideas/thoughts?

Maybe the food disagrees with Howie's digestive system? My civvie, Lúnasa, had major GI issues when she was hyperT and her poops were very much on the whiffy side, even after she was successfully treated for it. She also had an acute flare of pancreatitis a couple of years ago. After the latter incident, Our vet recommended a digestive support therapeutic diet and she did a lot better on it (down side is it's only available as a kibble). Her poops since then have not been malodorous. Instead, they tend to have that slightly sweet aroma one gets from gardening manure.

One key difference in the gastro support diet is that the protein is mostly pork (she had been eating mostly chicken and turkey). Perhaps it might be worth checking the ingredients in Howie's food to see whether there might be a particular protein or other ingredient that might disagree with him (or be a known culprit for other kitties)?


Mogs
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[Hercule's mum]

Hi LBX, Welcome to the forum.

You mentioned giving caninsulin ar breakfast time, are you also giving at dinner time? I never used caninsulin, but I was under the impression that it is usually given twice a day.

I understand your family is new to the diabetes dance (as we call it...), but it is difficult to know what goes on without monitoring how high or low blood glucose is. Most of us, have a human blood glucometer to check regularly. I mention this because my cat seem to have smellier poop when he is running high sugar (i.e. when the insulin dose is not doing its job). It can be just a spurrious correlation in my mind, but when diabetes is not well controlled, it can flare the pancreas and have other GI consequences... so perhaps is worth having a deeper look on whether his diabetes is well controlled?

 

[Critter Mom]

my cat seem to have smellier poop when he is running high sugar

Very interesting and helpful observation, Karen. (Got my Mr. Spock 'pondery' face on now! )

It can be just a spurrious correlation in my mind,

Not necessarily. When you think about it, at high numbers the body can't utilise nutrients properly so it's not outwith the bounds of possibility that the waste products eliminated from the body might be different at those times.


Mogs
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[Gracie85]

I have a cat who we have determined is allergic to chicken. If she eats food with any chicken in it, her poop stinks us out of the house, and she'd get diarrhea, which in a long-haired cat is disastrous. Took her completely off chicken, no smell, no diarrhea.
We have a half-grown kitten who recently started having soft poop to diarrhea, and stinking worse than the first-mentioned cat. After having the vet check him out, and finding nothing wrong, we changed his food. Soft poops gone, horrendous smell, gone. Tried reintroducing what we thought was the offending food and got stunk out of the house again. Unfortunately, he seems to be triggered by fish, which is what we had gone to when getting the other cat off chicken.
Neither of these cats is diabetic, so it's not the diabetes causing this. The wrong food, whether they are actually allergic to it, or just sensitive, or just not digesting it well, can causing the stinky poops.
(Same thing with our dogs, until we found the right food, the big dog would stink us out of the room with his farts. Once offered the kids a million dollars if they would just take that farting dog outside, they refused to get near him. Since finding a limited ingredient food that his system likes, the dog no longer farts. not in years. the right food for a particular animal makes all the difference.)

 

[Howiesmom]

I have a cat who we have determined is allergic to chicken. If she eats food with any chicken in it, her poop stinks us out of the house, and she'd get diarrhea, which in a long-haired cat is disastrous. Took her completely off chicken, no smell, no diarrhea.
We have a half-grown kitten who recently started having soft poop to diarrhea, and stinking worse than the first-mentioned cat. After having the vet check him out, and finding nothing wrong, we changed his food. Soft poops gone, horrendous smell, gone. Tried reintroducing what we thought was the offending food and got stunk out of the house again. Unfortunately, he seems to be triggered by fish, which is what we had gone to when getting the other cat off chicken.
Neither of these cats is diabetic, so it's not the diabetes causing this. The wrong food, whether they are actually allergic to it, or just sensitive, or just not digesting it well, can causing the stinky poops.
(Same thing with our dogs, until we found the right food, the big dog would stink us out of the room with his farts. Once offered the kids a million dollars if they would just take that farting dog outside, they refused to get near him. Since finding a limited ingredient food that his system likes, the dog no longer farts. not in years. the right food for a particular animal makes all the difference.)

