we now have teeth

Ok, so they are the tiniest specks of teeth, but they are there. I had to check this morning when Monkey Boy went for the food again this morning. Last night he was in Myla's food full faced chompin away.. ok slurping away.. Man, these guys are growing up fast!!

They still have little to no use for me at this point. They still look at me like "what are you going to do to me NOW". All too soon they'll be running up my pant legs and getting into way too much trouble :)

Don't you need just one more cat?

I'm so mean. Sorry.

I read over my blog the other day (when I went to make sure the pictures fit in the template) and noticed I have been ranting about raw lately. We are still all on it - and except for a little pica going on (eating of non food items) things have been going pretty well. My last batch I added some green beans (frenched in a can) and the pica stopped. I added the beans cause I read somewhere they were good for diabetics.. who knows if they are or not.. I wanted to add greens, I had this piece of info, I had lots of cans of beans, so they got some. Besides, Jack loves them anyway.

The last batch I removed the b vitamins, and the egg whites, and it has gotten the same reception as every other batch... so I'll put those back in.

As I mentioned yesterday, I tried feeding whole pieces of hen. Didn't go over well. I think they ate the heart and the short piece of ribs I put out. Jack chewed on the wing a few different times, but on the whole, it didn't go over well at all.

The bunny is doing VERY well. I got the last room in my house set up (FINALLY) and she's in there. I put an old rug down, and she stays on that for the most part. I can open up the cage and let her run around for hours with the door open and she just hangs out on the rug or in her cage. Currently, there are no electrical cords in there, so the only damage she can do is peeing on the floor (Please no!) and chewing on stuff... and she seems to have no interest in either. She's been very good using her litter box. She didn't like the switch of litter over to feline pine (pellets) so I think once that is gone I'm going to go back to some sort of shredded material. She is eating like a horse.. But she is a growing bun :) She gets along really well with Tweedle and Ollie. yes, Mr Grumpy Pants Ollie.. it's cute.

I believe I've been ranting about not being able to get Em's BG's under control as well. She is having a reduced need for insulin, but trying to figure out what that is, I have over dosed her a couple of times. Fortunately, her body does a glucose dump from her liver keeping her from hypo-ing (aka no blood sugar in body thus death) but it is throwing everything out of wack. I was getting very frustrated as I was having a hard time getting her sugars down this last time, but I think they are on their way, and hopefully we can keep them there. Not sure what to do when she gets another low reading, as getting less than half a unit into her is going to be hard.

hum.. what else haven't I told you about.. Eli is overcoming his paranoia and is actually asking to be patted. It is so sweet, and it's about time. Unfortunately, he's given it to Tweedle who you can no longer go to and pick up. She'll come to you just fine, but if you look at her and make a move toward her she runs like the wind.

Oh yes, and the 'kitty crack episode" of 3/25/06. :) I was frustrated with Em's sugars and the raw food was still quite frozen in the fridge, and the kids all wanted something to eat. So I threw down some dry Innova Evo. They have all really liked this food, but since figuring out it doesn't help Em's sugars, I've stopped doing it. I couldn't find Em so I figured I would throw some down so I could get her to come into the kitchen so I could test her sugars. Well, Eli was downstairs, and moments after I threw the food on the floor he came racing up the stairs. DH asked in a joking way if that was her. Em the log kitty running anywhere is just unheard of. Well, moments later who should actually race up the stairs at a pace I have not seen from her in over 12 years, but Em. :) She loves that dry food. She can't eat it - as she has the hardest time picking it up off the floor, and we have more of her spit on the floor than she has food in her tummy, but she loves it.

Okay, I think that is all the news as of now. Stay tuned cause you know tomorrow is going to bring its own new challenges.. like where on earth am I going to put the kitten cage now that the kittens have started to figure out how to walk (cause it is currently on top of the TV and they could break their little bodies if they fell out.)

learing to walk and play

The Four of them. Can you see the long toe on the first one?

A better shot of his long opposable thumb

Learning to walk

Giving up on walking and playing

awwwwwwww

Um. mom... what is that???

I bought a cornish game hen to see if the cats would eat the thing whole. There is a whole other school of thought when feeding raw and that is to feed the entire prey to the animal. Let them chew the bones and rip the flesh off the meat and what not. Since they were doing better with their chunked portion of ground, I thought what the heck. Thought the predator in them might enjoy it.

Well they seem to have no concept that it is food. They sniffed, seemed interested.. I think Tweedle ran into the living room with one of the gizzards.. but so far the pieces I put down are pretty much unmolested. Jack chewed on one of the wings for a bit..

