Pet Lovers

[Witchy Woman]

@Elom

I do hope kitty is eating by now. 

As you can tell, everyone that has/loves their furry friends is willing to offer advice.

Perhaps you got more than you bargained for.

Cats do become addicted to those treats, so it is wise to limit them to just a few as a real "treat."

If you can do one thing for kitty and your son, try to encourage him to talk to his vet about better nutrition for his sweet rescue.  He was an angel to take her in.

In the past, I fed my boys without real knowledge of proper nutrition for my kitties.  My senior cat now has diabetes and my vet attributes it largely to eating only junk food kibble for many years.

He's now on twice daily insulin injections.  Now, not ALL cats who eat just kibble will develop diabetes, but it is, from what I've read, one of the leading causes. 

My vet told me that people will often have the pet put down rather than deal with diabetes in their pets. 

That simply was not an option for me.

However, If I had it to do over, I would educate myself on good nutrition for my precious pets. 

[hyacinth003]

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@Lapdog wrote:

I Googled "What happens if a cat does not eat" 

It just so happens my cousins cat is also not eating. (she is away too)

This is what I found:

Feline hepatic lipidosis.

• Unlike people and many other animals who can safely go without food for a period of time, cats cannot. When a cat stops eating or his normal daily caloric intake drops dramatically, it’s a very short matter of time before the potentially fatal disease known as hepatic lipidosis takes over his liver.
• The cats most likely to develop hepatic lipidosis are middle-aged, overweight, and have recently lost a considerable amount of weight.
• In fatty liver syndrome the cat’s body, starved of sufficient calories, starts sending fat cells to the liver to convert to energy. However, feline bodies aren’t designed to metabolize fat in that manner, so the buildup of fat cells compromises liver function – a potentially fatal complication.
• Treating the condition usually means force-feeding, and a kitty with severe disease will need to be hospitalized.
• Preventing the condition should be the goal of every cat owner, which means as soon as a cat’s appetite falters, it’s important to keep a very close watch on the situation and know when to make an immediate appointment with the veterinarian.

In this video Dr. Karen Becker discusses a very common and potentially deadly liver disease: feline hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver syndrome.

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This is DEADLY.  I had it happen in a young cat and still don't know why.  She stopped eating much and we noticed the weight loss.  Since we free feed with dry food, we don't always know who eats what.  We don't know what caused her to stop eating.

We took her to the vet and she had lost weight and was in near liver failure from fatty liver.  Her gums, inside ears and whites of eyes were already yellow.

She had to get fluids under the skin and we had to force feed her A/D in a syringe so she was getting food.  Fortunately she did not vomit it up so eventually we were able to reverse the syndrome.  We never found out what caused it, but it could have killed her.

Hyacinth