But I will write about him not throwing up because this may be useful old information for some people. It is the kind of useful information that should be freely passed down from generation to generation, perhaps even by smearing it on cave walls or scratching it onto parchment scrolls. Ye, these are Ruth Crillier’s old words dedicated to cat owners all over the world. Save money on carpets and rugs one house at a time.
For the uninitiated (hello!), allow me to introduce you to my cat, Mr. Bear. He is a British Shorthair, turning 13 this month, and is a little on the small side size-wise. (Male British Shorthairs tend to be that way.) At the stately height of his weight, he weighed an ungainly 8.5 kilograms. I feel like he’s a lot lighter now, but he’ll still do well in the Cat Wrestling Heavyweight Championship.
If such a thing existed.
God, please let it exist.
Mr. Baer was a vomiter for most of his life. Now, before we get too deep into this unpleasant topic, let me emphasize that the following does not constitute or replace veterinary advice. If your cat is vomiting, be sure to consult a professional.
I had to take my cat to the vet a couple of times until I realized for myself that my cat didn’t die of some horrible disease and was just greedy. I’m not a fan of the Dr. Google approach to health care (diagnosing your illness by searching the internet for symptoms), and for the same reason I’m not a fan of Google Vet (same thing, but for animals). Not enthusiastic. There’s no need to explain why, as it’s obvious.
In the end, Google Vet was more helpful than the actual, very expensive Real Life Vet, but I still have a responsibility and I don’t want my cat to throw bile around like it’s superfluous. If you are jetting, I highly recommend seeing a real person. Poltergeist.
Anyway, let’s get back on track. Mr. Baer was a vomiter for most of his life. Large piles of fishy mush were spewed out with a loud noise, like a full-body workout, and scattered all over the carpet. Never step on tiles, even if they are nearby. Also, never step on wooden floors that can be easily wiped down. Right on the carpet.
Even if my cat was placed in a large room made entirely of granite, I swear my cat would find a place in expensive, easily stained, highly absorbent fabric. Or marble. If he were, say, a cat at Versailles during the time of Louis XV, he would wander for miles through the marble-floored hallways until he stumbled upon the cat. Then he would hold the curly wig under his arm and hoist it over him.
This vomiting has been fine for years – manageable, not too much of a nuisance, and the cat seemed to be “okay on its own” – but over the past year or two, the vomiting has become more of a concern. Every day, sometimes. We went to the Real Life vet and the vet felt his stomach (the cat’s, not his), looked inside his ears (ditto) and then sent us away with an £8000 bill. I sent it back home. He had no physical problems. (It’s a cat.)
This is where Google Vet came into its own. Because the internet has nothing better than serving up unconfirmed anecdotes and potential misinformation entered into the system by billions of people, sane or not. And out of this quagmire of brain drain came something very revelatory. It was so accurate that I actually cheered.
Mr. Bear wasn’t throwing up at all, he was regurgitating the food. This should have been obvious. For the sick man’s pile actually looked and smelled exactly like his food. Right down to the exact shape of the grain and the fact that some of it still had a dusty, dry surface, but I didn’t actually put two of them together.
God bless the Google veterans.
I found out that Mr. Bear was regurgitating food immediately after eating (devouring), rather than dying slowly due to something that wasn’t detected by the vet’s exam, so I thought the problem was I started working on a solution. And finally, I’ll spend almost 1,000 words on this post to share the informative part of how I stopped my cat from getting sick.
I lifted the cat bowl off the floor.
know! Bloody hell. Could there be an easier fix?At first I thought the cat was eating too fast and was munching greedily, so I could get one of the puzzle bowls out and slow the cat down to stop it. I checked to see if. Do you know those pet bowls with noble bits inside?
It didn’t work. The amount of vomiting decreased and the frequency decreased, but the problem could not be eradicated. I have to say I was pretty disappointed by this. The most advertised solution on Google Vet seemed to be to “slow down the bait,” and I was convinced that Mr. Bear’s overzealous fast feeding was the culprit. My mind wandered back to the cat’s incurable disease.
