Cat update - August 14 2007

It turns out that the cat only had barely detectable traces of blood in her urinalysis. Her blood work showed creatinine of 30 and BUN of 2.7, both of which were higher than the bloodwork she had done in January. There's no way to tell if this is from the food she ate (Triumph & Fancy Feast are the suspected culprits). So there's not much I can do except treat her for possible kidney disease. I do believe that her kidney problems are caused by adulterated food, not just from the acute symptoms she had recently but from long term exposure. It appears that pet food companies have been adding chemicals, such as urea & cyanuric acid, to show a higher protein content in the food when tested. Actual protein, that can be digested and used by the animal, is lower than shown on the analysis printed on the bag.

Much of what I've learned about the pet food industry is quite disgusting. The plants where many pet food companies get their meat products from are rendering plants that cook down euthanized pets, diseased animals and road kill. Many times the rendering plants don't bother to take off the collars of dead pets or the plastic ear tags on farm animals. So if you ever find a piece of plastic in your pet food, now you know where it's from. Yuck.

Currently, I'm feeding Wellness canned Turkey and canned Chicken grain free. Also supplementing a little Kumpikat . I will probably switch to California Natural dry despite their current problems, as the Kumpi gives the cat huge poops. Poor cat! I'd cry too if I had to take a dump the size of my leg!

One note, the cat became sick eating California Natural Chicken & Rice canned, use by date 12/08/08. I don't know what the problem is as she was able to eat a whole case of the same date, but when I started her on a new case, she became lethargic and eventually stopped eating and started vomiting. I immediately switched her to baby food chicken & Kumpikat and she stopped vomiting and began eating again. She is doing pretty good now.