I agree with you. Let your sweet old girl eat what she wants to eat, and don't feel you must attempt "heroic measures" that are going to make her miserable. I know how hard it is when they get to be elderly and have special needs, but sometimes you have to weigh the measures to (try to) prolong life against the animal's quality of life. If I were you, I'd probably opt to just keep her happy with what she loves best and let nature take its course. I wish you the best.

It's okay, give her what she wants. Imagine if you were 99 and no one would let you eat what you wanted because it was "bad" for you!

My cat loved canned pumpkin and I was able to get more nutrition into her with that when she got really finicky at the end of her life.

Your kitty has gotten great care in order to have lived to 19 (99 :-). Nothing to feel guilty about for wanting her to be as happy as possible at the last stages of her life. You're a good kitty mom!

At 19 she's had a good long well loved life and problems with food is not something she needs. As things deteriorate you will make the necessary decisions according to your feeling and hers. Let her enjoy her food until she can't enjoy it any more. You want her to be happy and to enjoy whatever time she has left. Had similar problems with an 18 y.o. well loved kitty

Right. I've done the whole "save the cat" (and dog!) thing before and honestly, if they are not in pain, they really dont understand what you are doing or why. If she only lives to 20 vs 21...this is a tragedy? No.

Good luck.

Of course it's all right! She's 19 years old. She deserves to get what she wants.

Getting the calories into her is more important than anything else, I think...

Yes she has lived a long life and yes I agree let her enjoy the rest of it. I had 3 cats and all of them died from kidney failure. I did the IV thing at home for Garfield and he was fine with it. Once he got to the point it wasn't working I stopped and let him live his life. According to the vets they are not experiencing pain. If they were that would be a different situation and I wouldn't want any suffering.

Enjoy your sweet kitty as long as you can.

I agree with the others. Let her eat what she likes. She's 19 and has earned the right to be at ease down the home stretch. I wish you both peace and comfort.

My grandmother spent the last few years in a nursing home - her decision/choice. She was mentally very sharp at 101, but her body was just quietly winding down. Her one request was to have a small amount of ice cream every day. The staff wasn't "sure it was a good idea" and appealed to her children to intervene. I'm glad to say they told the staff to give her ice cream anytime she asked for it.

I agree with everyone above. Give your beautiful prima donna kitty the food she wants and remove the stress for both of you. I believe it is the quality of the journey and not the quantity that is most important.

Agree with the others. Towards the end of my 18yo cats life, he just wanted to eat tuna and cooked chicken. Oh.. and cream cheese! That was his favorite treat.

Thank you all for reaffirming my belief that she should just do and have what she wants (returning the remaining cans of food tonight). I hope it never comes to the subQ fluid thing as it will be an ordeal to decide not to do that. I'm hoping her kidneys just continue to gradually decline (as organs must all do if we live long enough) and she will pass on of some unknown old age ailment. She is still pretty spry. The vet office always comments on how she seems young for her age. I predict she'll live to be 21. I've had 16, 19, 19 and 20 year old cats. I think the 20 year old one would have lived longer if he was around now as our cats have better veterinary care than they did 30-40 years ago and we go to greater lengths to prolong their lives than we did when we were younger.

I don't think you necessarily have to be a cat person to see this one clearly! Any dearly loved pet who has lived this long deserves to eat what they want

My short answer is give the princess what she wants. IMO, the order of importance: calories that she likes, water (try to find a regular canned cat food that she likes), a potassium supplement, eventually SQ fluids because at some point you can't get enough water into her orally.

I'm waaaay over the top about cat care, so I don't say this lightly. I cook for our cats and have had renal kitties live to over 20 on diets that are definitely not for renal cats. DH insisted on SQ fluids for the 19 yr old renal kitty and they did help her feel better. She lived to be over 21.

I seriously question the value of most of the renal diets - especially the commercial ones. I even went to the nutritionist at the U of MN for custom, homemade diets. Good ingredients, but they weren't palatable. The renal ones were especially bad. The cats prefer what I do. I went back to the normal diet (ground chicken or turkey thigh, heart, liver (sometimes), eggs, rice, water, taurine, and Balance-It with potassium). I've had several cats that adore raw beef tenderloin. My vet thinks it's hilarious that DH buys ground beef for himself and steak for the cats.

3catz4me, if you are in Mpls/SP, you could try the food at Woody's Pet Food Deli. They have both raw and cooked, with and without supplements. My cats will eat that, if I need to fill in for a day or two until I can cook again. The girls prefer raw beef, but I have to be careful with the old fellow. Like many cats that started on dry food, he has trouble processing raw meat in quantity. He's pacing in front of the stove and meowing for chicken hearts as I write this.

Feed her what she wants to eat!

Quality of life and happiness is more important. Our vet always said that it’s a balance and in the end you know your cat the best.

If she quits eating and loses too much weight, then the kidneys won’t matter. :(.

Definitely ok. :)

Dragonflywings, that is just how it went with my mom, but it was Hershey bars and her refusal wear a bra. I said Puhlease!

3katz, you're doing the right thing for your kitty.

I am in agreement with previous posters. Let her eat what she wants and continue to have a happy cat.

