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animal health, animal nutrition, bladder infections, cats, dogs, Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease, FLUTD, health, nutrition, pet health, pet nutrition, pets, uroliths, veterinarian, veterinary diets
After reading about poor KellyKel’s cat on the DoCo, I feel the need to make this post.
Please feed your pet veterinary diets.
Especially if you own a boy cat.
There is startlingly little regulation of pet foods, and some of the ingredients in pet store and grocery store pet foods are frankly harmful to your pet. Cats especially are at risk because their health is very delicately balanced on their diet. Cats eat a very high protein diet, and this is rough on the urinary tract system. If a cat lives to be 20, one day its kidneys will wear out and that will be that.
Cat’s bladders tend to develop crystals when the pH balance of a food is even slightly off. The crystals scratch the bladder wall and bacteria begin to grow. This is called Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease. Vets refer to it as FLUTD (“Flutey”). It can happen to dogs, too, although it is rarer. Still, I have seen it! The crystals end up getting stuck together in that mass of crystals and blood and bacteria and white blood cells and they end up making a little stone. Sometimes (particularly with neutered male cats because their urethras are narrow) that stone gets lodged in the urethra and blocks the passage of urine.
From that moment on your cat has maybe 24 hours to live. Unable to pass urine, the toxins back up in the animal’s system and begin to kill your pet. Your pet will die either from the poisons that they can’t get rid of, or their bladder will BURST inside them. It’s painful. It’s deadly. It’s COMMON.
This isn’t something that is fairly rare. It’s something that actually fairly likely. If you walked into your local vet clinic and said “do you have a blocked cat in the back?” chances are they would say “yes,” and if it’s a big clinic, chances are they will say “yes, which one are you looking for?” You want to scare a vet clinic? Call them and say “my cat isn’t peeing”.
There are a million reasons why a cat will get crystals. Stress is a factor. Dehydration is another (it is more common in cats who are eating dry food and don’t like drinking water)… and diet is yet another.
Many diets are poorly pH balanced. Not just your cheap grocery store foods (although they are the worst offenders) but expensive pet store foods, too. Being pricey doesn’t make it good, or safe. I have seen several pets come in with crystals caused by food, and they were eating a (WET!) high-end pet store product, boasting all-natural ingredients.
Pet owners look for phrases like “all natural!” “grain free!” “No additives!” “with fibre!” “with real chicken!” and so on.
They never think to look for “with a balanced pH for your pet’s urinary tract health.”
But if you have a male neutered cat, that is exactly what you should look for, because when your cat blocks, you have a choice. A vet bill totalling nearly $1000 or more… or a dead cat. If you choose “dead cat” you still have to choose between your cat dying in extreme agony or paying for a euthanasia.
It’s a bad scene.
Why does it cost so much to unblock a cat?
First you have to sedate the cat, because sticking a catheter up a blocked urethra into a bladder that is as turgid as an over-filled balloon is hideously painful AND difficult.
Then you have to keep it sedated until waking it up is no longer a cruel thing to do.
Then you have to give it antibiotics for the infection, and blood tests to see how badly poisoned the cat is.
Then you have to keep that catheter in its urethra for several days, draining the bladder of its brown or red infected pee.
You also have to keep the cat on drugs to relax the bladder so it won’t go into excruciating spasms.
…and that’s if the case isn’t too bad.
You may have to operate to get a larger stone from inside. This is more common with dogs. Check it out (yes, this is from my OWN experience, these aren’t pics off of the web):
Yeah, that big white thing? That's a stone. IN A DOG. A female bearded collie if I remember right.
IT WAS IN A DOG'S BLADDER
Sometimes they can’t unblock it. Then they have to cut off the cat’s penis. This is not a choppy-chop operation, because you’ll screw up the urethra if you do that. It’s delicate surgery, and often one that vets don’t like to do – they’d rather call in a specialist or at least a vet who has experience with them. You basically do a sex change operation on the damn cat, so it pees like a girl. That’s REALLY frigging expensive. It’s a long operation, so there are sedation drugs and anesthetics and veterinary time (I’ve seen three vets all pending over one of these surgeries). There’s the long recovery, too.
It sucks.
So… you can feed your pet a diet from the pet store and hope for the best… or you can buy a veterinary diet because all veterinary lines are pH balanced to prevent such problems.
A veterinary diet for a healthy animal isn’t even that expensive. They have high quality ingredients (my favourite brand, Medi-Cal, is all naturally preserved, too) and research-driven formulas and they never change the recipe without warning you (which other brands do all the time).
