The Dish by Darcie

Darcy, Please excuse me if I am posting this in the wrong place. Yours is the first blog I’ve followed, and I’m not really sure how blogs work. But I have a question about cat nutrition.  I have an approximately 20-year-old torti, Nermal, who is a total sweetheart.  She moved in under my porch with her 3 kittens 17 years ago, and then into our hearts and house. I also have one 17-year-old daughter.  Nermal always had tooth problems, and no amount of dental care kept them from needing to be pulled a few at a time.  Last November she lost the last of them.  Since then she has been losing weight.  I’ve always given them canned food twice a day and free choice (what I thought was) quality kibble.  She turn up her nose at the canned food, and still tries to eat the kibble. In her life, she has never turned down a tidbit of leftover meat, fish or fowl.  I want to start feeding her more fresh meat.  Her kidneys are starting to fail, and I want her last months to be happy not hungry. But I’m concerned about her getting the nutrients she needs, especially Taurine that I understand from what I’ve read is hard to supply in fresh meat.  Is there a supplement I can give her, (that doesn’t need to be chewed) that will give her the nutrients she needs to be as healthy as possible? Cathie

Dear Cathie, I’m not going to be much help I’m afraid. I know dogs, I don’t know much about cat nutrition. We do carry high quality cat foods for the convenience of our dog lovers. The cats who live in my house aren’t mine so I’m not the one who feeds them, they eat the foods from SitStay.com and they catch and eat mice, they’re doing great but they all still have their teeth. Here’s what I know about cat diets. Taurine is not a true amino acid but is essential in a cat’s diet. It’s found in many foods especially seafood and meat, and the less processed, the better. Processing of food kills Taurine and is why cat foods are supplemented with Taurine, you’ll see it on the ingredient list. Cats shouldn’t go over 24 hours without food. Truly that’s about all I know about it. We all get one life and we don’t have time to learn everything. That would be me, I don’t know everything.

Can anybody help Cathie with her sweet old cat? Sorry, I wish I knew more but it’s why I have a dog supply store.   – Darcy

This morning I couldn’t find the book mark that I left on my bedside table last night. It’s a very nice book mark, one of my favorites, a long satin cord with a heart on one end and a pretty “D” on the other end. I always tuck myself into bed at night and do a little reading before going to sleep. I love to read.

So last night I’m all tucked in and Meela jumps up and curls up on top of my belly, you know how they are, she had to be between me and the book so I can’t see the pages. She breathes really loudly which is only annoying sometimes. I like this cat. I push her gently over so she is closer to my pillow and I put one arm up over her so she’ll stay there and I go back to my book. I pull my arm down to turn the page and Feona jumps up next to Meela where they proceed to have a slap fight, playful but still…I watch the slapping cats instead of reading.

DC can’t be left out of a slap fight and now she has jumped onto my belly, does a little slapping of her own and immediately goes into kneading my stomach. By this time, I am laughing out loud and they seem to think that my laughter means here kitty kitty, except for Feona who went off the far side of the bed and is now trying to get onto the bedside table next to me. Meela pushes closer to me and lodges herself in the curve of my neck, her nose against my ear, remember she breathes really loudly, and DC digs into my belly even harder with her nails. DC needs her nails trimmed so I put up with the kneading as long as I can, then move her with my elbow over next to Meela who has now relaxed and is going to sleep. Feona, who jumped off the bed after the slap fight has taken my book mark from the bedside table and is under the bed playing with it. Oh, good grief.

This morning I looked under the bed and the book mark wasn’t there. I gave up trying to find it after looking in all of their usual hiding places and in my closet.

When I sat down at my computer this morning here in my library, guess what was on my keyboard? The book mark. Laying stretched out across the D to the Enter key, like it was a present or something. Thanks, Kitties. I don’t know for sure who put it there, they all steal it from time to time and they are all accomplished thieves.

At least this time they didn’t pull my CD player off of the bedside table, take the CD out and use it as a skateboard for the next hour and a half while I was trying to go to sleep. – Darcy

The tulips that I brought home yesterday aren’t much worse for wear today but the cats decided to “weed” them. When I came home from work today, the pretty gold ribbon had been untied and obviously played with, it was on the other side of the room. The pretty paper was pulled gently away from the pot and the dirt inside had been raked from side to side. They didn’t hurt the plant at all. But it means that the cats were on the counter.

The good news? The tulips are blooming. Gosh, they’re pretty!

Life is too short. Stop and smell the flowers. – Darcy