3katz I agree with you about thefood. I too have done subcutaneous fluids and I have to say I was expecting my old fella to hate it way worse than he did. I lured him with treats and he was a darling for it. Of course you know your cat best but just a hopeful word that it may not be a huge ordeal.

I wish there had been some type of food my 14 y/o cat would have eaten when she was in renal failure. I would have done anything rather than watching her starve until I made the most difficult decision to have her put to sleep. The second most heartbreaking decision was to hold her as she slipped away. Feed her whatever she wants.

Moxie - I am in MSP. I will keep Woodys in mind though none of their locations are anywhere near me. Robo, I’d like to think she’d be better than expected for subQ fluids but we tried it for a situation in the past and she was a holy terror. If she was sicker she might be more subdued.

In the past situation she wouldn’t eat for two weeks and we were advised to give her fluids to deal with dehydration (since we had experience with subQ). She had all kinds of tests and nothing was found physically wrong with her. She was “just” PO’d that we got another cat and went on a hunger strike for two weeks. We were told to give her 20 minutes of undivided TLC and attention everyday away from the other cat. She recovered - gives you an idea what kind of cat she is.

Dog person here. However, I agree that quality of life trumps longevity. When my Riley was diagnosed with stomach cancer, we made sure that she enjoyed her favorite human foods until her last hour. She could barely eat and it was the only thing that gave her pleasure during those dark days.

Have you tried Young Again cat food? I think they will send you free samples if you call. It's made a huge difference in my oldest cat's health. Google "Young Again cat food CRD" if the link doesn't work. Since it's dry food, she may like it.

https://www.youngagainpetfood.com/feeding-a-cat-with-crd.html

grace - I haven't tried that food but it sounds interesting. I have three cats who each need different food - uro, renal, allergies/digestive issues. According to YA, their food is the answer to whatever ails your cat. I wonder about these claims - if they're facts based on some kind of evidence or just claims. Then they say to just free feed your cat which I don't do because they all eat a different food. If I left the bowls full all the time they'd all have to eat the same stuff or I don't think it would work.

What kind of positive effect have you noticed with your cat and which food do you get?

I was already thinking your conclusion while still reading the first paragraph. If it was me, I’d give her whatever she wants, take lots of pictures and just enjoy the moments you have left.

My last cat was in a similar situation, but a little younger when she was diagnosed (17 o 18?). She did not tolerate sub Q fluids at all and didn't eat the kidney diet. We lost a cat that quit eating to liver failure when we couldn't get her to eat, so we knew this one had to eat and we would give her what she wanted. What we wound up doing was Fancy Feast mixed with water -- 1/4 - 1/2 water. We also used Epakatin -- sprinkled a but over her food and we had a medication that was compounded into a gel we rubbed on her ear. After 2-1/2 years, she started having seizures. The vet did a blood panel and her kidney values had all improved! Appears we lost he to a brain tumor. So you don't know for sure what the future holds-- but cats do have to eat and we do want them to have quality of life, so do what you need to do for her. Wish you and her the best.

I haven't read the replies, but I agree with you. Let her eat what she wants. Renal problems or not, sadly she's still at the end of her life.

Good luck to you and kitty.

My two cats are just 2 years old. So I don’t have any sage words for you but I second others’ sentiments that she should be kept comfortable and happy at this age. Wish you and her the best.

I think you should give her what makes her happy. As stated previously, if I were an old woman, I would want to eat and drink whatever I liked.

I am sorry you have to deal with this.

3katz, Short Answer: Oliver, our 10-year-old, had developed a greasy coat, his eyes were cloudy, and he was obese and bloated to the point he looked like he was listing sideways when he ran (I thought this was all due to old age). I started all four of my cats on Young Again in early July. Now Oliver’s coat is soft and shiny (no “grease”), his eyes are clear, he is no longer bloated and – what really convinced me – he jumps to the top ledge of our shower (it’s made of window block) – he used to do that all the time, but hadn’t in years!

I have been feeding them Zero Mature Health.

For background, Oliver was diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis at his last check up (made sense of all the cat puke, but with four I didn’t know who was vomiting unless I happened to witness the act).

The vet said there was no treatment, to just bring him in for supportive care if he became anorexic. We had a four-year-old die very unexpectedly and it started with anorexia, so this scared me and I started researching pancreatitis in cats.

That led me to catinfo.org whose vet blogger strongly advocates a wet food diet. That makes sense to me, but my cats think wet food is for treats and were very averse to transitioning to wet food only (plus I was afraid of an emergency arising that would prevent us from getting home to feed them – not a worry with dry kibble out all the time). The website said the only dry foods she would recommend were Young Again or EVO-something that I found was no longer made.

Prior to the YA, they ate Purina One Sensitive Systems because one of my cats seemed to have food allergies (lots of crusty scabs on her coat). The YA isn’t that much more expensive since they consumed much more of the Purina One. The scabs have not returned since beginning the YA.

I will warn you that my cats over-ate the YA for the first month or so and had diarrhea (they suffered no ill effects from it). Also, since it is high protein, it makes their poop REALLY stink. Hope this helps!