15 year old kitty

To get our elderly cat to drink more water, we bought a fountain. He loved it. All these years later, we still use the fountain for our cats' water needs.

Recently, our five-year-old had his second UTI infection within 6 months. Our vet put him on distilled water with cider vinegar, gradually increasing the amount of vinegar until he refused to drink the water, then backing off to just under that. Now both cats drink distilled water in the fountain, with 2 tsp cider vinegar per gallon of water.

Spot is also on Dasuquin for Cats to strengthen his bladder walls to cut back on future infections. He gets two capsules opened and sprinkled on his dry food daily.

Alex shares the distilled water, so he's benefiting, too. At 17, he's pretty healthy for a cat who prefers to eat only gooshy food; he gets five ounces of canned food a day and still is a skinny guy. He doesn't like to squat, so his litter box is tall with a top opening. He can just stand and let go. But if your cat is having trouble walking, she might not be able to jump in and out of a top opening box.

Definitely have a vet do a full "old cat" workup on her, then go with what might work best for her. And all the best for you and your old girl.

What Doug said. She needs urinalysis and a full blood panel with thyroid.

Once you have that info it will be time to discuss options for managing symptoms. Supplements can help a lot with things like arthritis, but you need to know what you are dealing with.

A tough decision. With the age of your cat and the fact that it sounds like her quality of life has really deteriorated, you have to weigh it out. Spend the money, fix one or two fixable problems, and help her deal with the rest, knowing that she's nearing the end of her life. Or just put her down. Is she suffering? That's up to you to decide. If she's eating and her appetite is still good that's a good thing. Maybe the other stuff isn't too bad.

One of our cats was 17 when we put him down. Our daughter grew up with him, he was one year older than her. He started to have issues with his spine and hips when he was about 15. We faced the same dilemma as you. He was a member of the family and our daughter loved him dearly. We just couldn't put him down. They gave him a steroids, which helped for a time. Later they wanted to do x-rays and possible surgery. Finally he could no longer walk more than a few steps. Point is, we waited too long. He was suffering and we should have put him down a year before we did. Although I can reason that we were talked into keeping him going, it was our emotions that kept us from putting him down.

My thoughts are with you. This is not an easy thing.

Our cat Edna, an orange tabby, is 17 yrs old. She was 5 weeks when we got her. She has eaten nothing but dry kibble her entire life. Her choice, not ours. I hope I don't jinx it, but she has never had a UTI nor any medical issues except small injuries (ie: claw pulled out on furniture.) We stopped regular vaccines years ago when she had a reaction to one. Edna's an inside cat. A couple of years ago I switched her dry food to another brand and she didn't miss a beat, accepted it just fine. We have had her teeth cleaned by a groomer, no anesthetic, since she was six years old. Vet says he's never seen nice teeth like hers on an old cat. She's 12 lbs, not over or underweight for her size. Two years ago we had the new vet do a full "old cat panel" and she came back perfect, except for some minor changes in her liver values. Vet says this is normal for her age. She sleeps a lot these days but her vision and hearing are as good as ever and she will still play if we engage her. I guess we're just lucky and she's been a great kitty. She just goes to prove there are no complete yes or no's on what to feed a cat. Also, she has never seen a supplement. (Crossed fingers)

We had to have our 17 year old cat put to sleep because we did not want him to suffer any more. It was hard on us but living was hard on him.
They allowed him to be held by my husband for his last few minutes.
Six years and tears still come to my eyes thinking about it.

Free Range Human wrote:
Hi,

So sorry to hear about all this!

Here are my thoughts based on what you have presented here:

(1) Generally cats get urinary tract infections from dry foods. Even though she's old and may resist, I, personally, would put her on a low/no-grain canned food.

(2) She's likely arthritic. This may actually be causing more issues than you think. Please try this product as soon as you can. It made a HUGE difference for us with our 15 year old.

This pain she is in not only would cause the stiffness in walking, but may be the cause of urinating outside the box. Think about it: if every movement caused you pain, you'd move as little as possible, right? So this means: no grooming, no making the effort to get to the litter box.

(3) I would also get a probiotic supplement for cats or cats/dogs (should be available at a large health food store or well-stocked pet store--their intestinal flora is not the same as a human's, so human probiotics aren't a good choice for them). ANY time any creature gets treated with antibiotics, a round of probiotic supplementation should immediately follow, as antibiotics kills all the beneficial bacteria in the intestinal tract.

(4) So here's the last thought: the behavior you describe sounds like the picture of all old cats in decline. They don't groom as often, if at all; they may not use the litter box as well as they did before; they have trouble moving around. So in truth, it may be close to the end. Or it may not be. But you won't know for sure until you try the Cosequin.

If you don't see any change with the Cosequin within about 3 weeks (given twice a day in her food), then you might decide it's time to let her go.

In the meantime, it would be kind to her to keep her warm. Do you have a heating pad she can sleep on?

All of this is interesting but leaves out one very important component. Take your cat to a veterinarian for a complete evaluation. If you were that sick, would you just take advice from an internet forum? Dr. Doug's advice above is the best.

It's time for her to be thoroughly examined by a vet. Complete blood work and urinalysis. It could be UTI, but diabetes and chronic renal failure are very common in older cats. As many have said, arthritis is also a common ailment in geriatric cats.

As far as diet, the theory that dry diets with grain CAUSE these problems is NOT supported by the evidence we now have. Cats don't get urinary tract infections from dry cat food.

It is important to provide sufficient water and as cats age and in some other individuals the wet food may be a better choice.

Doug, DVM

Good advice above, especially about the feeding of grain free canned cat food and giving Cosequin (for cats) for joint health. From what I've read, cats don't drink enough water as it is, and they should always be fed canned food to avoid crystals and UTIs.

It's tough when they get old. I'd take her to your vet and see if there's anything else that may be wrong (and fixable), other than her body shutting down. Healing thoughts heading your kitty's way.

Hi,

So sorry to hear about all this!

Here are my thoughts based on what you have presented here:

(1) Generally cats get urinary tract infections from dry foods. Even though she's old and may resist, I, personally, would put her on a low/no-grain canned food.

(2) She's likely arthritic. This may actually be causing more issues than you think. Please try this product as soon as you can. It made a HUGE difference for us with our 15 year old.

This pain she is in not only would cause the stiffness in walking, but may be the cause of urinating outside the box. Think about it: if every movement caused you pain, you'd move as little as possible, right? So this means: no grooming, no making the effort to get to the litter box.

(3) I would also get a probiotic supplement for cats or cats/dogs (should be available at a large health food store or well-stocked pet store--their intestinal flora is not the same as a human's, so human probiotics aren't a good choice for them). ANY time any creature gets treated with antibiotics, a round of probiotic supplementation should immediately follow, as antibiotics kills all the beneficial bacteria in the intestinal tract.

(4) So here's the last thought: the behavior you describe sounds like the picture of all old cats in decline. They don't groom as often, if at all; they may not use the litter box as well as they did before; they have trouble moving around. So in truth, it may be close to the end. Or it may not be. But you won't know for sure until you try the Cosequin.

If you don't see any change with the Cosequin within about 3 weeks (given twice a day in her food), then you might decide it's time to let her go.

In the meantime, it would be kind to her to keep her warm. Do you have a heating pad she can sleep on?

I'm thinking of arthritis as a possibility. See a vet or two to get their thoughts on it.

My cat died at 17 years old of a heart attack. She evidenced loss of rear trunk movement a few times her last couple years. It manifested itself by her not being able to stand up from lieing down, and getting aggravated by meowing and having a quisical look on her face as not understanding why she could not get up. Perhaps it was just muscle cramps though?