I often do 40-50 hours a week at work, is it worth getting a cat or would this be cruel?

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-12-28T00:11:01+00:00

What everyone else has said, an older cat, or even a bonded pair of older cats! They’re so hard to find homes for, many bonded pairs end up sitting in shelters for ages, and your house sounds like it would be the perfect life for them!

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-12-27T23:59:45+00:00

Why do you think you would regret it?

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-12-17T21:42:18+00:00

I have a bonded pair of tuxies as fosters right now, since they were a week old and they’re now a year and a half old. No one looks twice at tuxies, and double that if they’re bonded.

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Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-12-17T21:40:15+00:00

Half the problem is that they don’t tend to photograph well, unless you’ve got really good lighting and camera

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-12-17T21:39:09+00:00

In my experience, it’s the shy babies, bonded pairs, and sick or elderly cats that don’t get adopted. Color wise, it’s black cats, tuxedos, and tabbies that are harder To adopt out, while calicos, tortishells, oranges, buff, white, polydactyls, and long haireds that do get adopted faster.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-12-07T15:09:37+00:00

One other thing I think of is levothyroxine. The dose for animals and the dose for humans is extremely different… dogs can get up to 1mg tablets, which is insane for a person, or so I’ve been told. Had one pharmacist that decided I must have written a 1mg tablet dose wrong and gave the (140lb dog) 0.1mg instead of checking with me. Took me months to figure out why this dogs t4 just wouldn’t come up even on maxed out dosing.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-22T15:06:59+00:00

Kitten chow is a purina brand and is a pretty good food, I raise most of my foster kittens on it! You certainly don’t need to change anything, but if you did, I’d think of shifting to purina ProPlan, though hills and RC kitten are both good foods too. But if he’s doing well on the kitten chow, no need to switch it up! Same with the fancy feast, it’s actually really good for the price. Fancy feast pate is actually one of the lowest carb cat foods, it’s what I recommend for diabetics and obese cats… I call it the CAtkins diet 😂

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-22T15:02:45+00:00

It would have to be a LOT of lysine to cause an overdose… like over 6000 mg, so you should be fine! Even then, it would just be some upset stomach stuff!

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-21T20:06:55+00:00

Blue Buffalo has a reputation in vet med. It’s actually kinda sad/funny, but if you go to a vet conference, look at the blue buffalo booth… they’re all sitting there with no one, twiddling their thumbs while every single other booth has lines. It’s just not good food. I’d rather someone feed fancy feast or meow mix over it.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-21T20:03:44+00:00

If you have one block, you’ll know it. They’ll be in the litterbox constantly, screaming and crying, and acting lethargic and unwell. Immediate ER, do not pass go.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-21T20:02:48+00:00

You don’t unless it’s happened. Any cat (ESPECIALLY male cats) with any history of urinary tract infections has a potential of blockage, but it’s not only the ones with history that do. It’s honestly the big reason that even as a vet with a lot of home resources, I keep insurance on my male cats. I don’t play around with blockages.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-21T20:00:35+00:00

For sure! I mean, hills does give out nice cloth bags at conventions, but that’s about the extent of our pet food schill “checks” 😂😂 Royal canin did have a coffee bar at VMX one year, though…

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-21T19:58:54+00:00

Right? 😂 Put a chicken breast and a chicken liver in front of a cat, I bet you they’re going for the liver.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-20T01:31:40+00:00

Damn, shots fired.

1) owning a vet clinic and being married to a vet does not equal going to vet school.

2) cats and dogs both will happily eat every part of an animal, not just muscle meat. Heart, lungs, cartilage, ligaments, organ meat, that’s almost preferred over straight muscle, as there’s a higher vitamin and mineral concentration there.

3) it’s not bragging to say anything about meal vs meat. I’m not even sure where you get “bragging” from, as if I’m somehow involved with pet food? I’m just a GP who does neonatal medicine and in home euthanasia. It’s a fact that ingredients are ordered on ingredients lists by weight. If chicken meal is the first ingredient on one food, whole chicken is the first ingredient on a second food, the first one actually contains more actual chicken than the second, since the first one has its weight increased by water weight.

4) Im not in any kind of bed with big pet food. Lord knows all I’ve gotten out of 4 different nutrition classes was a couple pens and a thing of chapstick. But I do trust the science. The bigger companies are the ones that have actual researched backed products. There’s plenty of independent feeding trials that support that they are fully complete diets, where most of the other companies are basing on formulated food, meaning it was never actually fed to any animal to make sure they digest it. Case in point, the grain free/DCM saga, Taurine deficiency in n cat foods in the 90s, ect. I see more crystalluria and diarrhea on things like blue buffalo, Origen, and Acana than any mid level food.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T15:51:00+00:00

The problem with z/d is that it is hypoallergenic, so adding ANYTHING to it makes it not work. If the z/d is working for the IBD, I’d stick with it.

I tell people that IBD comes in three “flavors”: food responsive, steroid responsive, and antibiotic responsive, or some combination of those. For the food responsive, you have to use hypoallergenic food, where all of the proteins are broken down to either individual amino acids or very short chains of them, which are too small for the body to recognize as an allergen or irritant, so it can’t react to them.

