I'll definitely keep that in mind! If she starts taking her pills again then the capsule would be easier, but right now it's been traumatic for all of us to keep forcing pills!! I really, really hope that ends soon. Just a few minutes ago she ate her FortiFlora probiotic and a pill pocket with Keppra, so cross your fingers for me!!!
Good-ish update on my Katy!
- Thread starter Jason_C
- Start date
Ann
Moderator
The slippery elm I use is a liquid dropper, not a pill. It’s very easy to give right from the dropper. You only give a tiny bit and they like the taste. The link is on my post below, I get it from Amazon. I hope she continues to improve!
Minor update:
This was Day 1 for Entyce, and Day 5 (of 6) for Cerenia. I gave her the Entyce at 1pm, and her Cerenia time is 6:30pm.
By 2pm she had a slightly greater appetite, eating treats when she had been snubbing them before. But she still refused real food entirely.
We ate our dinner at 6pm (sandwich and homemade fries, just air fried potatoes), and she sat beside of me and clearly wanted nibbles! I gave her a few nibs of the fries, which she ate with excitement! She hasn't done that since November :-O
But after dinner I tried to give her some of her own food, and... nothing.
By 8pm she still wouldn't eat her food, so I gave her a taste of the baby food (pureed beef + sweet potatoes). She was definitely into the beef, and begrudgingly ate the sweet potato. I was able to get her to eat a TINY bit of Farmer's Dog by masking it with the pureed beef, but not much.
I got a solid bowel movement out of her at around 9pm and I thought she might do better after that, but she didn't.
It's now 2am. She ate all of the pureed beef, 75% of the sweet potatoes, and maybe a tablespoon of Farmer's Dog. Which is a lot less than yesterday, and with far less enthusiasm on her part! I would estimate that she got about 150 calories in real food today, where the goal is 380.
I know that the Entyce can take 4 days to have a significant improvement, but at this point it looks like it took her backwards a notch! She ate a lot better yesterday :-/
This was Day 1 for Entyce, and Day 5 (of 6) for Cerenia. I gave her the Entyce at 1pm, and her Cerenia time is 6:30pm.
By 2pm she had a slightly greater appetite, eating treats when she had been snubbing them before. But she still refused real food entirely.
We ate our dinner at 6pm (sandwich and homemade fries, just air fried potatoes), and she sat beside of me and clearly wanted nibbles! I gave her a few nibs of the fries, which she ate with excitement! She hasn't done that since November :-O
But after dinner I tried to give her some of her own food, and... nothing.
By 8pm she still wouldn't eat her food, so I gave her a taste of the baby food (pureed beef + sweet potatoes). She was definitely into the beef, and begrudgingly ate the sweet potato. I was able to get her to eat a TINY bit of Farmer's Dog by masking it with the pureed beef, but not much.
I got a solid bowel movement out of her at around 9pm and I thought she might do better after that, but she didn't.
It's now 2am. She ate all of the pureed beef, 75% of the sweet potatoes, and maybe a tablespoon of Farmer's Dog. Which is a lot less than yesterday, and with far less enthusiasm on her part! I would estimate that she got about 150 calories in real food today, where the goal is 380.
I know that the Entyce can take 4 days to have a significant improvement, but at this point it looks like it took her backwards a notch! She ate a lot better yesterday :-/
Sharon7
Moderator
Your dedication to her knows no bounds, and my hat is off to you for that. She is clearly unwell. I hope the Entyce works but honestly Jason, it seems she is declining. It's so hard to face, I know, but with the best will in the world you can't stop what's happening to her. I am not meaning to sound harsh, just realistic. Baby food is a great idea if she'll keep eating that but every day she is not getting enough calories to maintain herself. I'm so very sad for all of you. 
I know, @Sharon7 :'-(
I try my best not to be delusional on these things. I feel like I was delusional and overly optimistic with Pepper (the Chi that I've talked about), but I'm older and wiser now. In the last 5 years I've lost 3 pets, both parents, and my father-in-law, so I've had no choice but to learn to step back from the emotions and just look at the facts.
On paper, here's what I know about Katy:
1. Her blood work looks good. Her liver numbers came way down after I cut the Prednisone, her kidney numbers are fine, and her red blood cell count is fine. At least as of Dec 6 there were no signs of organ failure.
2. She was moderately anemic, and based on the blood work the most likely reason for that would be the ongoing bloody diarrhea from the Prednisone.
3. Symptoms of moderate anemia include weakness, lethargy, decreased appetite, weight loss, and heavy breathing. These are ALL of Katy's symptoms (occasional heavy breathing, not all the time)! More severe symptoms include pale gums, increased heart rate, collapsing, jaundice, and bloody nose / mouth / urine, and she doesn't have any of those symptoms.
4. She's had solid bowel movements for the last 4 days, and today's BM was light brown with no obvious orange tint. That makes me think that the bile in her system is balancing out.
Knowing that, on paper the only problem she had was anemia, liver inflammation, and gall bladder inflammation, and it looks like she's improving on all three.
For the last two days, she's woken me up in the morning at our regular time with barks and grumbles (which she hadn't done in weeks, so a HUGE positive sign!), and when I took her outside she would walk around and bark at things (another HUGE positive sign)!
So the only apparent problems at this point are that she's still not wanting to eat, and the occasional heavy breathing.
I gave her the Entyce this morning, and shortly after I got her to eat a single liver treat but no cracker. She also ate a very small bite of my scrambled egg, but then spit out the second offering. And she's shown no interest in any of her real food. But Entyce can take 4 days to be most effective, so I might be expecting too much too soon.
