The first is Nathan's health and how his rodent ulcers are going. Towards the end of May, his top lip began to swell and a scab came up. As we were going away, and wouldn't be in a position to take him to the vet for a biopsy if it did come up badly, we decided to give him some steroids to bring it down. We had a catsitter who was also able to pill him and we gave him a low dose. In the middle of reducing the dose he did his disappearing act so we couldn't complete the reduction but he didn't seem to have any ill-effect.
Since then, he's been absolutely fine. We've been very firm on not giving him any food other than the hypoallergenic stuff and really made sure that the flea control is done properly and in a timely fashion. I'm glad he's OK for now.
The second thing to update is both of their kidneys! After the visit to the vet a couple of weeks ago, we went out and got them some high quality wet food. Although we wonder if part of Nathan's allergy was caused by flea bites, I also think that some cat food has so much "stuff" in it that it may also be the trigger for the ulcers. We need to give them wet food to bring down the concentration of their urine (nice, I know) and to encourage them to take more fluid on board. This food has only got meat, rice and water in it and nothing else so it shouldn't cause Nathan any problems.
It's working out pretty good as they both love it, particularly Nathan. On Friday morning I was preparing it and he sprayed on the kitchen floor, which wasn't very nice. So now I keep them behind a door while I'm getting it ready (adding water and forking it apart).
I'll try to get a shot of them standing up against the glass and mewing. It's very pitiful. And silly, because of course I'm about to give them the food!
And finally, was that they were being overfed and Natalie in particularly needed to lose some weight. The vet said if there was a scale of cat weight thus:
0 = malnourished feral cat ---------5 = perfect weight ---------9 = morbidly obese
Nathan is a 6 and Natalie an 8. So, she needed to lose some chub! She really didn't like the reduction in food at first, she got really quite intense and odd while she was in the house and in her interactions with us. I was concerned that it would lead to them being competitive over food. Nathan eats very quickly and tends to finish his then start on hers. But she comes in for extra food, and I try to make sure it's done fairly when I have time to stand over them and remove Nathan when she's only half way through and he's finished his. I think she's beginning to look a bit trimmer and I hope gradually she'll be as sleek as Nathan. I will miss her fatness though, Nathan is so boney, stroking him doesn't feel quite so nice.
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