cat update

[firecat]

angus had four enemas and probably the same number of x-rays. he is coming home tonight because he won't eat at the vet hospital and they need him to eat in order to get the rest of the poop out.

once he has started eating again, they want him to be on prescription weight loss / high fiber food and they want me to implement portion control, which means i will no longer be able to free-feed the cats. this stresses me out for two reasons.

1. chasing the cats to different parts of the house a couple of times a day isn't particularly compatible with my own disabilities.

2. i don't want to do things to angus that make him unhappy in his day to day life. he gained a lot of weight on a pretty normal amount of food for a cat (based on my previous experience with cats). when i free feed him, he seems to eat moderately. but if his food bowl becomes empty then once he gets some food he gobbles it so fast he regurgitates. that suggests to me that he has a history of being starved (either because he was feral/stray or because previous owners had him on a diet). since being constipated also makes him unhappy and constipation might be related to his weight, i am willing to give a weight loss treatment a try. but if it comes down to a tradeoff between his living longer vs. living happier, i'd rather that he lived happier.

other things possibly contributing to his condition: he has some arthritis of the spine which may be causing him to not want to "position." he isn't active enough. of course when a creature is constipated it is disinclined to be active, so that's a vicious circle.

advice/comments/anecdata welcomed.

Comments

[submarine_bells]

Separate foodbowls, in separate rooms. Flame got shut in the bathroom (or was it the laundry? I dunno, it was fifteen years ago) with his food, and stayed there until he'd eaten it (or obviously gotten bored with it); the other cats got fed in their usual places. It's quite do-able, and possibly easier if the separate-food cat's a gobbler, since they'll eat their food quickly. I have one very un-food-motivated cat among the pack at present who generally dawdles and pecks at a bowl of food over several hours. That's just how he prefers to eat. Having to feed him in a separate room would be a rather protracted exercise! Whereas a gobbly-cat will just down whatever's there in a short while, and can be let out again to mingle thereafter, assuming the other kitties have had their share.

Our current indoor-cat-quotient includes one cat (Miles) who hates another cat (Shansu) with a passion and will go after her whenever he gets the chance. They not only have separate food, but they have separate everything. Miles sleeps in Mark's bedroom and Shansu in mine, and each room has necessary comforts for the cat in question. They take shifts in the rest of the house - for half the day, Miles is shut away in Mark's room while Shansu has the run of the house, and for the other half of the day we switch it around. If we had to keep slow-feeding cats away from each others' food for longer periods, something like that arrangement would likely be feasible.