Re: Old George and Raw Food

| >I'm not against raw food at all, but what puts you off feeding him some
high
| >quality wet or dry cat food which has ingredients to help him with his
| >arthritis?
| >Or what about combining raw food and cat food?
|
| Actually, combining raw with canned (supermarket, always "senior" or
| "special diet") is more or less what I am falling into. Figuring out
| what to feed him is a work in progress still. I did finally get some
| chicken guts. Livers, hearts, gizzards and stuff.
|
| It's very difficult to feed him "correctly." I don't have very good
| control. For example, he has been out all day, and for the past 24
| hours he has eaten practically nothing at my house. That means he is
| out panhandling again. I feel like a parent trying to get a teenager
| to eat a balanced diet. Sometimes you just have to settle for what you
| can do and stop worrying about perfection.

I know. It took me nearly a year to find the 'perfect' diet for the cat
(good quality, good ingredients, tasty).
Now we have a new cat, and I can start all over again because he doesn't
like the stuff I feed him.


| But do tell me more about "ingredients to help him with his
| arthritis."

>From what I know about Arthritis you cannot cure it with food, only
medication can. But you can prevent it from getting worse:
Avoiding overweight with senior or light stuff, getting good quality stuff
and - that's important - stuff that the cat loves in order to stop him from
going out for his meals. Oh, and give him a gentle massage from time to
time...

I pointed out the arthritis to his vet and asked if there
| was anything I could do. She said there wasn't really a lot except
| pain pills, and that some seemed to benefit from glucosamine and
| chondroitin. I know the latter are kind of hit or miss. I have a touch
| of arthritis myself, but they did nothing at all for me. My neighbor,
| on the other hand, says they really help. And the vet didn't really
| say anything about dosage -- I assume if he weighs 1/20 as much as a
| human, then 1/20 the usual human dose would be appropriate, but I
| don't know if that is accurate. Of course, even if I figure out a
| medication regime, getting it into him is another matter.

You might as well try it out.


| When my son left for the university I thought the parenthood chapter
| of my life was finished. Hah!

18 year old daughter asked me what I wanted a cat for. I replied that I need
*someone* to bother me when she leaves ;-)

Carola