Sassy cats – A barfy sort of week

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Mollie: I don’t feel so good.

This has been food issue week. Every day someone throws up. It’s almost like a food rental. I shouldn’t be charged full price if it doesn’t stay down!

Mostly it’s Mollie. She’s prone to barfing. The vet thinks she has food allergies but we can’t pinpoint anything specific. She prefers hard kibble but she gets some wet too. She throws up more with the wet but she is an equal opportunity barfer. That means she will throw up if she eats air.

Gracie: What happened to my food?

Yesterday it was Gracie. After all the food issues earlier in the year, I have her on normal food at normal times. (Insert fist pump here.) However…when she throws up, it’s with a flair. She eats part of her food, then barfs the whole thing up over the still uneaten good stuff. That forces me to toss the whole thing. *bangs head on table* No, I don’t give her more.

None of this is about hairballs. It’s a mystery. I’m hoping for a less barfy week.

Hazel: They are starving me! Send a pizza! Anchovies please. Hurry!

 Hazel’s diet: I am the biggest problem with Hazel’s diet. I have a hard time when she stares down at her empty dish. I’m powering through by keeping me busy.

I have moved the dry kibble higher so she can’t jump to eat it and bought her some cat diet kibble. Took me an hour to figure out which was truly for losing weight. Weight management to me means maintaining a healthy weight. I need something that would satisfy her and help her LOSE weight.

End of first week and she lost 6 ounces. Too early to celebrate yet. (Oh go ahead, half a fist bump!)

 

60 thoughts on “Sassy cats – A barfy sort of week”

  1. 6 ounces in one week seems like a significant amount of weightless to me, and I hope that continues to go well. You have incredible patience with the puking! It gets expensive trying all the different foods and figuring out what triggers the problem. I do hope you have a better week…I hope THEY have a better week!

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    • I wasn’t sure the 6 ounces was real but today was a weigh-in and she’s lost a full pound in 2+ weeks. Normally I would say that’s a lot but she had gained a half pound in the month prior so I think of that as temporary weight that dropped off fast. I didn’t cut or change her wet food at all. I eliminated her access to the dry kibble that’s out for the grazer cats. I’ve even given her “diet” kibble in a small amount for texture. She goes to the vet in 2 months and I’d love for her to lose another pound before then. She will never be a skinny or a “normal” sized cat but I want her to be a healthy chubster! After Gracie came and had all the eating issues, I spend a lot of money on food that only Hazel would eat (is there any doubt that she cat loves food?). There’s a texture aspect to foods. Some of the cats like chunky, some like soupy and only Hazel will eat the pate style. They are all different!

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    • Mollie has been like this for most of her 13 years. She has good periods and bad periods. As long as she’s not underweight or ill in any other way, I’m ok with it. If she has a food allergy I haven’t been able to figure it out but each time I hear of something I try it. Gracie’s problem (I’m pretty sure) is eating too fast. She’s a crazy young cat. Hopefully as she matures (if I live that long) she will take her time.

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  4. Mystery barfing. So common in the cat world, isn’t it. I hope you are past the worst of it…well, that they are past the worst of it. Some cats are just prone to it their whole lives. Allergies, delicate tummies–who knows? Poor things. I hope the weekend goes better. 🙂

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  5. Jack barfs quite often. He eats, walks into the living room and barfs on the rug. I think that he eats too fast and really doesn’t chew the food it comes up looking like it does in the bowl. TMI? Nah, you’re a cat lady! Teddy occasionally will hack up a hair ball but very rarely food. Jack is slim and trim and Teddy is…well, fat.

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  6. We had a lot of barfing this morning, 5 of my 13. And they don’t all eat the same foods. Sometimes I wonder if the humidity bothers them. 6 oz. is a lot for a cat to lose in a week.

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    • For the weight loss, I didn’t weigh at the same time so I think that it’s not a true reading. I’m hoping for a couple of ounces a week. All I cut out was the extra kibble so she should be fine (cranky but fine). Five barfs! Wow! You hit the jackpot. Today was humid but the rest of the week was beautiful. Not sure what’s up with Mollie but she’s healthy in every other way.

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  7. It took me years to find something that Reboot would not barf. IAMS Healthy digestion has worked for the last couple years. She has a super sensitive stomach. If I give her any type of cat treats, she gets sick. If she drinks milk, she gets sick. She does however like Sweet Iced Tea.

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    • Sweet Iced Tea? Now that’s a southern cat! I don’t do any treats here because of Hazel’s weight issues. You can’t give treats to one cat and not the rest. I’ve been using grain free and it worked for a long time but this week we hit the barf jackpot. I used to use a sensitive stomach kibble but most have grain. I’ll keep looking and trying. There is a limited ingredient kibble but it wasn’t a hit here. Hard to make them all happy.

