I use a fish oil in a squirt bottle. However, this last bottle I bought, I suspect was old, as the cats and small dogs won't eat it. So, I've gone back to sticking a needle in a capsule and squeezing it on their food. My Doberman is easy. I put the capsules in her bowl and she just eats them. For the raw diet, I use what's called a prey diet raw which is very simple. 80% muscle meat ( predominantly red meat and heart), %10 bone and %10 organ with that broken down into %5 liver, %5 other organs. I use that as a rough guide and the cats don't need as much bone. You can judge the bone based off stool consistency, bone firms up the stools. Cats are a little harder to convert than dogs, mainly because they can get very sick if you starve them. My cats took to it very easily. I think because they've eaten baby doves and bunnies forever. And the kitten was feral and very young when I started him, maybe 5 weeks, he probably never tasted real cat food. My little dogs are a little fussy but we make concessions. Oh, they also get some cooked or raw eggs, a few times a week, since I give them any broken yokes or cracked eggs. I get my food from a coop and the best deal is that we get marked down red meat from groceries for 50 cents a pound once a week, our "cheap meat" deals. For all the meat I buy, I average about $1.00 a pound but as I start using more of the cheap meat it's getting much cheaper. Feed lots of heart, as it had a lot of Taurine, essential for cats, and I don't think it's as good to peregrine too much as taurine degrades when peregrine. One thing common in cats is tooth resorption. My vet feels its from vitamin D toxicity in commercial cat foods. Both my older cats have bad tooth resorption. Will be interesting to see what my kitten's teeth look like on an all raw diet.

What food has taurine in it? I guess they must get it in the wild and since these cats much prefer little critters they catch, (little taurines?) I expect they get that naturally. Still, if you know a food that naturally has it, please tell me. With a heavy ground cover of snow and temps in the minus numbers, these cats are staying indoors most all the time these days.

I've been using Petco's Joint Support III for the last year and it has worked great. It not only has the glucosamine chondroitin but also msm and Hyaluronic Acid. No tummy upset seen with this one. Also another note, fish oil is a great supp to add with arthritis. My ridgeback used to have quite a bit of trouble before I started this combination and now she shows no signs of arthritic problems.

I am soooo relieved that the Miralax is working for Casey (and I'm sure she is, too)! I feel the same way every time I see one of Billy's nice long tootsies. Constipation can make them feel so miserable and sick. You have vastly improved Casey's quality of life with Miralax. I definitely think you should take your neighbor up on her offer to administer subQs for you at home. I know you're having a hard time believing that Casey will be more cooperative with less restraint, but hopefully your neighbor will be able to demonstrate the validity of that for you. I do understand your misgivings, though. Billy is extremely short-tempered and does NOT like to be messed with, so when he was diagnosed with both CRF and hyperT, I was dreading having to medicate him, much less having to eventually administer subQs to my potentially violent old man. To make matters worse, my housemate moved out right before Billy started needing subQs, so I was faced with having to administer them without any assistance. I had nightmares of lying on the floor bleeding to death with Billy firmly attached to my jugular vein. But what choice did I have? Billy needed subQs, and I was the only one here to administer them. I knew my only chance of surviving the procedure was to keep it all as low key as possible. Billy had chosen a diningroom chair as his favorite sleeping spot, so I rigged a way to hang the fluid bag from the curtain rod next to the chair. While he was napping, I quietly hung the bag, sat down next to him (which instantly woke him and caused him to stand up), and slipped in the needle as quickly as possible. To my utter amazement, Billy didn't object at all. He stood there while I silently stroked his face until the administration was finished. I was stunned at how easily it all went. Things have changed a bit since then. It didn't take Billy long to figure out that the diningroom chair was where he got his fluids, so he abandoned the chair and started napping elsewhere. Now I have to find him and carry him to the chair for fluids, but as long as I do so quietly and carry him carefully, he usually doesn't do more than grumble softly. Sometimes if I don't get the needle exactly where he wants it, he'll start growling in mid-administration. I have to be VERY careful at that point NOT to touch him (other than to hold the needle in place), or he'll attack me. So I just hold my hand an inch or two in front of his chest so that he knows I won't allow him to leave, and he stays put and growls until I'm finished. If I get the needle in a comfortable spot, however, he'll generally sit or stand without objection until we're done. I can absolutely guarantee you, though, that if I did anything other than use my body position to restrict his movement, he'd fight like a demon during subQs. There is absolutely NO WAY that a restraint bag would do anything other than increase Billy's fight instinct, and I suspect the same will be true for Casey. You need to reduce the stress response, not increase it, in order to be successful with subQs. A restraint bag is likely to feel a lot like a carrier to Casey, so she may very well have the same stress response to the bag that she has to her carrier. Casey's also likely to be in a considerably happier (and hopefully more cooperative) mood now that she's not dealing with chronic constipation anymore. Don't worry. All of this will work out, one day and one procedure at a time. Laurie