A veterinarian's take- our pets go through the same thing

#101

WARNING, a little graphic.

The sad news is that my dog, the standard poodle that I wrote about, passed away about a month ago. Rather suddenly. I assume it was a brain tumor after all and with all the food she would take from the counters I think she was almost never in ketosis. She was doing great. Saw the specialist in May who started reducing her medicine in early June. We were away for a weekend in Mid June but she was fine when we picked up from friends on Sunday night. She had been a little reluctant to take her cyclosporin my friend said (which she normally loved) but was otherwise fine. Monday was fine. Tuesday greeted me in the morning but refused to eat which I assumed was some minor stomach issue. By the time I came home it was very obviously too late, and she died at home that night. After she passed a lot of blood came out of her face over the next couple of hours. The vet’s assistant thought she might have had a stroke during the day or some other type of bleed. Another possibility which I only learned about later was that the steroids may have made her vulnerable to bleeding. In any case she is gone and while I question what it was I know I will never know and I miss her so much.

Thank you for your insight in any case. I will one day get another dog but not quite ready yet and will definitely not feed her the dry food I fed my dog most of her life before she got sick

(Cathy) #102

I am so sorry to hear of your dog’s passing. I lost my little havanese suddenly last summer and know how really, really painful that is. They become such a fixture in our lives and when they are gone, leave a giant hole.

If you are a reader, there is a great book that was a comfort to me after my dog’s death that you may like. It is called 'What is a Dog For: : The Surprising History, Science, Philosophy, and Politics of Man’s Best Friend '.

Sending you hugs.

#103

Oh man, I’m so sorry for what you went through. Honestly, to me it sounds like you did everything you possibly could. Sure there may be things that contributed (or maybe didn’t contribute at all, there’s no way to know) to the timing of her decline and passing, but it sounds like she had a very severe disease. One thing I counsel my clients about is to not beat themselves up over whether they can buy a few extra days or weeks if they only took such-and-such steps, especially in cases of likely incurable disease. I think one blessing of pets is that they don’t suffer emotionally over the fear of their own impending deaths, that’s for us to suffer over but they don’t. It’s all about whether they feel good right now, whether this particular day is a good day, whether this particular meal is tasty, etc. It sounds to me like your dog was a happy girl who had a wonderful and secure life with humans who loved her deeply, which makes her a very lucky dog. There is a lovely poem by Irving Townsend that I think says it so well:

We who choose to surround ourselves
with lives even more temporary than our
own, live within a fragile circle;
easily and often breached.
Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we would still live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only
certain immortality, never fully
understanding the necessary plan.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #104

I’m so sorry for your loss. It is so hard to say good-bye to a beloved pet.

It may not help right now, but I find it helpful to think that my beloved animals are never truly gone from the world as long as they live on in my heart. :heart:

#105

Our oldest tabby cat is around 17 pounds (although his big tummy is cute, it’s not very healthy), and his food is chicken and grain-based (brown rice, barley, oatmeal), and also includes things like tomatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc. Everybody should know that cats are carnivores. My mom gets the previously explained cat food because she says it’s the “only one” that doesn’t make our cat sick, but she’s only tried 2 or 3 cat foods. I tried to explain to her that cats are carnivores and that she should at least try to opt for a cat food that isn’t grain based, but she won’t. It’s not a price thing either (the food she gets is already pretty expensive compared to other cat foods) she just thinks that all other cat food will make him ill and that the one she buys now is superior.

I sometimes buy him things like liver (liver is his favorite so far) as a treat out of my pocket, but I don’t think I could afford to buy him cat food all the time as a saving teenager. It sucks watching him blow up like a balloon and not being able to do anything about it

(Barbara M) #106

I’m very sorry for your loss. She will live on in your heart. What a special love pets are to their humans. I wish you peace.

#107

Kudos to you for trying to make a difference for your mom’s cat. Often, just switching to entirely wet food (even if grain-based), will make weight loss start to happen, maybe your mom would be willing to try that? Even my mom doesn’t heed a lot of what I say. It was on one of the keto podcasts (maybe it was Jimmy Moore?) they called it “powdered bottom” syndrome, meaning that someone who powdered your bottom when you were a baby is less likely to believe you have much in the way of superior wisdom to share. So maybe she would heed the wisdom of the numerous websites out there devoted to feline nutrition education, like Feline Future, catinfo.org, Feline Nutrition Awareness Effort, Catnutrition.org, and others. The best you can do is try, unfortunately the major pet food manufacturers are masters at marketing and their misinformation is everywhere.