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  8. My cat used to begin her barf warning alarm system (BWAS) in the middle of the night (as she was sleeping on my bed… this was pre-husband). Once I heard that, I knew that I had mere moments to pick her up and get her into the bathroom so she could barf with abandon on my tile floor. Good times…

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  11. My dog, Max, used to have bad acid reflux and barfed up acid a few times a week. We took him round and round to the vet, spent tons of Moolah, and nothing worked. Changing a dog’s food is a delicate process for a normal dog’s stomach. But, we changed it and it got a little better. He barfed a few times a month instead of each week. Still, it didn’t seem enough. Then, a miracle happened. We moved out of Florida back home to Chicago, and his barfing ceased. Okay, so it has happened a few times in the past 2 years, but that’s far less. Recently, they were out of stock on his regular food, so we switched, and he’s doing even better on the new stuff. Not that this helps you with your kitties, but I can relate to the pet barfing. Max is on Nutro grain free duck meal. It’s for sensitive stomachs. Maybe they make it for kitties too?

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    • They do. I have my cats on Rachel Ray’s grain free dry and Purina wet. Mollie barfs less on grainfree but it hasn’t eliminated it. If I go a week without a barf I’m doing a happy dance. Recently my vet suggested that I try duck.

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  12. When Nox used to throw up, he would make a noise that sounded like the “toot” of a small clown horn. So at least there was some entertainment value. However, he had thrown up twice this week silently. Sigh. I preferred the clown horn….

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  13. I can’t remember where (probably someone’s blog), but I read that it’s natural for cats to barf and their bodies want them to. In the wild (perhaps back in the day), cats had to eat their prey whole so no one else would get it. And then they barfed back up the bones. Olive barfs about once a month for no reason. The rest never do. The one time I saw Dexter barf, it scared him and he jumped back from the result…like WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

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  15. Way to go, Hazel!!!! Yay! We have food issues here, too. Kana has “food allergies” and eats hypoallergenic prescription stuff, but now I tried chicken Wellness cans (almost all chicken in those things) and lo and hold she is keeping it down. Small amounts though. So maybe IBS? Small amount more often for her and not a bunch of additives. Then we have . . . . And so on. Perry eats well, but I have him mainly on Wellness canned and Pure Vita kibble at this point.

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    • None of the cats like to barf when I am around. I am always scooting them off the carpet which for some reason is the preferred barfing ground. Not looking under any beds although I had having company over for dinner a while back. We were sitting around the table and I noticed a big dried hairball on the patterned oriental carpet. I nonchalantly kicked it under my chair hoping no one would notice until I could clean it up. I have pets! Come here at your own risk.

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    • What a cat. My cats haven’t done that…yet. I always worry about what I don’t hear or see. I heard Mollie barfing UNDER the bed the other day. I cleaned it up but if I hadn’t been upstairs, I wouldn’t have known.

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  20. Poor Hazel, but at least the scales are going down. Mine are heading into orbit, but I have other things pressing just now and dieting has taken the departure train rather than a back seat. Sorry to hear Gracie and Mollie are having a barfing contest. Not nice for you clearing up. Have the manufacturers changed their recipe?

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  21. Cats can get allergies to the environment… so maybe your crew is allergic to August pollens or grasses or whatever crap drifts into their kitty nostrils & onto their various foods. That’d explain why everyone has tummy issues. A thought.

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    • Could be. Mollie is the one cat that doesn’t go in the porch often but she does to sleep on an open windowsill. She’s a very picky eater to start with so I’ve never been successful identifying any culprit. (She says she’s allergic to other cats and would do better if I dropped them off at the shelter!)

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    • Thanks for the encouragement. I’d be more excited if she hadn’t gained 2 ounces the day before we started. It may have been water weight (do cats get that) or needed a good potty trip. In any case I’m taking it. Last time she lost weight it took a year to lose just under 5 lbs. Getting Gracie to finish her food and curbing Hazel’s access to the kibble are key. When she drops a pound I’ll be ecstatic. I don’t expect to see that for several weeks. Like you say, slow and steady.

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  24. It’s distressing for all parties. I like your ” food rental” remarks.

    Oscar barfs about once in every 10 meals. A vet once suggested that he was eating too fast.

    Last year we bought several cases of the same wet food when it was on sale. We found food from the same batch was “off” to him. Not to Black Cat, though.

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    • I suspect Mollie may eat too fast too. This morning she wouldn’t eat at all (but she has kibble, which she prefers, available all the time). I’ve had the issue where they won’t touch their favorite flavor in a case but that’s when Hazel comes in handy. That cat will eat anything. Otherwise I’d be doomed.

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