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Old May 12th, 2011, 06:59 PM
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dbg10 dbg10 is offline
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Location: Ajax, Ontario
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sugarcatmom View Post
That's a ridiculous (and cruel) suggestion. Maybe he meant to isolate him while he's eating? Feeding set meals for everybody instead of free-feeding would be the best idea. One of my kitties is a total hoover and finishes before everyone else, so I have to police him during meal time but it's not that big a deal.
I agree but she has suggested it more than once when she wants me to get a urine specimen. In most cases I feed them at set times for the wet food and monitor what they eat but I still leave the dry food out all the time for now because otherwise I have the other 2 cats bugging me until I put it out..



Quote:
Originally Posted by sugarcatmom View Post
It can actually be dangerous to feed urinary diets to "normal" cats that don't have a urine ph problem. They may end up with calcium oxalate crystals, which are much harder to get rid of.
yes I know it can be dangerous for them to go without food. Besides the expense I don't like the others getting the SO because of the calcium oxalate crystals and one of the other cats is a male.


Quote:
Originally Posted by sugarcatmom View Post
Has he had blood work done recently? What other canned foods have you tried? Is a raw diet an option?
no blood work since the last ones I posted. I've tried several different Merrick ones including Before Grain beef (which definitely can't be fed alone), Canidae, Wellness, NV Instinct Lamb and NV Instinct chicken which went over like a lead balloon and the original favorite of all of them Fancy Feast variety pack which I stopped using over a year ago.



Quote:
Originally Posted by sugarcatmom View Post
Make sure you monitor his urine ph though, cause if he gets too much L-methionine, or his urine is indeed acidic enough already, then you could end up with calcium oxalate issues instead. I'll find out what a reasonable starting dose of methionine is and get back to you.
Thanks

Quote:
Originally Posted by sugarcatmom View Post
Meal times. No more free-feeding. And if you need to, maybe sneak Smokey into another room for an extra meal here and there. If Smokey can jump up somewhere that Sam can't get too, you could leave more wet food for him there. Is there a treat that Smokey really loves? Sprinkle that on top of his meals to encourage him to eat more. I always have freeze-dried chicken treats (PureBites or Halo Liv-a-Littles) on hand for just such a purpose.
Smokey likes his Merrick's Grammy's Pot Pie and will eat it over most other foods unless they are fish based. If fish he will eat it over all other foods. The only treat Smokey absolutely loves is catnip. There is no other treat I've found that gets his attention the way catnip does. Of course if I give him catnip I also have to add it to the other's food too.

I've started feeding only enough dry food they will eat in one sitting. Then I have to replenish their dishes before they can eat again. Then I offer them canned when I can watch them eat it. trying to get Sam to focus on the different canned foods I offer him. Unfortunately the others like fish and so does he, to the exclusion of all else. If I put a can out, he pushes the others out of the way to get at it. He is boss cat and they recognize it. I have to be right on top of him to make sure the others get their share. No matter what I offer them, Sam likes the cat food I've bought for the others, as if he knew that they were getting something better than he is. So I have to find a way around his dominant behaviour.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll go through the list of foods available at the pet store again and see what good ones I've missed.
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