Shabdance,

Get a second opinion, preferably from an ACVIM veterinarian(internal medicine specialist.)  If surgery is indeed the only option and may possibly be, to remove the stone. You might find a board certified specialist in surgery who could possibly remove the stone and not the kidney? Something to check out at least. 

Best of luck,
Carole

Straybaby,

Thank you for your suggestions.  Yes, I have one of those fountains, have had for some time.  He prefers to drink out of a two gallon bucket that I used to have for the dogs.  Don't ask me why.  I have tried the home made chicken broth, and adding it to his food.  He doesn't really like canned food (can't say that I blame him).  I'd like to get him switched over to raw but he is flatly refusing.  I've tried many techniques with that.  I've heard it takes time.  I keep trying.  Last night he scratched and scratched at his placemat untill he neatly folded it over the food he didn't like and walked off.

What I meant by not being able to get him off of the sub Q fluids was that even when on up to 150ml daily his blood tests show some level of dehydration.  Even when in the ER hospital and on IV's after 24 hours he is still showing some dehydration.  That is the problem.  Evidently his kidneys which are responsible for keeping the balance of fluids in the system and for excretion are not functioning properly.

That is why we have gone to every twelve hours at home instead of every 24 hours, trying to keep a more constant level instead of a big load every 24.   Thank goodness he is such a doll to work on!   He sits on the bathroom counter, once I start to insert the needle he just lays down and hangs his front feet over the edge.  I know he must have the proceedure timed by now.  If it is taking a little longer than he thinks it should he starts getting a little antsy.  He appreciates the shorter run times now that we are on 2x.  He also seems to be feeling better now. 

Thank you again for responding,  I appreciate your most kind suggestions.

Carole 

Re Kumpi:   my experience.   Not so good.   My daughter's  cat has had IBD for some time.  She barffs up most foods.  I decided to buy a bag of KumpiKat for her to try.  They claim it will solve the problem. I didn't mind the $ if would really help her.  So she slowly switched her cat to Kumpi.  She tried it for a while and said 'she still barffs all the time.  She returned the food to me.  In the meantime I read more wonderful claims for Kumpi, I tell her that she must have not have tried it long enough, that this is the best there is supposed to be.   She tried it again, for a longer time and finally gave up.   We also tried her on Owen's and Mandeville's Ultra Holistic, cost comparible to Kumpi and the cat quit barffing!   My daughter was even able to quite giving the expensive IBD medication.   Still no barffing.  Wow!  The co-op quite handeling O & M  because it was priced so high they couldn't sell enough of it to warrant bringing it in.  Next we searched labels  and decided to try Eagle Pac Holistic.  Thankfully the cat does not throw  up on this either.  We feel good about this because eagle dry is made in their own plant.  So I now have this large bag of Kumpi on my hands.  I decide to feed it to my Wegie to use it up instead of his Evo.  Shortly after I had him switched  over to Kumpi his urinary problems flared and for the first time his ph was high and he had supposedly struvite crystals in his urine.  So I took him off of the Kumpi.   We put him back on Evo, ph returned to normal, crystals gone.  Then I hear that Evo is high in phosporus and magnesium and should probably not be fed to a cat with urinary tract/ kidney problems.  I decide to mix in the Kumpi just to delute some of the Phosphorus and magnesium effect  as  it is lower in protein and has cranberries in it.  Within days his ph spiked, crystals appeared again and he blocked for the first time.   After a trip to the ER and being hospitalized for about three days he is back to Ph normal, around 6.0 and no crystals.   I will not try Kumpi again.   Meanwhile I have part of a $60.00 bag of Kumpi.  I'm wondering if I should feed it to my ferals.

As far as dog food goes, I bred and exhibited for many, many years.  I haven't fed a dog food with corn in it for over 30 years!   I'm not going to start now!  With out being a nutritionalist it always seemed a little odd to me that according to the feed industry, (often originally associated with grain mills way back when) that corn would be the biological optimum food for poultry, swine, dogs and cats.   It just doesn't make sense.  The best food for any species is what is closest to what they would eat in the wild. 

Back to cats.  The amount of grain contained in the digestive tract of a mouse at any one time is minimal.   I'm working very hard to get my cat switched over to a raw meat diet.   It isn't easy, he actually looks at me and puts his little ears back when he looks at his food bowl and there isn't Evo dry in it.   I'm patient, I keep trying.  Slowly he is eating more wet and sometimes a little lighlty sauteed raw food but it is very slow going.

Good luck with the feeding choices!
Carole 

Thought I would share with you a couple of online retailers that I know of.  If you are looking for dry and/or canned there is The Healthy Pet Net.  They sell only online.  They are very good to get product right out and their website is user friendly.   They sell cat and dog food.  I have only tried the cat food.  Natures Abundance dry and Natural Instincts canned.  I like the ingredient list in their canned cat food.  It contains no grains or grain products, no protein isolates, no meat by-products and no chemical preservatives.  I believe that the wet food is canned at Menu's plant in S. Dakota.  That plant seems to make many of the higher end foods and they have had no recalled food from that plant that I am aware of.  None of their supposed wheat gluten was used at that plant so there shouldn't be any cross contamination.  My only concern about this food is their source for their shrimp in the food.  I would like to know if it is from Chinese aquaculture or from US Aquaculture farms feeding chinese melamine contaminated feed.  They are not very good at getting back to you to answer questions you might e-mail to them.   They use organic chicken and turkey (if I remember correctly) as their main ingredients in this food.  The shrimp is a lesser quantity ingredient in this food.   I would still like to know where it comes from though.

