Conference misery::feline

    Hi Debra,
    
         Two things I can think of off-hand:
    
         1). Worms.  They can make kitty want to eat and eat and eat and 
             eat and .... well you get the picture ;-) .
         2). Diabetes.  If this is accompanied by drinking lots and lots
             of water, peeing a lot (because of the drinking) and losing
             weight, it may be this (I have a diabetic cat).  Usually a 
             symptom of an older (10+) cat, though.
    
         A stool sample should be able to diagnose (1).  A blood glucose
    test can detect (2).
    
         There may be other causes, but these are the two I can think of
    off-hand.
    
    					- Andrea
                                                   

    Yuck!  How are worms contracted?  As I mentioned he is totally indoors and 
    we have no other cat in case they're passed from cat to cat.  Should I be 
    examining his poops?  (gack.)  Even if I don't see worms should he visit 
    the doctor?
    
    No, he's not drinking & peeing lots.  Just eating.  I guess I'll do a
    poop check tonight... :-p !
    
    **Deb
    
    

    It may be that he is like me, not really hungry, but the food tastes
    good so why not? ;'D
    
    Jo

    I have one like yours, he's a bottomless pit and he is not fat (as a
    matter of fact he's at the vet today for his yearly and I can't wait to
    find out how much he weighs) he's all muscle.  He never seems
    satisfied, pushes the other two out of the way and starts to eat their
    food, last night we were having chicken and he jumped up on the table
    and snatched a piece out of my plate.  I was ready to throw him out
    back.  He's been checked and there is nothing out of sorts - he's he's
    a totally healthy 4 year old with a big appetite..who literally walks
    on his hind legs to beg for food.
    
    Giudi

    What can I say - our cat is appropriately named CHUBS.  We also call
    him Chubabubba, Chubins, Chubster, etc...  

    If he is eating lots! and not gaining weight, you also have the
    possibility of him having tape worm.  Usually gotten from fleas.  Our
    old cat, she's 20! people years! gets tape worm frim time to time.  We
    can tell by she eats you out of housee & home and looses weight.  A
    $2.oo pill from the vet takes care of it.  Our short hair white cat
    "Pac Man" has a 18 inch waist! and weighs 15 pounds.  Most people think
    HE is pregnant!  His stomache hangs down ......   All kinds of
    possibilities..
    
    
    Jerry Lofstead
    Atlanta, Ga.
    

    I'm a little concerned that this is a change in his normal behavior.
    

Another possibility might be feline AIDS. Our (now deceased) cat's liver 
was damaged by AIDS. She couldn't digest food and was always ravenous as a 
result. Over time she lost a lot of weight.

    re:  replies
    
    Sorry, I disappeared from DEC for a while and was unable to update on
    Farg's appetite!
    
    Turns out my husband had bought some "cheapie" dry food ("Kitty
    Krunchies", or some such gacky name) rather than the usual Friskies, and 
    he just wasn't eating it (Farg - not my husband!!), which made him extra 
    hungry when dinnertime came around.  Once we served him Friskies again,
    he was back to normal.
    
    Thanks for all the help.
                        
    **Deb
               

	K.D. has decided to eat like she's never eaten before, and then she
wants more after you fed her. She will push Isis out of the way and eat all her
food. (Isis is 11 months old)

	What I started to do was to feed K.D. in the bathroom, with the door
closed, and Isis in the kitchen. Except Isis doesn't feel the need to eat all
her food at one sitting. I would take her food and move it to the top of the
refridgerator. My roomate saw Isis eating up there so I thought it had worked.
(fully knowing it was only a matter of time) 

	Yesterday I guess I fed K.D. something she didn't want, and when I let 
her out of the bathroom, the first thing she did was fly into the kitchen, up on
the counter, and then up on the fridge. (it was like lightning) Now I know she 
is gaining weight as her midsection is VERY big now (and she is only 5 months
old), while her front part is still small, with a small butt. (it's actually 
very weird to see her like this when she used to be such a small kitten before) 

	Is there a way to get her to eat less? I can't keep her in the bathroom 
all day, and Isis is starting to look real thin..... any ideas?