What I really don't know is whether her loss of appetite is JUST because of the anemia, and she'll eventually get past it... or if her body and metabolism are slowing down in preparation for the end.
I really don't think I have a choice but to hope that it's the anemia and keep fighting it.
I try my best not to be delusional on these things. I feel like I was delusional and overly optimistic with Pepper (the Chi that I've talked about), but I'm older and wiser now. In the last 5 years I've lost 3 pets, both parents, and my father-in-law, so I've had no choice but to learn to step back from the emotions and just look at the facts.
On paper, here's what I know about Katy:
1. Her blood work looks good. Her liver numbers came way down after I cut the Prednisone, her kidney numbers are fine, and her red blood cell count is fine. At least as of Dec 6 there were no signs of organ failure.
2. She was moderately anemic, and based on the blood work the most likely reason for that would be the ongoing bloody diarrhea from the Prednisone.
3. Symptoms of moderate anemia include weakness, lethargy, decreased appetite, weight loss, and heavy breathing. These are ALL of Katy's symptoms (occasional heavy breathing, not all the time)! More severe symptoms include pale gums, increased heart rate, collapsing, jaundice, and bloody nose / mouth / urine, and she doesn't have any of those symptoms.
4. She's had solid bowel movements for the last 4 days, and today's BM was light brown with no obvious orange tint. That makes me think that the bile in her system is balancing out.
Knowing that, on paper the only problem she had was anemia, liver inflammation, and gall bladder inflammation, and it looks like she's improving on all three.
For the last two days, she's woken me up in the morning at our regular time with barks and grumbles (which she hadn't done in weeks, so a HUGE positive sign!), and when I took her outside she would walk around and bark at things (another HUGE positive sign)!
So the only apparent problems at this point are that she's still not wanting to eat, and the occasional heavy breathing.
I gave her the Entyce this morning, and shortly after I got her to eat a single liver treat but no cracker. She also ate a very small bite of my scrambled egg, but then spit out the second offering. And she's shown no interest in any of her real food. But Entyce can take 4 days to be most effective, so I might be expecting too much too soon.
What I really don't know is whether her loss of appetite is JUST because of the anemia, and she'll eventually get past it... or if her body and metabolism are slowing down in preparation for the end.
I really don't think I have a choice but to hope that it's the anemia and keep fighting it.
Good-ish update again 
Note that yesterday was her last day on Cerenia. I never noticed any real difference with it, honestly, except that two days after I started it she finally ate a little bit of Farmer's Dog.
This morning I gave Katy the Entyce, though, and about 2 hours later I got her to eat about 1/4 of a jar of baby food (pureed turkey). She wouldn't touch the pureed bananas or sweet potatoes, though, and had no interest in treats.
So I followed @Ann 's advice and got Katy a bunch of new food: FreshPet kibble, the FreshPet kind that's in a pack that looks like sausage, a few Chicken Soup for the Soul cans, and all of the newborn baby food that my grocery store had in stock.
I got home at around 6pm, and offered her the rest of the baby food along with a fresh jar of carrots, sweet corn, and pumpkin. She ate the whole jar of meat and about half of the veggies!
She still seemed kinda hungry, though, so then I put about 1/4 cup of the kibble in a saucer, and she ate it all! It took her about an hour, but she ate it! So I added another 1/4 cup, and she ate it, too! I added another 1/4 cup, but at that point she lost interest.
I also got a few liver treats in her, a couple of crackers, and a Chicken Soup Savory Stick (25 calories).
By my count, she ate about 300 calories today!! The goal is about 380, so that's pretty awesome :-D
She had some energy for our regular 10pm play session (much shorter than usual, of course, but better than nothing), and has had a solid bowel movement today, too :-D :-D
Will she eat it again tomorrow? I have no idea, but I certainly hope so!! This is the most she's eaten in a single day in over 3 weeks, so I'm pretty tickled!! I HOPE it means that we're moving in the right direction, anyway!
Note that yesterday was her last day on Cerenia. I never noticed any real difference with it, honestly, except that two days after I started it she finally ate a little bit of Farmer's Dog.
This morning I gave Katy the Entyce, though, and about 2 hours later I got her to eat about 1/4 of a jar of baby food (pureed turkey). She wouldn't touch the pureed bananas or sweet potatoes, though, and had no interest in treats.
So I followed @Ann 's advice and got Katy a bunch of new food: FreshPet kibble, the FreshPet kind that's in a pack that looks like sausage, a few Chicken Soup for the Soul cans, and all of the newborn baby food that my grocery store had in stock.
I got home at around 6pm, and offered her the rest of the baby food along with a fresh jar of carrots, sweet corn, and pumpkin. She ate the whole jar of meat and about half of the veggies!
She still seemed kinda hungry, though, so then I put about 1/4 cup of the kibble in a saucer, and she ate it all! It took her about an hour, but she ate it! So I added another 1/4 cup, and she ate it, too! I added another 1/4 cup, but at that point she lost interest.
I also got a few liver treats in her, a couple of crackers, and a Chicken Soup Savory Stick (25 calories).
By my count, she ate about 300 calories today!! The goal is about 380, so that's pretty awesome :-D
She had some energy for our regular 10pm play session (much shorter than usual, of course, but better than nothing), and has had a solid bowel movement today, too :-D :-D
Will she eat it again tomorrow? I have no idea, but I certainly hope so!! This is the most she's eaten in a single day in over 3 weeks, so I'm pretty tickled!! I HOPE it means that we're moving in the right direction, anyway!
Ann
Moderator
SO happy to see this update! Hoping it continues. That will be a very Merry Christmas!
Sharon7
Moderator
Wonderful update, and perhaps a Christmas miracle. I'm very happy for you and Katy!