What kind of meat/food did you give your kitties after you ruled out chicken and fish? Howie eats turkey. In his cat food form, he reaks! But when I gave him just ground turkey as a bland diet, he didn’t smell! It’s all so puzzling!

 

[Howiesmom]

Maybe the food disagrees with Howie's digestive system? My civvie, Lúnasa, had major GI issues when she was hyperT and her poops were very much on the whiffy side, even after she was successfully treated for it. She also had an acute flare of pancreatitis a couple of years ago. After the latter incident, Our vet recommended a digestive support therapeutic diet and she did a lot better on it (down side is it's only available as a kibble). Her poops since then have not been malodorous. Instead, they tend to have that slightly sweet aroma one gets from gardening manure.

One key difference in the gastro support diet is that the protein is mostly pork (she had been eating mostly chicken and turkey). Perhaps it might be worth checking the ingredients in Howie's food to see whether there might be a particular protein or other ingredient that might disagree with him (or be a known culprit for other kitties)?


Mogs
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I have to find him new food soon as the manufacturing plant that makes his food has been impacted by COVID. I struggled to find a higher quality food that was low carb and didn’t have additives like carrageenan and guar gum which I know upset cats tummies. I will see what I might be able to find with pork! Thanks for the tip!

 

[Gracie85]

What kind of meat/food did you give your kitties after you ruled out chicken and fish? Howie eats turkey. In his cat food form, he reaks! But when I gave him just ground turkey as a bland diet, he didn’t smell! It’s all so puzzling!

If you read the ingredients for the turkey cat food, it probably has a bunch of other proteins in it--most cat foods have chicken, no matter what 'flavor' they claim they are. Many also have fish. Both are cheap filler proteins commonly used.
Our third cat, the older one, was found to be borderline diabetic at the same time we found he was hyperthyroid. By switching to the Fancy Feast Classic Pates, the ones with the very low carbs, we got him under control without needing to go to insulin. Then we had to drop the ones with chicken in them, which left us on fish flavors, because no one was liking the strictly beef flavor and they were iffy on the purely turkey flavor. Then, we got the latest kitten/cat, who suddenly developed problems, so we're now on the beef flavor and turkey flavor, and they're eating it, guess the other two were ready for a change. Because the kitten is still growing, and insanely active, and the young one is no longer growing but insanely active, and the old cat is just a big cat, we go through 10-12 little Fancy Feast cans a day; so even feeding them this cheap food is getting expensive. We are now trying a freeze-dried raw (rehydrated) as maybe an alternative or add-in, as my guess is that Fancy Feast is inconsistent in quality of ingredients and/or altering their recipes and that's why we suddenly have trouble with a food we were on for months.

And I wouldn't worry too much about the carageenan, it's not as bad as the rep it somehow acquired, if you read actual scientific studies (not articles written by a source who has a reason to convince you to buy their product, or someone repeating what they read from a non-scientific source), it's no problem. Many of the fancier foods include kelp in them as a nutrient source (so they claim) and guess where carageenan comes from....

 

[Critter Mom]

I disagree about not being wary of carrageenan because of scientific reports on its pro-inflammatory potential. For example, from this article:

"Although the exact pathophysiology remains unknown, the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is influenced by the interplay between genetics, the immune system, and environmental factors such as diet. The commonly used food additives, carrageenan and carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), are used to develop intestinal inflammation in animal models."​

Also:

"Animal studies consistently report that carrageenan and CMC induce histopathological features that are typical of IBD while altering the microbiome, disrupting the intestinal epithelial barrier, inhibiting proteins that provide protection against microorganisms, and stimulating the elaboration of pro-inflammatory cytokines."​

Mogs
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