A Tail of Woe

So our newest addition to the family, feline sibling Pele, has recently been urinating on the bathroom floor. No, this isn't a silent protest about some grave injustice being perpetrated by his canine sister, Ginger, his human sister, Emjay, or his other feline brother, Fred. At first I was sure it was, but Pele, assured me (through our vet) that, in fact, he has crystals that are forming in his urinary tract (ouch).

This can be a very dangerous condition for a cat, resulting in blockages and death if the problem is not addressed.

So our vet, Dr. McDonalds, recommended a diet combination of wet and dry food, prescribing a medically available food that is about twice the price of the rocket fuel we already feed our pets.

Now, those who know Fuego and I know that we tend toward the hippie end of the treehugging spectrum. We have spent long hours researching what we feed our pets to try our best to minimize our carbon footprint, as well as maximize the nutritive balance of the foods they eat. We settle for nothing less than human quality foods with no fillers or byproducts, and have enjoyed the benefits of soft, shiny coats, high energy, and digestive bliss. While we were in seminary it is easy to say that the pets ate better than we did.

Since going gluten free, we changed their food, but not the quality (another two weeks of research), moving them away from grains, but maintaining the high level of quality ingredients we had come to demand from our previous supplier.

I say all of this in preparation for the explanation of Dr. McDonalds name.

Not only did she recommend Purina to us - telling us that "Purina's high end foods are really quite good," and that "if we can't afford the medically prescribed food, Purina's urinary health formula would be a good alternative" - but the prescription-only food she medically prescribed for Pele is filled (and by filled, I mean nearly ALL the ingredients) with animal byproducts, grains, and vitimins and minerals sourced from things a cat would NEVER eat in nature.

It's like raising a child on organic foods for the first twelve years of their life only to watch in dismay as they chose to live exclusively off of McDonalds and Hot Pockets in their teens.

So in researching the ingredients in our nutritionally sound rocket fuel vs. the medically prescribed junk food, I discovered only trace differences in the minerals that contribute to crystals, and that the ash (one of the contributing problems) is still LOWER in our food than in the McKibble. I also discovered, in researching cat's urinary health, that grains can contribute to the problem as they can make a cat's urine more base than acidic, allowing for the development of crystals, while a diet mainly composed of meat keeps a low pH (acidic), and prevents the formation of crystals.

End result? We're not giving Pele anymore McKibble - he didn't eat it anyway (good kitty!). We're fasting him on organic free range (yes, locally produced) chicken broth for 24 hours to get him out of the danger zone, and then we're upping his dose of wet food to help him get more water into his system (insufficient water intake is one of the main contributors to crystal formation, and is likely why he is getting them since his food is already better than the prescription formula).

I'll be returning the McKibble (which, by the way runs at $15/4lbs for McKibble vs. $30/20 lbs for Rocket Fuel) with a copy of my comparative nutrition analysis.

I know they mean well, but I think I may have to find a hippier vet ;o)