I keep putting these really unpleasant personal updates here.

[snarp]

Today's is "I may have found a palliative for my elderly cat's chronic diarrhea." I gave her a couple of teaspoons of pumpkin puree with her food today, and I just examined her litter box and found an almost normal-looking little poop in there. We're both very happy about this; or at least, I assume that she's happy. Maybe she likes having diarrhea. Maybe her greatest joy in life is the sound of my melodious voice mumbling curses over the grinding of the steam cleaner. Maybe she doesn't like my slippers. I can understand that, they're Crocs.

I'm now trying to figure out how to make this into an easy-to-follow regimen, if her digestion hasn't gone back to its old ways after a day or two of this. Maybe I could mix up a big batch of pumpkinized cat food and freeze it in portions in an ice cube tray.

Comments

[rilina]

Pumpkin was the trick when my kittens had a bad bout of diarrhea for no apparent reason. Wish i'd figured that out before the pricey vet visit that did nothing.

[ane]

According to my friends with cats, pumpkin is also good for hairballs.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I've never used pumpkin for cats, but it's a classic home remedy for dogs having digestive issues as well, both constipation and diarrhea; along with green beans it's also one of the main go-to additives if you're trying to slim down an overweight dog and need a low-calorie way to bulk out their meals into normal portion sizes.

Does kitty have any food-temperature issues? That's the big thing I'd worry about in freezing pre-mixed gooshy-food-and-pumpkin, since I've known some cats who got fussy even about refrigerated leftovers...well, that, and not wanting to smell warmed up cat food (ewwwwww) if you ever had to defrost stuff in a hurry by microwave -- zapped pumpkin is a much more inoffensive smell.

Either way, if the ice-cube-tray isn't working out well for you here, you could always try doing the divided-freezer-bag trick? Fill a bag with the pumpkin or pumpkin-food mix, not to bursting point, lay it flat on a cutting board, cookie sheet, etc. and smooth out the contents so they're even, then press indentations into it with something like a chopstick, spoon handle, or so forth. Carefully lay it flat to freeze and then you can easily break off individual portions at the thin dividing sections.

[snarp]

She's fine with refrigerated food, so that's not a big issue. I've actually decided that in the long term, if the vet can't do anything about this, the better thing to do will probably be to bake her some cat treats with metamucil powder mixed in. That way we won't have to isolate her from the other cats for an hour while she picks at a bowl of food. (She enjoys getting private meals because they mean she can take her time.)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Ah, the joys of trying to juggle individual diets in a multi-pet household! Good luck. :)