Glen

    Well with nine cats who are constantly going on and off their feed in
    random patterns, the only solution we've been able to come up with is
    to somehow feed them separately.  Ideally, we'd have nine "feeding
    cages"; at mealtime, we'd put each in their own cage with their own
    diet.
    
    We don't have those kinds of facilities, but we *do* have one cat who's
    a chow hound like yours... so what we do is we have one feeding cage.
    Anyone who can't free-feed gets put in the cage to eat while the others
    eat off the communal bowls.  We give 'em about half an hour or so.
    They don't LIKE it, but if they're hungry they'll tolerate it....
    
    --jim
    

    Just a couple of things I would consider; has your cat been checked
    for internal parasites such as worms.  Worms make a cat hungry all
    the time.  Do you leave dry food out too??? There are also medical
    problems such as thyroid that cause a cat to be constantly hungry.
    
    If you cat has been medically checked out...you just have a chow
    hound!! 
    
    With MANY cats too...we do food partrol at my house.  they are fed
    wet food twice a day and each cat is fed separately on a paper plate.
    This way I can monitor who is eating and who is going from plate to
    plate.
    
    Sandy

    I see that she's only 5 months but.... *could* she be preggers?
    
    Leslie

    Regarding worms and skinny cats...I had to laugh because I have
    some pretty fat kitties who have had worms so I don't think that
    logic holds through for all!!!  I don't know the history of your
    kitty, but if her mom was a stray and she has not been dewormed 
    since she was born...my bet is she probably does have worms.  
    
    As far as thyroid problems...that normally takes it toll on older
    cats and where your is only 5 months old...that is probably not the
    case either.
    
    Another thought is a 5 month old has ALOT of energy and needs very
    high protein diet.   If she is not a big dry food eater...maybe you
    aren't giving her enough wet food to fill her up.  
    
    Sandy
    

| <<< Note 179.14 by USCTR1::WOOLNER "Your dinner is in the supermarket" >>>


| I see that she's only 5 months but.... *could* she be preggers?

	Not unless Isis, who's going into her umpteen heat cycle (my roomate
hasn't made the appointment he promised) is reall a male cat. They are indoor
kitties. 


Glen

| <<< Note 179.15 by USCTR1::MERRITT_S "Kitty City" >>>


| Regarding worms and skinny cats...I had to laugh because I have some pretty 
| fat kitties who have had worms so I don't think that logic holds through for 
| all!!!  

	Is there something you can buy at the store to get rid of worms or do
you have to go see the vet?

| I don't know the history of your kitty, but if her mom was a stray and she has
| not been dewormed since she was born...my bet is she probably does have worms.

	I got her from someone here at work who housed the mother cat. We ended
up having to deflea the cat, and if I remember correctly one could get worms
from fleas? (I thought I read it in this string)

| Another thought is a 5 month old has ALOT of energy and needs very high 
| protein diet. If she is not a big dry food eater...maybe you aren't giving her
| enough wet food to fill her up.

	She eats the dry food, just not all in one sitting like the wet stuff.
I'm giving her that Purina Special Care (or something like that) which is
supposed to help their urinary tract.



Glen

    You can buy worm stuff at the store...but I personally don't
    trust the stuff and would prefer to spend a few dollars to
    have my vet do a stool sample so he can tell exactly what
    type of parasite she has and treated it properly.  I think a
    stool sample would run between $4-6.
    
    Yes...fleas do cause Tape worms.........and that is probably what
    your dealing with!!!  One Tapeworm pill will probably rid her of the
    problem!!!  BUT...after all that she still could be a chow hound and 
    continue to eat!!!
    
    Good luck...
    
    sandy

	Thanks Sandy!!!!   There is one problem with a stool sample. Getting
one. Unless I follow her into the bathroom, I'll never know who's is who's!!



