I almost killed my cat, Aine. It wasn’t intentional. She’s my snuggly lap cat. But I almost did and it was ignorance that was the cause.
About a year ago or a bit more, Aine started losing weight. She’s 17, so I blamed it on getting older. But she got tinier and thinner until around Christmas I though I was going to lose her.
I decided to spoil her rotten. If it was her last days, I was going to make her a happy cat. In doing so, I broke the spell of ignorance.
Aine adores sharing the ham off a Hawaiian pizza with me. I haven’t been getting them much lately due to cost-cutting measures, but this was a good cause. Or a good excuse. Regardless, I stopped on my way home from work one evening and picked up our favorite, curled up in my favorite chair, and started to eat.
Normally, Aine gets about half the meat off my pizza. She eats a few pieces and quits. But that night she attacked the meat like she was starving, so I gave her a new piece every time she asked. She was a very happy cat.
I got the next piece to the puzzle the next morning. I keep a continuous bowl of dry food down for the cats. That’s what they’ve had all of their lives. That particular morning, I opened a new bag to top off the bowl. Aine attacked it like it was ambrosia, even though the bowl was not empty when I put the extra in.
Then I had it. Aine was losing her sense of smell. A cat that can’t smell her food won’t eat. The dry food was losing its volatiles and she couldn’t smell it.
I found some ham at the grocery that had no preservatives or nitrates, etc. I tore up a slice for her and she ate it. I fed it to her by hand for a couple of evenings, then I started putting it in a bowl for her on top of some of the dry food. This worked for a few months and then she stopped eating it, too.
It just wasn’t smelly enough.
So, I bought a couple of 3 oz. cans of what I’ve always referred to as “kitty caviar.” I gave her half a can every night on top of some dry food. (There’s also a plain bowl of dry food next to it.) She was hollering a lot, so I upped it to a full can every night. But she kept talking to me every morning, too. I wasn’t sure about feeding her twice a day, because with the ham, if I tried it twice a day she got sick. Well, apparently kitty caviar is much easier on kitty tummies. She’s had one furball, but she hasn’t sicked up the food. And she likes it enough to growl her alpha sister away from it, which is an amusing sight.
Last week I realized she was putting on weight. Her ribs are not so prominent. Her “little round belly” is coming back. Her fur is a lot softer and fluffier. And she doesn’t holler at me all the time any more.
She’s happy. And healthy.
I almost killed Aine, but I figured it out in time.
Knowledge is power.