Jingle Kitten and the Force Fed Boo
8/16/09 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wobblerlorriIn an effort to squash Jack's excellent stealth attacks on Brownie, who just doesn't need the added stress, we got a jingle bell collar for Jack. It's a cheetah print fabric, breakaway, with a silver jingle bell on it.
Jack is not amused. She's not concerned about wearing a collar, she's irritated because she wants to play with the bell and she can't reach it!!
Brownie's various infections seem to be clearing up, but once again she's not eating and has lost 2 lbs, down to 5 lbs. I was letting her eat the snacks at night and hoping that was enough, but weighed her today and it's not. She didn't want to eat her snacks last night, but she did drink some water.
So this morning I mixed her Baytril and Viralys into a spoonful of turkey baby food, watered it to a slurry, and fed it to her with a syringe. She was Not Amused. But I got some food down her, by god. Pissed her off, but too bad. About 4 hours later, after reading up on assisted feeding for cats, I took a cup of Purina One kitten chow, added about 1/4 cup water, and microwaved it for 30 sec. Then I let it sit to soak up as much water as possible, mushed it up some more, passed it through a sieve, added a good shot of FeliVite cat vitamins, and syringed half of that into her. Took about 5 10 mL syringes to do it, but she had a good feed from that.
Then had to clean her up, clean me up, clean the couch up... Cats can become anorexic when they're sick, just quit eating and forget to start eating again. Lots of cats with a chronic illness die from starvation instead of whatever they're sick with -- they stop eating and aren't supported until they're well enough to remember to eat on their own.
We went through this last year when Brownie got down to 4 1/2 lbs before we started her on Depo-Medrol for her allergies and arthritis. Then the vet was force feeding her once every other day. I figure I can do the same thing, just a little more often, which might be better for her tummy anyway (smaller amounts spread over the day).
Right now she's forgiven me (for the moment) and is sitting on my knee quietly purring. I hope she knows I'm trying to help her....
Jack is not amused. She's not concerned about wearing a collar, she's irritated because she wants to play with the bell and she can't reach it!!
Brownie's various infections seem to be clearing up, but once again she's not eating and has lost 2 lbs, down to 5 lbs. I was letting her eat the snacks at night and hoping that was enough, but weighed her today and it's not. She didn't want to eat her snacks last night, but she did drink some water.
So this morning I mixed her Baytril and Viralys into a spoonful of turkey baby food, watered it to a slurry, and fed it to her with a syringe. She was Not Amused. But I got some food down her, by god. Pissed her off, but too bad. About 4 hours later, after reading up on assisted feeding for cats, I took a cup of Purina One kitten chow, added about 1/4 cup water, and microwaved it for 30 sec. Then I let it sit to soak up as much water as possible, mushed it up some more, passed it through a sieve, added a good shot of FeliVite cat vitamins, and syringed half of that into her. Took about 5 10 mL syringes to do it, but she had a good feed from that.
Then had to clean her up, clean me up, clean the couch up... Cats can become anorexic when they're sick, just quit eating and forget to start eating again. Lots of cats with a chronic illness die from starvation instead of whatever they're sick with -- they stop eating and aren't supported until they're well enough to remember to eat on their own.
We went through this last year when Brownie got down to 4 1/2 lbs before we started her on Depo-Medrol for her allergies and arthritis. Then the vet was force feeding her once every other day. I figure I can do the same thing, just a little more often, which might be better for her tummy anyway (smaller amounts spread over the day).
Right now she's forgiven me (for the moment) and is sitting on my knee quietly purring. I hope she knows I'm trying to help her....