I also tried Kumpi dry for my cats.  I knew it was very expensive but was willing to give it a try to see if it really helped our IBD cat.  She threw up every bit as much with it as with any thing else.  We did find two dry diets that she did not throw up.  Owens and Mandeville's Ultra Premium Holistic cat food and The Eagle Pac Holistic.  My other cat had spikes in urine ph after eating the Kumpi  both times I tried it so we can't use that $60.00 bag of food at all.

Additionally there are many companies that sell and ship frozen raw diets on line.  Some of them are excellent.  My cats don't care for the ones with vegies and fruits in them. 

One brand I recomend is Evo by Natura if you can find it in your area.  You might try to get a pet food store to bring it in or if you have a holistic type grocery store they often will cary foods like that.  Try asking someone to bring it in for you, or search and see if it can be purchased on line. 

Best of luck with your search!

Carole 

Dear B.F. M. C.

Sounds like a great idea!   I have a couple of remaining cans of the Friskies shredded in gravy/sauce I would love to have tested.   I also have two cans of Elegant Medleys Fancy Feast.   The Friskies has best used by dates of Feb 09.   The Fancy Feast best by dates of June or Sept.  '08 and Jan. 09.   In a way I hate to part with them, i've been saving them for just in case.  I have other brands I would also like tested as well.   

The reason I logged on here tonight was to post a suggestion that if a group got together and pooled their efforts perhaps we could get a deal on testing several brands and/or varieties.   I would gladly donate these and some funds if I could have some identification of the cans I donate. 

I don't have a lot of funds right now as the vet bills on our cat is around $3500. and counting.  He is now on twice daily sub q fluids.  He became ill in mid February.  Unfortunately since he was such a young cat, under the age of two, the vet thought it couldn't be renal failure and was diagnosed early on with Idiopathic cystitis.  He had no blood work done untill I insisted at about three weeks into treatment.  By that time he had been on daily sub Q fluids at home for over two weeks.  He has had a subsequent period of elevated creatinine and BUN. His levels seem to have returned to normal now but we can't seem to get him off of the fluids and his blood tests show consistent low levels of dehydration.  This has been very frustrating! 

If we can get some confirmation via the independent testing it should force some of these big smug corporations out in the open.

Bye the way, was the effort to get the Newspaper add funded and placed successful?

Carole 

Hello Frieda,

There have been so many new recalls that I have not been able to keep up with it.  I started out by visiting several retailers including the PetCo on Milwaukie.  As soon as I would go in and spend time checking on product new recalls were anounced or anticipated imminently and I would have to have gone right back.  Unfortunately, my time constraints don't allow this.   I work full time  and have been spending a great deal of my non work hours caring for my sick cat (sub q-fluids every night and too many trips to the vet to count.)  Shortlly before the RPC recalls started I had visited Zamzows on Federal way, they were clear at that time, H3Pet food in Meridian, they are working very hard to stay on top of it.  I keep telling them to check Howl911/Itchmo every day.  I shop there and they have been clear whenever I have been in, although there reps didn't notify them of the original New Balance recall for three days.  H3Pet foods has a great selection of grain free dry foods and a wonderful variety of Raw frozen for dogs and cats!!!   They are great about  ordering things in for you.

Carole   

Regrigerated canned pet food.   

First of all, make sure you store the can with a sealing snap on lid so it doesn't dry out.  If you are heating the petfood untill you can't stand the smell it means you are over heating it.  Good food shouldn't smell that bad.  When I reheat a portion of regrigerated food it takes about 9 seconds to make it room temperature and I can hardly notice an increase in odor.     Good luck!

Julia,

I did some more checking.   Found the Menadione in several (not all) of Nutro dry cat foods as well.   Found it in a lot of Purina canned cat foods (pro plan)and dog foods.  That was all I had time to check on tonight.

Carole 

Julia,

I have been noticing it in quite a few dry foods.  I saw it in Nutro dry dog foods today while I was out checking for recalled food.  I'll make it a point to start a list. 
Carole

Inventoried on 4/11/07
Boise Consumer Co-op, holistic grocery, general merchandise, deli and pet foods.

No recalled pet food on shelves.  Store contained none of the same brands in common with recalled foods.  This store voluntarily pulled ALL Nutro wet foods at the beginning of the recall.  For a small store they had an excellent selection of dry and canned cat and dog foods.  This store carries the more holistic brands exclusively.  Kudos to you Boise Co-Op!
Note*  This store also carries some frozen Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, at least two brands but nothing intended solely for cats.