Pink Mars in a Frilly Dress

OH NO!

2010-12-11T20:28:00.000-08:00

Thunder I love you and miss you kitty!

2009-06-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Sweet Kitty

2009-06-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

You were such a good cat and I miss you already. Say hi to Gremlin for me.

Kitty has a resistant E. Coli infection

2009-06-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

As if things couldn't get any worse for my poor, sweet kitty, she now has an antibiotic resistant e. coli infection. There's only one antibiotic to use against this nasty bug and while it seems to be helping, kitty is very sick and I'm not optimistic about her chances of recovery. I am making sure she is comfortable and have spent most of the day singing the Medicine Buddha Mantra to her. She didn't really care, but it made me feel better!

If you would like to hear what the Medicine Buddha Mantra sounds like, here it is:

The words he's saying (in Tibetan) are: Tayata, Om, bekandzeh, bekandzeh maha-bekandzeh, radza samungateh. Soha.

Basically, it's a prayer for healing.

Feb 24

2009-02-24T20:13:00.000-08:00

Kitty is eating again and felt good enough to come out and sit in the sun and have a look out the window. She is still very weak.

Feb 22

2009-02-22T20:11:00.000-08:00

Kitty is feeling a little nauseated today and doesn't want to eat much. She still looks pretty happy though!

Feb 21

2009-02-21T20:06:00.000-08:00

Kitty is feeling a little weak today, but is still eating good! Messy eater!

Feb 19th

2009-02-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

I was going to take kitty in to be put to sleep today, but she had other ideas. She was feeling pretty good and helped me replace the power supply in my computer. Actually she just stuck her nose in there and got hair all over everything. BTW, Thermaltake makes shitty power supplies.

Kitty has kidney failure

2009-02-18T19:53:00.000-08:00

Kitty has been very weak and not wanting to eat so into the the vet we went. Blood test results were very bad and kitty is now in kidney failure and is anemic. I knew it was bad news when the vet called first thing in the morning. Because of her other health problems (brain tumor and severe arthritis), I have come to the painful decision to not give her any life extending treatments. The vet told me to take it one day at a time and she how she does.

I can't help but wonder if it was something in the food that destroyed her kidneys. There's just no way to know, expecially considering her age.

Today she's feeling good enough to eat!

Kitty videos!

2009-01-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

Kitty is still alive!

2008-11-20T12:45:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, the cat is still alive! Phenobarbital and Keppra have controlled her seizures and prednisilone has helped slow down the tumor growth. Although she is getting close to the end now, she has for the most part been comfortable and happy these last 7 months.

Upsetting news

2008-04-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

On March 26 kitty had a grand mal seizure. I rushed her to the vet and after various tests, the vet says it's probably a brain tumor. I am heartbroken.

Adventures with home cooking!

2008-01-14T18:32:00.000-08:00

I've decided to try making my own cat treats, just to see if the cat will eat anything homemade. The ultimate goal is to switch her to home cooked only! The basic recipe I used is 1/2 lb ground turkey, 1 egg, 1/2 jar Beechnut squash, 1 Tbsp grated cheese. This made about 30 heaping teaspoon sized balls. I baked them for about 15 minutes in a 350 oven. Let's see how my first experiment went:

Aha! The first problem was they're a little runny - the squash & the soft cheese made the recipe a little too moist. I used Havarti cheese (that's all I had) and I think a harder cheese like parmesan would be a better choice. Let's see how the cat likes it:

You woke me up. What do you want?

Look kitty! I made you a yummy snack!

Do not want!

Come on kitty, just a little taste...

Maybe you'll like it better in pieces...

10 minutes go by... Well, half eaten is better than nothing.

Another 10 minutes... Wait a minute! What's that I see?

All gone! It's a success!

'nother update

2007-12-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

Kitty has another UTI and a gum infection around one of her teeth. Will this never end? She won't eat Wellness anymore, so I've switched her to Trader Joe's (what I used before the recall). This food has a lot of fish in it and it's extreme stinkiness seems to appeal to kitty's ancient smell receptors! She's eating it with gusto. I hope she continues to have a good appetite as getting her to eat anything has been a real struggle. She's on Clavamox for the next 2 weeks after just finishing 2 weeks of Baytril for the UTI. I can't seem to do anything about these ongoing infections. All the things I've tried - antibiotics, tooth extraction, various topical treatments, brushing teeth - and the infection still comes back. It's disheartening to say the least.

Quick update

2007-10-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

Kitty is now sick with a UTI but otherwise is doing well. She's currently eating Wellness canned Turkey and Chicken flavors. She likes them just fine, even though they are now grainless. I'm still supplementing the canned food with a little (1 tbsp per day) Kumpikat kibble. The extra carbs have helped her gain a little weight, much to my relief. Getting a sick cat to gain weight is like getting blood from a stone!

Cat update - August 14 2007

2007-08-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Cat Food Dry Matter Basis calculator - Works spreadsheet

2007-06-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

This is a quick and dirty spreadsheet for calculating the DMB for pet food.

Update on the cat

2007-05-08T20:24:00.000-07:00

The cat's bloodwork came back within normal levels. The urinalysis showed blood however. The last time this happened she had a huge bladder stone. I hope she and I don't have to go through that again. I'll discuss the results with the vet on Thursday. It does not appear to be a problem from the cat food. I won't be sure until I talk to the vet. It could be a coincidence that she got sick right when I changed her food, but with the large scale of recalled pet food I'm more than a little suspicious. Triumph is known for using good quality ingredients but they are manufactured by Menu and could have had some cross contamination. I was also feeding Felidae at the same time. Canidae has been reluctant to share info on exactly who manufactures their food, so I view them suspiciously as well. You just can't trust anyone nowadays.

Right now the cat is back on Trader Joes and Newmans Own. I emailed Newman's Own and asked if they could guarantee that their food contains only US grown vegetable proteins and they replied:

"Yes. The ingredients in our pet foods are sourced in the US.

L. Phillips Brown DVM
Corporate Veterinarian
Newman's Own Organics"

Triumph cat food = poison?

2007-05-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

The cat's going to the vet tomorrow for blood & urine tests. About three weeks ago, she had eaten 2 cans of Triumph turkey canned cat food just prior to becoming sick. I immediately stopped feeding the food and put her on baby food (Beech-nut chicken & turkey). She slowly recovered in about a week, and was back to regular cat food - this time Felidae canned. She still is not quite herself and when I found out today that Triumph had been recalled, I immediately called my vet and told her what had happened. She advised me to bring the cat in tomorrow for testing. I'm hoping there's no long term damage to her kidneys. She's such a good kitty I hate to see her suffer like this.

I will update with the test results as soon as I have them.

Get pet food recall info here: www.itchmo.com

Sorry for the delay...

2007-04-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

My poor kitty is sick again. Damn those pet food companies. I will update as soon as I can.