Monday, November 06, 2006

Cat Fountains


This past weekend we took Milo to the vet for a Feline Leukemia Vaccine. While we were there I talked to the vet and asked him a couple of questions. One thing I mentioned was that Milo peed on our comforter a few days ago. We thought it might be because we changed his litter box to a covered one with a flapping door. We had never used a covered litter box with him before so I wasn't sure how he would like it. I should have taken the door off to see how he would do first, but I didn't. Anyways, I mentioned it to the vet and he said ordinarily I would think you are right. However he has all the risk factors of a UTI. He is a male orange tabby, an indoors cat, neutered and young, which are all risk factors. Lovely. I had known this though through doing some research on the internet. Jeff thought I was being a hypochondriac. The vet checked his urine and turns out he did have some crystals in his urine. Poor kitty. So now he is on special food for the next 6-8 weeks and then the vet is going to reassess how he is doing. I'm glad we caught this early before he had a lot of accidents and he was in pain. He doesn't seem to be in pain at all. He is very playful. I don't know if he got it after he came to us or if he had it when we adopted him. I'm just glad we are taking care of it and hopefully he won't have to be on special food for life.

To make sure he gets rid of the crystals and doesn't have to be on special food I went out and bought a Petmate Fresh Flow Cat Fountain. They are expensive, but I think they are worth it, drinking a lot of water is supposed to help cats with crystals. Milo is always drinking from toilets and trying to drink the leftover water from the bathtub. He doesn't drink much from his bowl. So today I went out and bought it. After taking a while to put it together he drank from it right away. I have heard that some cats need a while to get used to it, but not Milo. He tried drinking from the left side and the right side and from the top fountain. He drank the most I have ever seen him drink and then went to the bathroom. Good Milo. Hopefully he will keep it up, get rid of all his crystals, and this will be a very good investment.