Your pet will poop less on a veterinary diet because there aren’t any fillers (unless, of course, you buy a high fibre formula designed to make your pet poop more!) and you end up needing to feed a lot less because they are so highly concentrated. Veterinary diets often end up being CHEAPER than the cheap grocery store stuff, and that’s before the $1000 operation to save your cat.
Oh, and veterinary diets are 100% guaranteed.
Remember those pet food recalls? I know someone whose cats were eating the cheap stuff. One died, the other has permanent kidney damage. It took thousands of dollars to save it. The owner has never seen a dime from that company.
But the veterinary diets called our clinic and told us which formulas were tainted (and there weren’t many, because only a few specialty formulas had gluten in them at all). Then they told us to phone every client who bought those food in the last three months, and they would refund the money spent on food over that time frame. Then they paid to test each animal who ate those foods for signs of poisoning. Then they paid to fix the poisoned animals.
Next time you’re in your pet store, ask the clerk if your pet’s current brand of food guarantees their food that way.
Just in case.
Oh, wow. I’m pretty scared just reading this having two male cats who don’t eat a food from the vet… I decided a while ago that they need to be checked out and switched to a better food. I’ve been planning to take them to the vet when Chris gets done with this course, but perhaps I’ll have to see if the clinic is open on Saturdays and go sooner.
Probably a good idea but don’t strain yourself :-p
Another question for you: What’s your professional and/or personal opinion on pet insurance? Worth it?
Meh. It depends on your pet, to a certain extent. On the one hand, you know it’ll probably pay out, because animals don’t live as long as people. On the other hand, putting 20 bucks into a “pet care” bank account once a month would work just as well.
That being said, I remember when a coworker got a pet pointer puppy. She looked everywhere for a pet insurance company that would cover cruciate ligament surgeries, because she “had a feeling” that her clumsy, exhuberant puppy might rip his cruciate ligament some day. There are a lot of ways to fix such a thing, and she wanted to make sure that the most expensive way (3ooo plus dollars) was covered.
So she signed up.
When I stopped in at my clinic when I was home in summer 2009, her dog was in the back with a ripped cruciate ligament. 20 bucks a month would never have added up to enough on its own.
Okay, cool. Chris pointed out to me that we don’t even have life insurance yet, so maybe this wasn’t the best way to spend our money. 😛
Huh. My pets have always eaten food that we buy at the vet – and for cats it really isn’t that expensive – It just never occurred to me to.. not buy it there.
The handy thing too is that you can get a lot of free advice by mentioning stuff to the people there.
I am nauseated. I don’t have cats, but my mother has 2 neutered male cats. I talk to her constantly about their diet. She feeds them “human” food, like shrimp and turkey deli meat, things she thinks are good for them, but supplements with store bought wet/dry cat food. This should fix that.
I have dogs whom I adore. I don’t want to get much into it, but I lost my beloved cocker spaniel during that last food recall a couple years ago. She was only 11 and I spent upwards of $5k taking her to the best veterinary university I could find. Imagine how I felt when I learned that the Iams diet I was feeding her contributed to her death. I thought Iams was a good brand, and while in college, I sacrificed things for myself in order to have the money to buy her the “better” dog food. It’s been nearly two years since she died and I am still beat myself up over it.
I currently have 3 dogs. Again, I thought I was doing right by feeding them pet store “holistic” dog food made by a company called Blue. It’s not cheap, but considering what had happened to my cocker, the price of the food was something I took into consideration before adopting each dog, making sure I could financially do so.
To read this, I am sickened. I guess I will be calling the vet on Monday. Please elaborate on this subject (or any other pertaining to animals) as often as you feel compelled to do so. I have been reading your blog for awhile now and know that you are a fellow animal lover (and trainer) and I trust your opinions very much.
Something else you can do is ask your vet about your food. Most vets notice trends with certain foods – all the animals on X food have dry coats, animals on Y food come in with crystals, etc etc. Some pet foods in pet stores are just fine… but separating the wheat from the chaff is almost impossible.
for us to go to a vet it’s 2.5 hours away, so in a way vet food would be more expensive… i’m not sure what else to say other than my hands are outstretched awaiting my lashings:)
Yes, that definitely sounds inconvenient!
