Elizabeth and Bertie
Member Since 2010
Would love to hear from anyone who has experience of safely slimming down their diabetic cat...
It's very likely that I'll be fostering a diabetic kitty for a UK animal rescue charity, starting middle/end of next week after she's had a 'curve' at the vets.
The poor love seems to have so much stacked against her. She's overweight (not able to groom herself properly). She's only ever eaten dry food and doesn't recognise wet food as 'food'. And she's on Caninsulin (something that I am unable to change because she won't be my cat...)
The only thing in her favour would seem to be that I can hometest her (well, hopefully, but she doesn't know me at all and...she is a tortie...
)
The vet has put her on 'prescription' dry food (Hill's M/D and W/D....)
I have a sort of a starting plan, which is to transition her to a better and lower carb dry food to meet her calorific requirement, and also at the same time to try to tempt her with some low carb (and low fat) wet foods, just to see if anything interests her.
I am very nervous of getting this totally wrong and causing her harm. I know that weight loss has to be done very carefully with diabetic kitties, and that insufficient calories can lead to some extremely serious health issues.
I've read and re-read info from sites such as Catinfo.org, but I would love to hear from anyone who has actually had real practical experience of safely getting their diabetic kitty to lose weight. I feel like a newbie again, and need all the advice I can get, haha!
Thanks in advance, dear people...
Eliz
It's very likely that I'll be fostering a diabetic kitty for a UK animal rescue charity, starting middle/end of next week after she's had a 'curve' at the vets.
The poor love seems to have so much stacked against her. She's overweight (not able to groom herself properly). She's only ever eaten dry food and doesn't recognise wet food as 'food'. And she's on Caninsulin (something that I am unable to change because she won't be my cat...)
The only thing in her favour would seem to be that I can hometest her (well, hopefully, but she doesn't know me at all and...she is a tortie...
)The vet has put her on 'prescription' dry food (Hill's M/D and W/D....)
I have a sort of a starting plan, which is to transition her to a better and lower carb dry food to meet her calorific requirement, and also at the same time to try to tempt her with some low carb (and low fat) wet foods, just to see if anything interests her.
I am very nervous of getting this totally wrong and causing her harm. I know that weight loss has to be done very carefully with diabetic kitties, and that insufficient calories can lead to some extremely serious health issues.
I've read and re-read info from sites such as Catinfo.org, but I would love to hear from anyone who has actually had real practical experience of safely getting their diabetic kitty to lose weight. I feel like a newbie again, and need all the advice I can get, haha!
Thanks in advance, dear people...
Eliz