Glen

    to get the stool sample, one thing you could do is restrict the
    "chow hound" to a room for awhile, like while you're at work - before
    we got our kitty "playpen", we'd close the suspect cat in one of the
    bedrooms for the day and more often than note, we had a sample by the
    time we got home !

    You think catching the "right one" for this is fun, you should have seen
    us trying to get a urine sample from Dickens when he was really little !!
    Even tho' we had the playpen by then, it was a real trick to get the
    sample before what little litter was in the box absorbed it !!!!!

    Good luck and, as Sandy said, get the sample to the vet - we had one with
    tapeworm and one pill did the trick !

    Debbi

    Or, the vet can, um, stick a plastic thingy up the rear to see what
    type of worms they have.  My vet prefers to have a fresh "sample", but
    when its a urgent matter, the other method works just as well.   And
    cats just LOVE it.
    
    
    
    Donna

	Maybe during their heat cycle... :-0

	I got some pills to give KD, but now I need to know just how do you get
the cat to take the pill without biting it? The directions say if the cat
bites, stop the procedure. How does one give a cat a pill so she just swallows
it? 


Glen

    Doesn't always work, but hold  the mouth open, stick the pill in on the
    side toward the very back and hold their mouth closed.  Of course my
    cats wait patiently until I unclamp their jaw, and promptly spits it
    out.
    
    Try putting it in their food, toward the top.  Then again, my sisters
    dog licks the dog food and leaves the pill.  
    
    Both are worth a try.  Hey, maybe you'll get lucky!
    
    
    Donna

	It says to not give it with food. It says to give it to them 12 hours
after they have eaten, and wait 4 hours until they can feed again. I will try
the other method. Hopefully I won't get TOO scratched up in the process.


Glen

    Try this.
    
    Wrap kitty in towel (very important so that you don't get scratched).
    
    Hold kitty firmly with left arm.  Open kittie's jaw and drop the pill as far
    back in her mouth as you can.  Then clamp kittie's mouth shut and
    massage her throat.  The massaging makes her swallow (most of the
    time).
    
    Give kitty a small treat afterward, so she doesn't feel quite as bad.
    
    Holly
    

    re.-1
    >clamp kittie's mouth shut
    Carefully, not to let her bite her own tongue!!!!
    
    Nat (who never managed himself to pill his Smokey...)  :^)

    The directions given assume you are right-handed (which I am).  Unless
    the cat is very big, or you are very small, you can not only hold the
    cat with your left arm so that your elbow is behind her and your hand
    across her chest so that she can't slip out either forward or backward,
    but you can also stick your first finger into her mouth in the gap
    between the front and back teeth so she can't close her mouth or bite
    you while you are sticking the pill on the back of her tongue.  Then
    you can hold her mouth shut until Miss Indignant swallows.  Then pop
    her mouth open and make sure she actually swallowed the pill.  Good
    luck!  My cats are both reasonably tolerant of being handled and will
    do this without being rolled in a towel, but my neighbor's cat takes
    two people (me and him) and a very large towel - for some reason,
    she HATES having her mouth messed with and is a very uncooperative
    pill-swallower.  Good luck!
    
    /Charlotte

    
    This is one of the things that always struck me as amazing about cats -
    here's this little 10 pound animal that requires two full grown human
    beings (outweighing the cat by a factor of 25 to 30 maybe?) to get it
    to do something simple (swallow a pill, take a bath) that it doesn't
    want to do.  And yet most of the time, they live with us as loving
    companions.  This commands my deepest respect.
    
    len.
     

    
    Another hint, to get the kitty to open her mouth, (after you have a
    secure grip on her,) just tip her head up and apply a little pressure
    on the corner of her mouth.  Pop the pill in and tip the head (just a
    little) forward, so that the kitty can swallow and blow in her nose!
    
    Blowing in the nose (face) will ellicit a swallow response, even if the
    cat doesn't REALLY want to swallow.  Works every time.  It helps if you
    use a smooth coated pill or if you can, roll the pill in butter to help
    it slide down kitties throat.
    
