Expert: Ali - 8/22/2010

Question
JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!!

Seriously though.. I need a fattening diet for her.

She suffered a severe allergic reaction to fleas recently and lost 2 lbs. She was 8.2lbs in July when she went to the vet the first time, and now she's 6.8lbs as of the vet trip yesterday.

The vet gave me tips and recommended about 6 different foods, but I already don't like commercial cat food and would like to try actual food on her.

She's on revolution, received CapStar at the vet and received .... Melantonin? not sure if that is right but from memory that's what it sounded like the vet said.

Anyway, what are healthy diet plans for her to help her gain weight?

Thanks.

Answer
Desirai,

I have to admit, this is the first time I've ever gotten a question titled quite the way yours is....Anyways, there are a few things to consider in this situation - firstly, according to my veterinarian the North American standards of ideal weights for pets tend to be a bit on the heavier side than they should really be meaning that many pets are overweight despite being in their "ideal" weight range. There are two ways to check and see if your kitty is at a reasonable weight is to look down at her while she's standing up, your kitty should have an hourglass figure with a nicely defined waist. The second simple test to determine whether your kitty is underweight is more hands on... Ideally you'll want your kitty to be in a mood that is conducive to handling her gently for a minute or two to start off. What you need to do is run your hands over her body applying light to medium pressure over her ribs - you should be able to feel her ribs when you apply gentle pressure as you run your hands over them, however you really shouldn't be seeing her ribs, hip bones or spinal vertebrae standing out. Once you've determined where her weight range falls then you can make sensible decisions about what quantity of food you should be feeding her.

As far as high quality, species appropriate feline nutrition goes, with the help of my family veterinarian I've done extensive research on this topic since 2007 and I can honestly say I'm not a fan of the vast majority of commercially produced pet foods...At worst some of the ingredients are downright disgusting, some ingredients that find their way into pet food have been deemed unsafe for people to consume (in which case I wonder why the pet food industry and some vets insist that these products are safe for our pets and other animals to eat)...In my opinion there are countless pet food products that are unsafe and unfit for any pet, farm animal or person to eat and unfortunately the pet food industry is somewhat self regulating which means that they set the quality standards and they enforce them which is (at least in my opinion) somewhat like asking a cat to babysit a beloved pet mouse or parakeet. The sad part of this situation is the fact that while most pet parents believe that their vet has received extensive training on providing high quality nutrition for each species while they were in school this simply isn't the case...So, who educates our vets about nutrition? The answer may be surprising for some - the pet food industry provides the "scientific" documentation for nutrition studies performed over the course of many years that most vets count on to make product recommendations for their patients. In some cases large pet food companies provide their products for low or no cost to veterinary clinics and other animal related organizations which allows the veterinary clinic to sell these products and gain a handsome profit, in other cases veterinarians/veterinary clinics are paid a sum of money by pet food companies to recommend specific foods to their clients.

In any event, while I could go on about the dangers of commercially based foods for pages and pages this is about pointing you in the right direction to ensure that your kitty receives the best possible nutrition to fuel her body and maintain a reasonable weight. Here are a few websites that I'd recommend checking out:

~ www.catinfo.org

This is the website my vet recommended for me when I completely lost all trust in commercially produced pet foods. The great thing about this site is that it was created by a veterinarian to help educate pet parents about providing the best possible diet for their feline companions. I really appreciate the fact that Dr. Pierson's work is all about taking a common sense approach to feline nutrition.

~ http://www.halopets.com/pet-education/pet-articles/pet_food_what_you_need_to_kno...

This article and others like it have appeared in a wide variety of places online and in print, but I do think it's well worth the read - if you have a sensitive stomach or you're at all squeamish this isn't mealtime reading!

~ http://www.messybeast.com/cat-food-industry.htm

~ http://www.homevet.com/petcare/documents/immunenutrition.pdf

~ http://www.homevet.com/petcare/feedingyourcat.html

~ http://www.homevet.com/petcare/foodbook.html

~ http://www.wysong.net

This site is interesting to say the least, the pet food made by this company is very different from most commercially prepared foods and my cats LOVE the pheasant treats that wysong makes and we really like being able to give them treats that we feel confident about in terms of quality and safety.

If you are interested in learning more about a holistic approach to caring for your cat I have other information that I can send your way about a variety of topics. Conventional medicine and holistic medicine don't always agree so it can be a challenge to provide the kind of care you want to for your cat if you are seeing a vet who isn't open to the holistic way of doing things. I can't say enough about "alternative" treatments like homeopathy and acupuncture (along with many other options available today).