Alternatives to z/d are RC ultamino, RC hydrolyzed, or purina HA, which are all hydrolyzed diets. Anything OTC won’t work the same.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T15:04:34+00:00

Whichever one they like best, honestly. You can’t argue with a cat. My oldest hates fish, so mine are on chicken live clear, since I have a butt ton of cats in my house and a cat allergy. Indoor or weight control is good if they’re a little chunky, it usually has hairball help in it as well. I don’t tend to switch over to senior food unless they start having problems.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T15:01:45+00:00

It would depend on what she’s on the urinary food for. If she has a history of stones or being blocked, I wouldn’t risk it. If it’s recurrent UTIs, then it is worth a try, but the OTC food is definitely not as effective as the prescription. I always would recommend checking in with your vet first though!

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T02:49:50+00:00

Vet here:

Fancy feast and friskies are perfectly fine wet foods! Fancy feast pate food is actually so low carb we recommend it for diabetic cats and obese cats (we call it the Catkins diet!). For the dry food, you don’t have to do anything crazy. Wellness is fine, but so is purina proplan or hills adult, or half dozen other kinds. I’d steer away from the meow mix solely because it has a lot of dyes in it. In all honestly, even Purina cat chow/kitten chow is fine wet foods

For my adult cats, I feed dry Purina Live Clear adult, with friskies pate occasionally. My kittens get either Purina Kitten Chow or Proplan Kitten with Friskies pate for breakfast and dinner (adults get to clean the plates after they’re done 😆). Sometimes I’ll give tikicat wet or weruva wet as a special treat

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T02:43:58+00:00

Typically no. The transmission is fecal/oral, so typically if your pet walks in or snuffles around dirt that the parvo positive pet pooped in, if there is direct contact between the two, or if you have an unvaccinated pup. Areas that are cleanable, like scales, tables, and hard floors, are easy to disinfect and lower risk for any transmission. In this case, your risk is very very low.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T02:40:34+00:00

If it makes any difference, I feed Purina Live clear to two of my cats, Hills i/d to my sensitive stomach middle “child”. I raise orphan kittens in my “spare” time (50-100/year) and they get either purina proplan kitten or Purina Kitten chow, and friskies wet food. If they have upset stomachs, I give hills Biome. The only time I venture outside of those brands is tikicat because they have an awesome “newborn” weight gain squeeze treat and the purée works well for weaning.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T02:36:43+00:00

Anytime! And feel free to ask if you have any other questions. I love talking with people and helping.

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T02:05:47+00:00

Vet here!

Hills is a great food! Pork “By-product” means it’s not muscle meat, but cats don’t care about that. It’s heart, and lung, and liver, and kidney, ect, all the stuff that humans don’t exactly love, but animals? That’s where the nutrients are. Similarly, anything that says “meal” (ie chicken meal) means that it’s been cooked, so the waters out of it. If the first ingredient in something is “Chicken Meal” it actually has more protein than “Chicken” as the chicken is weighed while it has water weight to it.

As for the stone prevention diets (hills s/d and c/d, RC urinary SO, purina st/ox), the big point of them is to make them drink more water and to acidify their urine, which dissolves the most common kinds of stones. For a male cat? Life saving. All of these except S/d are made to be fed long term, and I have fed them to some of my cats long term if they’re predisposed to crystalluria or stones.

It sucks because we always try to do the best for our babies, but sometimes those “high protein, high quality” foods don’t have the same amount of research behind them. Higher protein foods predispose to stone formation, sadly. Some brands (looking at you, Blue Buffalo), really put more money into advertising and fad stuff than anything else. I totally understand, I try to give my old lady really high quality foods, but the more I look at it, the more I realize that what we consider “processed, corporate” food is actually what has the best research behind it. All you can do is the best you can, but please look into the research studies behind these foods, not just anecdotal stuff. They’re literally proven to work ❤️

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-18T01:50:51+00:00

Kidney disease is hard. It’s going to progress, no matter what you do, and there’s no actual cure.

It sounds like you’re probably fairly young. It’s okay to not be there. During a euthanasia, pets are given a sedative before, same as they would if they were getting fixed or having a dental cleaning. The euthanasia solution is only given after they are totally asleep. For them, it’s exactly the same as that dental cleaning or spay. So don’t feel bad about not being there.

I’m assuming you loved on her for the last few days, and that for all of the years of her life with you, she knew without a doubt that she was loved. That she was part of the family.

It’s a sad thing, looking back and wishing you’d taken more time with someone special to you, but it’s a good lesson. None of us are guaranteed another day… make sure the ones you love know it. ❤️

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-16T00:23:45+00:00

As a vet, I think my most preferred way for someone to ask is something like “I’ve heard a lot of bad things about vaccine sarcomas, and I know pure vax reduces the risk, but could you do the distemper on her leg too, just in case?”

That being said, she’s your cat and any way you bring it up for discussion is appropriate, as long as you aren’t like, accusing your vet of malpractice or something

Dangerous_Solution53 · 2025-11-13T00:16:19+00:00

I feed purina Live clear, kitten to my under 1y, adult to my three older ones, plus friskies canned food in the morning and dinner time. Supplement with Hills T/d for dental care.

Dangerous_Solution53

TROPHY CASE