    Feline Helpful,
    
    Sue & Furry crew, (who hate being Pilled.)

    Another variant on the pill-dispensing position which helps with some
    kitties is to kneel on the floor with them between your knees, facing
    away from you.  This way you can back the cat up into your body while
    maintaining 2 hands - one for the mouth and the other for the pill.
    If he's a handful you can still wrap him in a towel this way, but you
    don't have to worry about dropping the poor thing if events get out of
    hand.
    
    In our household, successful pill-taking is followed by 'up-and-over' -
    holding your arms in a circle close to the floor and having kitty jump
    through them.  Followed of course by treats, or whatever else makes
    puss happy.
    
    Dana

Go to a pet supply store and buy a piller for a couple dollars.  It looks like 
a syringe with a rubber tip.  I picked mine up at my vet, but I'm sure you can 
find them elsewhere.  The tip is sliced open to hold the pill.  The 
syringe can be worked into the kitty mouth (my biggest problem is preventing 
that reverse gear that cats do so well).  The syringe is long enough that you
can get the pill behind the hump in the tongue without losing a finger.  
Sophie had to take a 10 day supply of antibiotics this month and we would not
have made it without this device.  It's the only way I've ever been able to 
pill a cat without major stress all around.  The piller is worth its weight 
in gold!

Susan

    I didn't see it but:
    In the past few weeks when I have had to pill Stinky I was able to do
    this.  Wait til supper or breakfast time so that the cat is prepared to
    eat.  Get some real special food like Sheba or a fishy one.  Place a
    teaspoon of the food on the plate a pile it up into a sort of tower.
    Place the pill at the top of the tower but buried slightly.  If the cat
    is really hungry and likes the food, they usually will bite the "top"
    off of the tower and swallow.  Sometimes you have to "re-pile" the food
    and pill.  It worked for him!  Then put the rest of the food on the
    plate for them to finish.  
    Maybe this will help others.
    
    Of course, there is always the pill you can't do this with becuase it
    dissolves.  For this, you just get down any way you can, wait a few 
    weeks and eventually the cat will be your friend again!
    Karen

	Thanks for the advice on pill giving. My roomate, much to my surprise,
fed the cats before I got home on Monday, so I couldn't do it then (the
directions say wait 12 hours AFTER the meal). I will be doing this tomorrow
night, so that sounds like it might be easier. I won't be able to use a towel,
as for some reason she is deathly afraid of them. We went to dry her after
defleaing, and she went mental. She was freezing so we tried to wrap her in a
towel (as she was still wet), and she again went mental. I'll just wear one of
my old thick coats... :-)



Glen

    sometimes just coating the pill with butter makes the cat more
    receptive to swallowing it. Also, the butter coating prevents it from
    desolving/sticking in the throat.
    
    Deb

    I use the hold the mouth open and throw it down the hatch method.  I
    read somewhere that if the cat swallows, it will stick it's tongue out,
    almost up to the nose.  My Sassy is on a lifelong  diet of prednisone,
    every other day.  I always give her treat, or several after the pill is
    down.  Now, on nights when she doesn't get her pill, she cries to go
    into the bathroom, where I give it to her.  Also, at the rattling of the
    pill bottle, she runs to me to get her pill.
                     

	Well... I tried the methods that were suggested here last night. And
let me tell you, the towel idea was a GREAT suggestion! I'm here today with no
scratches. I coated the pill with butter like suggested, held her head up,
opened her mouth, held it shut, rubbed under her chin to injuce swallowing, to
no avail. She wouldn't do it. No matter how hard I tried, it just wouldn't
work. So I will get the liquid kind. I don't know if it will kill 3 kinds of
worms like the pill was supposed to have, but hopefully I'll get lucky and it
will have the right one in it. :-)  Again, thanks for the suggestions!!


Glen

    Maybe it's just semantics, but your rub her THROAT, not her chin, like
    down where the vocal chords are.  Good luck.
    

	Bad wording on my part. It was the throat..... :(