Maybe they just don't want their "ma" to see what wild vicious animals they can be, and will eat it when I'm not around.. (ha ha, I'm so funny)

Em is still confusing me with her BG levels. I had her down to 168 the other day (pre-shot - which is fantastic for her) and I only gave her half a dose, and I seemed to over dose her, which shot her levels way back up. I can't get them back down either. I'm going to do a curve today and see what 2 units does to her when she's this high up. I did one unit on Thursday and the spot checks said she was pretty flat - indicating that 1u was not enough. arrgh

The kittens are starting to interact with each other. The little girl spends a lot of time contemplating her thumb. It's cute. Often looks like she is trying to suck on it. The walking is coming a bit more. still not good at it, but they are giving it a shot. They are only 3 weeks old and are already almost a pound.. will be before next week is out. according to the schedules, they are about a week ahead of schedule.. which fits in with their opening their eyes 5 days early :)

diabetic frustrations (ok, and pet food too)

Ok, so Em has been a diabetic cat for what.. almost 7 years now.. She started losing weight at the very end of 2005, and continued to do so through 2006. She is on herbs, and cosequin, and Vitamin E. I noticed her sugars were a bit low, so I started reducing the insulin.. from 7 units down to none (which was too little)

One day when giving her the pills, we didn't feed her right after, and the pills stuck in her esophagus, and caused her to start vomiting. She didn't stop for a week. Blood tests and vet visits proved this was her only problem. Her fructosamine showed she had high blood sugars, but I knew that going in, cause I realized that no insulin was not working.

Due to her previous weight loss - we think from the other cats eating her meals while she gets distracted - we switched her to canned and fed her separated out. This decreased her need for insulin. However the vomiting and what not increased it, so we were at 3 units.

Kept an eye on her. Decided that three feeding stations for the cats (due to Jack and Eli being on urinary food) was very frustrating, so I looked into alternatives. Decided that a raw diet was going to be the best option.

Started raw about three weeks ago. Not the huge hit I would expect, but no one has lost weight. Everyone is perky and has lots of energy. Eli's face is looking so very good.. Em's sugars were even lower.

Em started to fill out. She got down to like 13lbs 2 oz, and was back up to 13lbs 13 1/2 or so. Was this the raw, or the canned we were shoving down her throat when she wasn't eating, I'm not sure at this point.

But soon Em decided she wasn't eating raw. Fought it every step of the way. I did a 12 hour fast and she still wasn't going for it. Switched over to Evo canned for her alone. Starting to mix in bits of raw to get her back on it

Last night her BG was 181 before eating (normal pre-shot is in the mid 300s). I was ecstatic. Well, we forgot to give insulin, and four hours later she was in the 300s. This morning she was in the 300s and when I weighed her she was back down to 13 lbs. I can't figure out why she's losing weight. She LOOKS great. looks like she is up to 14, but nooooo.. grrrr.

Raw is going well for everyone. I'm grinding my own. No veggies.. So I'm starting to think I need to put some in.. why? well cause Jack started chewing the rabbit's timothy hay, and Ollie sampled Bri's lettuce. Or maybe I should just give up and go to Evo for everyone. There is so much negativity regarding raw in the vet community. I can't find anyone who has used it having an issue with raw online. I've only started to look, but all the negative press I find is from people / vets who say the bacteria would be a problem. Negativity from people who have never done it, no studies to back it up.. nothing! Only naysayers who have no proof.

What ticks me off the most about these naysayers is that they want you to feed a good quality cat food. Well frankly, to find one that doesn't contain garlic (harmful to cats - though the pet food industry says that isn't proven, *rolls eyes*, at least not in the quantities they put in.. well why on earth do they put it in at all??) and is low in carbohydrates - things that apparently cats can't utilize well at all, and frankly seem to be just cheap fillers so they can make more money - is next to impossible. Even Innova Evo - which seems to be the best at the moment - has tomato flakes in it. Tomatoes are from the nightshade family - and cats who have ingested tomatoes have died. (my cats are known to clean off my tomato sauce from my dinner plate with no problems - so I'm not going to worry - just cheezes me off that they would put it in)

So what is a cat owner to do? I want to feed them the best I can so I don't have to deal with health issues in the future. Not to say there won't be any, but the consensus is starting to be that dry food is a huge culprit in a lot of medical issues. Being unemployed and having all day to search around for information only makes things worse I think. Only 'good' info I can find are from people who feed raw, and who haven't studied nutrition. Only 'bad' info I can find are from people who have supposedly studied it, but apparently not in depth, and honestly have no experience with it at all.

I started on this journey thanks to the felinedibetes.com message board, and the input of Dr. Lisa, a regular member of the board. She runs catinfo.org. and has used the recipe I'm using for years with her cats. I still feel like I'm doing the right thing, but it is hard when the professionals out there are against it.