The reason that holistic health care for cats has become so important to our family in recent years is because of the fact that while conventional medicine has made some amazing advances it's not always the best option. In general I think that the best option if at all possible is to deal with the underlying cause of minor health and behavioural issues without making use of psychotropic drugs or other medications (obviously common sense is the key here - if your kitty needs emergency care then a holistic approach, which is a combination of conventional and alternative therapies is appropriate)

In 2007 our eldest cat nearly lost her life as a direct result of eating melamine tainted food. At that point I was still confident that I was supplementing my cats' homemade diet with commercially prepared food that was safe and healthy for them...Unfortunately my misguided belief that the commercial pet foods would ensure that my cats weren't deficient in any nutrients that they needed to be at their healthiest nearly resulted in the death of a precious girl who came into my life as a 7 day old rescued kitten... To put it mildly I felt incredibly guilty for risking the lives of our cats simply by not taking the time to do the research and find out precisely what the foods I was giving our much loved fur kids were actually made from.

Our baby girl had begun vomiting small amounts of fluid a couple of times per day - since she didn't seem otherwise distressed and she was eating, drinking and eliminating normally we felt that it would be okay to watch her closely for a day or two. On the second day we went to bed that night knowing that we were going to be booking an emergency consult with our family vet just as soon as the clinic opened the following morning. I was woken up by my girl vomiting and hissing and when I turned the light on to get a better look I immediately knew that something was seriously wrong so we went to the 24 hour vet hospital so that our girl could be assessed by a vet right away.

The emergency vet who practiced only conventional medicine advised that I euthanize my "elderly" then 8 year old girl to prevent further suffering...I opted out of making a permanent decision without having a chance to have our baby assessed by our family vet so we left the clinic with an x-ray and a photocopy of our girl's blood results. Our vet used an answering service back then that wouldn't put clients through after 11PM and before 6AM so we only had a few hours to wait until we could run the blood results by her, but I have to admit that it was hard to wait for a couple of hours knowing that we might be spending our last hours with our spunky little girl...

Once our family vet assessed our girl, looked over her x-ray and lab work she immediately started conventional treatment which consists of placing kitties on IV fluids and an obscenely expensive prescription food which didn't seem to be of much help... After 48 hours in a hospital cage on IV fluids our little girl had deteriorated further and I was really worried that I might have to make the most difficult decision in terms of how far we should go medically that I've had to make during her lifetime - I didn't want my precious little princess to suffer unnecessarily, but I didn't want to give up on her fighting spirit because she is one tough little girl and I really felt that she had the spunk to fight her way out of this mess...

When the bloodwork came back showing that our baby's renal function had deteriorated further I truly felt that the conventional approach to treating kidney failure in cats just wasn't doing much to help our baby girl get any better. At this point I was willing to try any option that I could possibly afford to in order to give our baby the chance she deserved to come back home and live out the rest of her life in an environment that she was comfortable in, being loved by her favorite humans. When our vet asked permission to add homeopathic remedies to our girl's treatment we truly felt that the remedies couldn't do any harm and they just might make a significant difference in our girl's overall condition so we immediately agreed to adding a somewhat unorthodox (at least in terms of conventional medicine) approach to treating our baby's kidney failure.

Less than 24 hours after starting the homeopathic remedies our baby girl's blood tests were repeated and her kidney function had returned to normal, after watching our spunky little girl overnight to see if her condition was stable our vet called and let us know that she was ready to come back home to us. As far as the conventional approach to treating kidney failure with a low protein diet that really didn't fly when we got home...We just couldn't seem to convince our baby girl to eat the seriously over-priced prescription food at home so her low protein diet went out the window almost immediately.

While we ditched the dietary recommendations we did go ahead with another conventional approach to treating a kitty in renal failure and we administered supplementary fluids under her skin as often as she needed them which worked out to just about every day. We were absolutely floored when our vet recommended that we work towards weaning our girl off of her fluids slowly while we watched her closely to see how she did and did regular blood draws to test our baby's kidney function which stayed within the normal range each time we went for a follow up appointment throughout that year.

We learned an important lesson from this near tragedy - conventional medicine simply doesn't have all of the answers. As far as conventional medicine is concerned there isn't any kind of explanation for the dramatic improvement in our little princess's kidney function after she was given the homeopathic remedies. All we know is that if we'd followed the advice of the emergency veterinarian our baby wouldn't be here today - she'll be 12 soon and we still marvel at her miraculous recovery...We're well aware that every day we spend with her is a special gift that we wouldn't have had if we'd simply followed conventional wisdom. In the meantime our spunky little munchkin is in perfect health and that's far better than good enough for us.

You may also be interested in learning more about what studies in recent years have revealed about the use of vaccines on our pets. It's worth noting that as far as conventional veterinary medicine goes our pets are being vaccinated too much and too frequently for the most part which can lead to some very serious health issues at any point. Annual vaccines aren't necessary and in my opinion, based on the research that I've done over the years they're actually dangerous so in following my family vet's advice (she's a fantastic holistic vet) we vaccinate as little as possible. If in doubt a simple blood test can be performed to check whether your kitty is protected against illnesses and infections that they would routinely be vaccinated against which means that your kitty doesn't have to get any unnecessary vaccines. If you have any  further cat related questions or concerns I'd be more than happy to help you out to the best of my ability.