Reddit mentions of Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life

Siblings, yay! They'll already know each other which is helpful when transplanting each to a new environment.


I think this book is a helpful general guide for beginners. This one too though it has a stronger focus on wet food diets.

read Your Cat. It's helped us with our two cats. Better to start early though. Cats with habits are hard to change. Avoid that prescription food unless it is the only option that will work. Prescription food companies care more about profits than cat health (meaning it will be high in carbs and carbs are terrible for cats...they eat only protein in the wild).

edit: the amazon description for that book is terrible. It's a scientific perspective on cat health from a former pet food company vice president. She currently has a cat vet practice and shares her secrets for extending cat life from the typical average of 9 years to about 20 years.

Please, please do not listen to the Petco person. Senior cat foods tend to advertise "reduced protein" formulas which means more carbohydrates (especially in dry foods) which you do NOT want for a cat, especially an older one that vomits often. The more carbohydrates and fillers, the more the cat has to eat to fill itself, the more vomiting and pooping and gut irritation, on top of a high possibility for diabetes, urinary issues, food allergies, and skin conditions. Cats throw up sometimes, but rarely. If a vet isn't concerned about this, that sounds like a red flag. How often is "a bit" for your cat?

I really recommend switching to a frozen raw diet as well. If that's not an option, then certainly switch to canned. No dry food whatsoever and especially do not free-feed. If you do more research into the topic (I highly recommend both http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood and Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins's book, http://www.amazon.com/Your-Cat-Simple-Secrets-Stronger/dp/0312358024) you'll get a better idea of why it is that cats need essentially a zero carbohydrate, all-meat moist food diet, and how improper high-carbohydrate diets are inappropriate for cats and lead to several serious medical issues (vomiting is just a symptom of other problems).

I would suggest trying out the raw diet as well. I have a kitty with irritable bowel, and I'm considering switching him to raw; I've been doing alot of reading on it lately.
This book was informative : http://www.amazon.com/Your-Cat-Simple-Secrets-Stronger/dp/0312358024/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313206337&sr=8-1

Also, this website has pretty detailed info.
http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood

When feeding raw, be sure to feed organ meats, as your kitty needs taurine, and thats where taurine comes from.


Also, my kitty may have asthma, and the meds for that, if you go the oral steroid route, are super expensive. I've looked into that on forums for asthmatic cats, and some people order from canadian and other foreign pharmacies. Apparently you can get medications for significantly cheaper by this route.

I have a cat that gets crystals, that I have to constantly manage. However, to properly know how to manage it, you need to find out if your cat has struvite or calcium oxalate crystals. Mine has had struvites, which I think is a bit easier to manage.

A few things I've learned about struvites:

• Cats dont' naturally drink a lot of water - they are supposed to get most of their water from food. A running water system (like a fountain, mentioned by renspets) is great for encouraging drinking. However, you need to stop feeding dry food completely, and feed only canned food to really get the most water into your friend. (this goes for both types of crystals)
  
  
• They are primarily caused by too much magnesium. Your vet will probably put you on a special diet (with very low magnesium). However, this is all in all crappy food, and very expensive. What I've found that works is checking food labels (canned, not dry, remember?) and don't get anything with fish or seafood (which have very high levels of magnesium). I've also heard wellness brand has high mag levels, which I don't know for sure, but I do know most of their stuff has fish in it. If I feed only fish and seafood-free food, the cat is fine no crystals at all. Stupidly, one day several years after the first bought with crystals I thought I should give them more variety, and bought a bunch of different flavors, including fish stuff. Within a few months, she had crystals again. We returned for a few months to the prescription diet, then I weaned her off of it onto EVO canned food (no fish or seafood contents this time!) and she's been fine since. Moral of the story: You don't need the Rx food, as long as you feed canned food without magnesium (which largely comes from seafood ingredients).
  
  A great book to read about cat health (written by a vet that takes a more "whole cat" approach, looking largely at feed) is Your Cat. It really does a great job at dissecting the current state of feline diets, and the role they play in many feline illnesses. I HIGHLY recommend it.
  
  Good luck!
  

Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life - for understanding the importance of diet and general health issues. Vicky Halls have written several books that I find well written, entertaining and full of good advice with regard to behaviour.