Today I Learned...

Do you know where the phrase "Natural Selection" comes from? Darwin was attempting to distinguish the artificial breeding managed by humans from what was going on the wild. No where is this clearer to me then when I look at my cat Pan, a being that would last about five minutes in the wild. It actually says that in the breed description "Do not let them outside. Their only defense is a quizzical stare." These cats have had every bit of fight bred out of them, and replaced with pure love. It's not a bad strategy, as these things go. But Pan may have taken it too far.

First there is feeding him. I had three different types of food on a plate in front of him, all of which are things he has likes, topped with whipped cream, which he loves. Wouldn't touch it. Whined for food, wouldn't touch it. I place a small amount of food in a different bowl, warm it a bit, and place it next to the plate. Suddenly he's all about the original food on the original plate. It's worse right now because he's feeling icky, but even at the best of times it takes more work to feed him than mother nature is going to put in.

He's only just getting some weight back on after May's shitting blood/refusing to eat episode, and now we're entering a pissing (minute quantities of) blood/frequent vomiting phase that is bad enough he's locked in the bathroom when I'm not watching him. I just got the results back from the vet that clearly something was wrong with his bladder but they needed more tests to determine what. Fingers crossed for a UTI that is making him vomit from pain, which is a single cause we can easily fix.

My point is, don't get purebred cats out of the discount bin.

My cat Pan has been losing weight for a while. In an attempt to counteract this, I started feeding him his favorite wet food as his only wet food (he still got dry food). It didn't work, and new vet says that I have to stop giving it to him, both because its full of crap, and because it's fish based, which is extra hard on kitty stomachs (and he already has stomach issues). I'm attempting to switch him to better wet food now, ideally the raw stuff from Darwin's Pets. The problem is that after months of nothing but Whiska's Purrfectly Fishy, he won't touch anything else, even stuff he used to like. New stuff? Ewwwww.

So what I've taken to doing is putting out the stuff I want him to eat (warmed), and then placing small amounts of his favorite on top of that. It's working, sort of. He preferentially eats the fish but does continue eating after its gone. At least for a little bit. After a few minutes, he comes to me and whines. I put a little more fish crap on the good food, he eats more of both. I can't tell if I'm a genius pet owner or a complete idiot.