Complete Care for Your Aging Cat - Amy Shojai [49]
· Soften the food: This is particularly helpful for cats with painful or missing teeth. Dry diets can be difficult to manage for senior cats. Change to a canned or soft-moist formula, or soften the dry diet by adding a cup of water for every cup of dry food. Avoid milk; that gives some cats diarrhea and gas.
· Increase the smell: Scent stimulates the feline appetite. Palatability of the food is dictated not only by taste and mouth feel, but also by smell. You may be able to spark his appetite by making the food more pungent. Try adding warm water or an unsalted chicken broth in a drizzle over the food, and heating in the microwave for a few seconds. The warmth unlocks the aroma and the temperature may also help tempt the appetite.
· Offer intermittently: Older cats may not be able to eat too much at a time. Also, the “appetite centers” in the brain will shut down if the cat is offered food for too long. Many times, cats are more willing to eat two or three bites at a time if you then take away the food for an hour or so before offering more.
· Give some contact: Cats are more likely to eat for an owner than they are in the hospital surrounded by strange people, sights and smells. Perhaps it’s the loving bond they share that prompts cats to eat better when stroked on the head and neck by the owner, or hand-fed the meal one finger-full at a time. When your cat refuses food, a bit of one-on-one attention may be the answer.
· Tube feeding: Chronic care and critical care patients that refuse to eat for two or three days are candidates for tube feeding. It’s nearly impossible to force feed a cat, even when he’s weak from illness. The most effective way to get nutrition into these cats is to place a tube into the stomach, through which a soft diet can be fed. This requires anesthesia. One end of the large-bore flexible gastrotomy tube opens into the cat’s stomach, while the other exits through the abdominal wall through his side. The tube makes it possible to feed for weeks or months at a time—often necessary with chronic liver problems. Usually, a high-calorie soft diet is fed one syringe-full at a time, and can be managed by the owner at home.
Feeding For Health
Getting concentrated and highly palatable nutrition quickly into the sick cat makes a big difference in how quickly he recovers. Most “recovery” type foods are only available through veterinarians. Examples include:
Eukanuba Veterinary Diets, Nutritional Stress/Weight Gain Formula, Maximum-Calorie/Feline
Hill’s Prescription Diet Feline a/d
IVD (Royal Canin) Select Care Development Formula
Waltham Feline Convalescence Support Diets
Waltham Feline/Canine Rehydration Support (a glucose-electrolyte drink to help counter mild to moderate dehydration)
Wound and Bandage Maintenance
Any wound from an injury or surgery is subject to infection from the contamination of bacteria. Foreign material that infects wounds or bandages thrives in moist, warm environments. Therefore, the best defense against complications is keeping wounds and bandages clean and dry.
· Clean the area: Most times the injured area is shaved and cleaned by the veterinarian. You just need to monitor the site for discharge, heat, or swelling—any of which may point to infection. The best way to clean a wound with the least amount of discomfort is using cool water to flush out debris. That way your hands never have to touch the place, which can be very tender. However, cats are notorious for their distaste of getting wet. Your veterinarian may provide you with a cleansing solution, such as the non-stinging antiseptic Betadine Solution. Dilute this 50/50 with distilled water to the color of weak tea. Put the diluted Betadine Solution in