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Terrible. My general philosophy is that if you are going to get a pet, be sure you can afford to do so. Of course, as you know, we didn’t choose to have our dog but circumstances dictated that she become mine. Ever since she became my responsibility she has been on vet food (Medi-Cal/Royal Canin) for about 85% of the time (the first little while I was still learning, and while I was in BC I don’t think my mum continued this high-end diet). It is more expensive, but my dog is a living thing, and she deserves the respect and care that comes with that. I take her for her regular check-ups and shots, and in total I don’t think she costs me much more than $600 a year.
One thing I was annoyed about though…I started buying Medi-Chews, and my dog went ballistic for them (which is fine). She also started having accidents in the house late at night, which confused me, and when I stopped giving her Medi-Chews, the accidents also stopped. I noticed sucrose (and not sucralose) as an ingredient (probably explains why she loved them so much!), which I am sure made her more thirsty and drink more…hence peeing late at night. Why would sucrose be an ingredient in treats for dental health? I was annoyed enough that I haven’t bough the medi-chews since.
Other than that, I’ve been thrilled with the Royal Canin diet.
My dog loved those medi chews, too! I have no idea why sugar would be involved!
Fascinating post, and timely, as we’re needing some kittens as soon as it’s kitten season.
“Kitten season” makes me think of rainshowers of kittens.
I truly believe that a person cannot make such sweeping generalizations about veterinary diets. A simple google search will show just as many people who have horror stories to tell about their pets being on vet diets as those who are on other dog foods. The post above regarding Medi-Chews Royal Canin veterinary dental treats is a perfect example.
My dog has been ill and is now on a limited diet, with new items introduced to him slowly to monitor his response. He was put on Hills Pet T/D veterinary diet and that caused horrible soft stools and gas (yes, he had the 7 day transition to new food). I then put him on a premium dog food with quality proteins rather than the grains and fillers that T/D contains and he is fine now. So now after a week, I figure it is time to slowly introduce him to some treats, I bought the Medi-Chews just today, gave him half of one, and he drank an entire bowl of water and went to pee five times since having it this afternoon. I didn’t associate the two until reading the post above. Why does this so called healthy veterinary diet dental chew have sucrose in it? I agree, the great thing about the veterinary diet is that they stand behind their products, I returned the Hills Pet, and tomorrow I will be returning the Medi-Chews.
I didn’t think to look at the Hills Pet T/D ingredients because it was sold by the vets only and vet recommended, so how could it be bad? Well the ingredients are horrible. Dogs need quality proteins, and none exists in that particular brand and I doubt the others have quality proteins. Dogs need meat in their food, not byproducts, not corn, not wheat, etc. Dogs should be fed quality premium dog food with natural ingredients and actual meat (not byproducts).
I’m not an expert, and the author of this blog is not either, all dogs are different, but there are plenty or resources, from the simple (including looking at the ingredient list on the bag of dog food) to the more complex (dog food analysis websites ranking food quality). Do your own research and find out what works best for your dog rather than buying veterinary food out of fear that if you don’t “you will pay”. Seriously.
Actually, I am an expert. I’m certified in pet nutrition. I have a certificate and everything. And I graduated magna cum laude.
Hills is not one of my favourite brands because unlike Medi-Cal, it is not all-naturally preserved. That being said, they do use quality ingredients. The fear of “by-products” is common but misunderstood. “By-products” can mean bad things – tumors, skin, all sorts of unnutritious bits and pieces. But did you know that iron-rich liver is considered by-product? That intestines (which often have excellent nutrients) are considered by-products?
By-products does not inherently mean bad things. It just CAN mean bad things in a world where pet foods are totally without any kind of regulatory controls.
The only ones that ARE, are sold in vet clinics.
Like I said, Hills is not one of my favourite lines, and the corn in it gave my cat gas too, which made me switch to Medi-Cal, which uses a rice base. However, Hills was one of the foods that refunded pet owners money and paid for their pets’ care when the recalls happen.
Hills’ is still guaranteed to do what it claims to do.
And that can save you money.
I hope your pet gets better, and that you find a diet that works best for your pet. That is very important.
But I highly recommend looking for another veterinary line, rather than having one bad experience and deciding that a totally unregulated and unrecommended food from a pet store will be better, just because it says “with real chicken!” or “corn free!” on the bag.
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I have had male cats for 40 plus years that all lived to be 20 or older and never did any of them have crystals, and NONE of them have ever been on a Vet diet! Some cats are more susceptible than others females included and the best prevention is making sure they are getting enough water in their diet whether from drinking or wet food.