Community Chat

[MrsLorraine]

My 8-year-old Maine Coon mix, BooBoo, is doing so well, six months after having a vicious, invasive tumor dug out of his shoulder.

For a long time--long in cat time, 3 weeks--we had to keep him penned up (literally--we bought a dog-type cage) in the back bedroom because he had to be kept as still as possible till his stitches came out. This upset him terribly. DH and I spent as much time as possible with him and I'm surprised DH didn't put a cot or a sleeping bag in there to sleep with him at night. But it didn't really help and even after he got his stitches out and could return to normal activity, he seemd sad and depressed. He mostly slept all the time and didn't seem interested in life at all.

I finally took him to the vet a couple of months ago to find out what the problem was. The problems were that he was overweight--18 lbs!--and has arthritis (my understanding is that's not uncommon in Maine Coons).

The vet put him on a low calorie diet and gave us some chondroitin in capsule form, two a day mixed in with his food.

The transformation has just warmed my heart, to see my beloved kitty getting back to normal. He's down to 16 lbs. and is just as happy and active as he used to be. We've even had to start vacuuming more because he plays in the backyard and tracks in a lot of dirt, leaves, etc. Thank God for a good vet and good medicine.