But then I read something else. I read an article about certain cats, especially large cats, who regurgitate their food because of the angle at which they eat when the bowl is placed on the floor. It shows a cross-section of a cat’s head and neck, which shows that food needs to be pulled up almost vertically into the throat to avoid the bends and enter the digestive system. It was showing the facts. .
I think the accompanying text said something like this: “Imagine if you had to eat upside down!” That’s what putting a bowl on the floor means to a cat! ”It actually seemed a little dramatic and far-fetched, but it stuck with me. It’s similar to when food gets stuck in a cat’s neck!
Either way, it was worth a try, so that morning I placed five paperback books under the cat bowl and lifted the cat bowl so my cat could munch slowly without contorting. Has he thrown up since? Almost never. I can’t believe it happened so many times. I’ve probably only gone to write about it three times, but this is definitely more of a jinx situation than a relapse.
Cat beatings are no longer part of our lives. We turn it into an amazing event virtually every day. (Actually, that usually happens if we were out. It’s as if he went on a hunger strike and binged when we came back.)
In the end we bought a properly tall bowl and took home the paperback book – which we bought from Amazon (affiliate link) – my only regret is that I didn’t have to google it more extensively. That didn’t happen.
On another note, I changed his food during that time. After a full 12 years of feeding what the breeder gave me (Royal Canin British Shorthair), I did a little research and found out if it was the best one or if I was blindsided by the advice of someone who could. I decided to check to see if I had just followed it. I haven’t researched it myself in the first place.
Side story: When my dog was little, he had severe stomach problems. When we first adopted our dog, the luxury dog foods available today (hand delivered to your door! Made with expensive fresh meat!) were few and far between, and “grain-free” pet foods didn’t exist. There was almost no concept of food. They were just stuffed with all sorts of shite and sawdust and whatever else was probably put into some of them, so it was pretty niche stuff.
However, he really didn’t like the commonly available dry dog foods, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to find something he could tolerate. And then I came across a great website called “All About Dog Foods” that rates different dog foods according to ingredients, percentage of useful nutrients, etc. Highly recommended. You can also add your dog’s details now to find the right food. When I first used it, it was a very simple site.
All about dog food
Anyway, this website provides a percentage rating for each dog food and tells you what is good and what is not good about that dog food. For example, some Pedigree foods have a rating of 19% (which is obviously not great), while other brands such as Aatu have a rating of 19%. At 80%. Some people rate it even higher. If you’re thinking of changing your dog’s food or want to know what’s in your current dog food, it’s worth a look. This turned out to be a very helpful way to find a dog food that Dexter (the Cockapoo) would tolerate. It also shows you the approximate cost of food per day so you can easily measure your portions.
I remembered this site when I was playing with bowls with my cat and wondered if there was a cat food equivalent.
petfoodexpert.com
Hooray! Although not exactly the same site, they are similar enough to have an unbiased and helpful percentage score. Using their information, I narrowed down Mr. Bear’s food options to about five options and calculated the cost per kilo of each. I ultimately chose Origen Original as it had the best ingredient score at the most delicious price. In fact, the cost per kilo of Origin (84% ingredient score) was only slightly higher than Royal Canin (36% ingredient score).
My point in all of this is not to dissuade you or suggest you change the brand of food you use. I found it all very interesting and it seemed like a no-brainer to move the cat onto something more nutritious – rich, especially since he is entering his silver fox years. I had a filler that wasn’t bulky.
If you made it to the end, congratulations! Especially if you don’t own a cat or don’t even like cats but kept seeing how it all ended. If your cat owner also has to endure the regurgitation ritual described earlier, please share this post. Again, I would like to emphasize that this is all just personal experience and is not a substitute for real professional advice.
The comments section is open for a fun discussion of cats and dogs – see you soon!