#108

I asked if we could try wet cat food after we finish the bag of dry cat food we already have, and she didn’t say no, so that could be a good sign :smiley:

#109

I went to a couple of presentations on pet health last month. The focus was diabetes in cats and dogs. There was a lot of information about treating diabetic pets with insulin. The veterinary specialist presenting the talks agreed a low carb diet is helpful, but the key to treatment was managing twice daily insulin injections in response to clinical symptoms; a pharmaceutical approach. There was a lot of information about how to use insulin pens.

An interesting information nugget was that there is no significant after meal glucose spike in CATS. There is in dogs. That means diabetic cats insulin injections can be given 12 hours apart, without any relationship to feeding.

Most cats are on quite a low carb diet. Some of the processed wet food cans and sachets being even lower carb than the prescription dry food aimed at diabetic cats. The highest carb, poorest nutrient density cat food is cheap dry food.

Because cats are obligate carnivores and tend to eating low carb diets, despite what is often inflicted upon them by owners, if they become type 2 diabetic, they can often go into diabetic remission (not needing insulin) after short periods of insulin therapy.

#110

This is true, jumping on it early and starting Lantus (glargine) can put DM into remission in some cats. And diabetic cats should be started on insulin right away, not just dietary therapy. But the best results occur when they are simultaneously also put on a ultra low carb higher protein diet. Yes, most kitty diets are lower carb, but way too many of them aren’t low carb enough, as you say. If every cat were on an ultra low carb high protein canned diet, DM would still exist but nowhere near the rates at which we see it now. Prevention is the best medicine, of course. :slight_smile: Sounds like a good talk, I’m really glad you were able to attend.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #111

Excuse my ignorance, but do cats do well on a raw meat diet? My understanding is that dogs do, but I don’t recall ever reading that anyone fed their cat a raw diet.

#112

Yup, A couple of my clients feed there cats raw and they do great. As do the dogs on raw.
I would certainly feed raw if I were to get a evil lil nija in a fur suit… uh I mean cat…

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #113

I prefer the term “hissing, neurotic, maniacal, fur-covered, demonic monster,” myself. My sister’s cats are cute, but highly destructive.

And why is there no demon emoji, huh?

(Doug) #114

:japanese_goblin: :dragon_face: :smiling_imp: :japanese_ogre:

Or should I just say :bread:?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #115

That last one is terrifying!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

#116

Depends who you ask (a lot of vets will tell you you’re playing with your pet’s life - dog or cat- if you feed raw) but that’s what my cat has been eating since she was 4 months old. And she’s 18 1/2 years old now. :slight_smile: I highly recommend TC Feline premix for making homemade raw for cats.

I think in this thread or another I’ve mentioned I do take precautions to make sure the risk of infectious disease is as low as I can make it. But through three cats on raw diets over more than 18 years, I’ve never seen them have issues. Well, except for the one batch I made using ground lamb 12 or 14 years ago, I don’t think it was the fact that it was lamb, I think there was something wrong with it. All three cats puked within 5 minutes of eating it, so I threw away the whole batch and that was it. They have always done well with raw chicken and turkey though, I usually buy it at Whole Foods and mix with the TC Feline.

(Cathy) #117

My vet was very opposed to feeding raw to my then puppy, claiming that she needed the expert nutritionist’s of a commercially made food. She kind of alarmed me when she questioned about how do I know that the raw food has the exact right balance such and such. When I came home, and looked it up, she was just talking about the right balance between bone and meat with some organ meat. Not different from a full grown dog. Only the amount of food is different.

I was adamant with the raw because I felt certain that even the best commercial food would begin the slow process of oral disease which I have seen happen all too often.

Happily, Zoe is now 14 months old and has grown very well with sparkling white teeth and a sunny nature and boundless energy. Would she have done as well on commercial food? I will never know. She will see the vet again next month and maybe I can plant a seed in the vet’s mind that raw is good for dogs of all ages?

(Wendy) #118

I’m so sorry! Losing a pet is so painful. I know you have such good memories of her.