I'm hoping Lorrie did not mean she would never assist feed another cat. There are so many reasons a cat stops eating that can be treated if a person is willing to assist feed for a period of time. Constipation and dehydration are two that come to mind that anyone of us with a FeLV+ kitty might face. Assist feeding while the medical problem is being addressed will save the cat's life. There are many ways to assist feed. Please note I use the term assist feeding instead of force feeding. A lot of the process is the state of your mind while helping your cat. I assist my cats to consume the daily calories they need. My Pequita only eats if I spoon feed her on my bed. Works for her, works for me. Bright Eyes is bouncing back and forth between diarrhea and constipation while I try and figure out the problem and the right dose of lactulose. He gets syringe fed 20 cc of Gerbers 2 Chicken and Gravy every few hours to supplement what little he does eat on his own. He is the only one of the 4 FeLV+ babies I rescued last fall that isn't doing well. I've accepted that I might lose him but by golly he isn't going to starve to death. I can't fix FeLV but I can prevent starvation. Once again here is the link to the Yahoo Assist Feeding group. http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline-Assisted-Feeding/ It is a good one to bookmark. Sharyl
--- On Mon, 12/29/08, Lorrie <[email protected]> wrote: From: Lorrie <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Force Feeding To: [email protected] Date: Monday, December 29, 2008, 7:35 AM Thanks for your post Wendy. That other post did come on awfully strong, and she certainly didn't do anything wrong. She did the best she could, which is all any of us can do. As for force feeding. I feel it helps if the cat has a problem that is curable, but NOT if the cat is so sick it is going to die soon anyway. I still feel terribly guilty about a cat I had several years ago that I force fed. He struggled to get away from me but he was too weak. When he began to gag I realized this was pure torture for him and I stopped the force feeding...... He died a few days later. I will never put another cat through this! Lorrie _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list [email protected] http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
