Take your cat’s lack of appetite as a serious warning sign of possible illness, cautions Dr. Marty Becker in this week’s Pet Connection newspaper feature.
Eating problems in cats too often get dismissed — thrown under the general heading of, “What do you expect? Cats are finicky.”
But cats are prone to a variety of eating issues that can make simple feeding a permanent or even life-threatening issue.
If your cat is simply off food for a day, there’s no reason to worry. A simple upset stomach or a stressful change in his environment could be the culprit. And she might not be off food at all: If your cat has access to the outdoors, she could have eaten somewhere else — off a neighbor’s porch or at an all-you-can-catch rodent buffet.
But a persistent lack of appetite needs to be taken seriously. You can outlast any dog in a food duel — sooner or later, a healthy but fussy dog will eat just about anything. A cat, however, can stop eating completely, a situation that may trigger hepatic lipidosis, an acute liver problem that can turn fatal.
If you have a finicky cat, it’s essential to work with your veterinarian and to know these tricks to get your cat eating.
Check out Dr. Becker’s tips here.
And from Dr. Becker and Mikkel Becker Shannon:
Colorado State University has a program that combines pre-veterinary students with elderly and disabled pet owners who need help keeping their pets at home. Students are responsible for walking dogs, scooping litter boxes and driving the home-bound owners’ pets to the vet’s office. The program, called Pets Forever, was created in 2008 and helps train students in the care of dogs in a home setting, while allowing the challenged pet owners to keep their pets when they otherwise may not have been able to do so.
All this and more in this week’s Pet Connection!
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