Hi

I had a lovely cat of about eighteen years old who was hiding a lot this past week and especially the last two days. It was drinking a lot and finding it difficult to get on the toilet. It was also tired a lot and not eating food.

Today i bought a special cat box and got the bus over to the vets in the next town after making an appointment. The poor cat was scared of the box and i had to reassure it the whole journey and i thought it was just suffering from a treatable condition such as cat constipation or maybe diabetes.

The vet asked questions and i said it was drinking a lot and going off on it's own and hiding and sleeping a lot and not eating. He thought it was thin and put both hands on part of it's body and said the kidneys had shrunk. He ultimately said the cat was going to die due to kidney failure but could go home with me and may have at maximum five days to live.

No blood tests were done and no urine samples taken. All the vet did was feel around the cat and smell his breath and take into account what i told him.

I felt devasted about all this and decided the cat would be put to sleep as the vet said there was absolutely no hope. I have paid extra to get him cremated and extra yet for him to be returned so i can spread the ashes.

Now sitting on the bus home i just didn't feel right so started poking around the internet and finding that blood tests should be taken and none of this was done. I asked the vet if there was any treatment whatsoever and he said no. He basically made me feel very guilty and said the cat would suffer if allowed to go home but i could do so if i wished but there was no treatment to alleviate the pain if i took him home.

I don't care about money i just wanted my cat to live and i feel now sitting at home that i made a mistake and that the vet didn't do things right and should have taken a blood sample.

£53 to put a cat to sleep and not even a blood sample taken to ensure it was terminal. Another £73 to get him cremated and get the ashes back and i don't even know if they will return the proper ashes.

Yes he was thinner than perhaps a normal cat is and yes perhaps he was very ill but reading some Google pages i am led to believe that maybe he could have lived a quality life with some treatment rather than the easy way out of the vet just putting him down.

I guess i'm feeling bad and i just needed to find a forum devoted to pets and ask if it's normal that blood tests were not taken and if you can indeed tell how bad a cats kidneys are by just feeling hard and firm the sides of the cat and smelling it's breath ?

I don't know if the vet said he was suffering from chronic renal failure or acute renal failure but how can they tell without taking blood or urine samples since doesn't diabetes show similiar symptons.

I feel i have let my cat down and didn't realize any of this until reading up on the subject now when i got home and i was just too dazed in the vet's surgery. I thought it was simple cat constipation.

You expect your local vet to treat your cat and do the absolute best for it and stuff the money and stuff the time it takes but not even a blood test.

I feel like reporting them but maybe thats just the shock of losing my cat but they didn't even put him on a drip despite being deydrated. It was just sleep.

I'm eating myself up inside and i think i let my cat down and i would just like to know if a vet really can make such life and death situations without taking blood samples or urine samples from the cat ?

That's very sad and I'm sorry for your loss. It's hard losing a cat you've had for so very long, I know. I wouldn't rush into making any decisions about complaints just yet while feeling very emotional. I imagine the vet took the cat's age into account when making their recommendation. If it was a vet you've known and trusted in the past that makes it easier to have faith in their judgment. It is hard to make the decision to give permission for euthanasia and you always wonder whether you've done the right thing regardless of whether your cat has huge amounts of treatment and you wonder if you're just prolonging their suffering or you have your pet pts there and then, as in this case. Maybe it would have been kinder to you to take your cat home and think about things but it wouldn't have helped the cat if the cat was feeling so ill. Sorry I don't know the answer to your question about blood tests, but I think from my own experience of very sick old cats that if your cat is quite weak even taking blood can be an ordeal for it.

He was sleeping a lot the last few days and vomiting and slight diarrorea from it's back passage which smelt really bad but on the bus journey over he seemed to actually perk up a little and kept miaowing because he was afraid of being in the cat box as he had never been caged in his life. I kept having to stroke him and reassure him he would be better once we reached the vet and i feel i have let my cat which was part of the family down.

I know some people say you shouldn't get too emotional and it's just an animal but i don't see it like that and i feel a huge loss and i will miss him jumping on my lap looking for affection and purring when he wants out and in. I had a few tears in my eyes when the news was broke to me in the vets surgery and i cried when i left the place. Maybe if they had just done blood tests and reached the same conclusion i would feel a little better and i guess i'm feeling maybe i have let my pet down by allowing him to be put to sleep.

Yes he was very tired looking and obviously ill but it has come on so suddenly. On Tuesday he was eating and on my lap and fairly energetic. It's only the last two days his condition detiorated badly. I wish the vet had done some blood tests for poisoning or diabetes just to rule it out but i just didn't have the knowledge at hand in the surgery to counter anything the vet said. Now i'm reading this popular page about chronic renal failure and acute renal failure in cats and it says blood tests should be carried out as the symptons can match diabetes. Then i googled another page and it says blood tests should be carried out and that some vets are old fashioned and not keeping up to date with latest possible treatments for kidney failure.

I did not know the vet and have never been in the surgery before.

I guess i don't know if the cat was really ill as in terminal as the vet suggested or had just been somewhere where poison had been laid or was constipated or was coming down with diabetes. It was a shock to get such a conclusive answer as kidney failure as i wasn't expecting it. I really wish so much i could turn the clock back and ask for blood tests. I just feel something in my bones felt wrong about the vet taking such a quick decision and it was literally within minutes he came up with his diagnosis.

Maybe i just feel i should have got the blood tests and ruled out the possibility of saving him. We had a dog many years back who suffered kidney failure and we didn't put him to sleep and he died suffering although fighting to the end.

__________________


The GCCF Supreme Cat Show - UK's Number 1 Event

"Love a lot, trust just a few and always paddle your own canoe"
"Who is the greater fool - the fool themself or those that follow them"

i am really really sorry for the loss of your beautiful cat.
We had to have one of our dogs put to sleep two years ago, and i know just how you must be feeling.
We blamed ourselves for weeks after but please you did everything possible to love and care for you cat until the end.
Thinking of you xxx

__________________

Maybe someone with some veterinary knowledge will be able to give more information about that aspect of things, but it's possible that your cat's kidneys were so far gone the vet realised from their own experience there was no hope. I know what you mean about feeling rushed, it happened to me once when I was told my elderly cat had mouth cancer and the vet put him to sleep there and then. I had similar worries to what you're going through, but now, about five years on, I'm just glad he didn't go through loads of suffering like some of my other cats have with prolonged treatment, and I can get it in perspective that he lived seventeen years, mostly very happy, so what difference would a few more days of feeling ill have made? Your cat would have been stressed by extra visits to and from the vets as well, so I think you probably did the right thing.

It did feel rushed and i guess in my own head i thought things would be great and the cat would be coming home all better or at least on the road to recovery. I know from reading up on the matter kidney failure happens a lot in older cats but it's still such a shock because it's like you just don't get to spend any more time with him and you have to make a decision and then he is gone.

I know as a human if i was terminal and suffering i would also want to end my life but he had the absolute cutest face and was very intelligent.

Here is a pic of him sprawled out on the bed very happy and sleeping from just a few months back.

http://img35.imageshack.us/i/ourcat.jpg/


I also wonder if i made the right decision to have him cremated. My gut wonders if i will really get him back or someone else's pet. I wonder if i should have brought him home and buried him in the garden but at the time i was just so down about the whole thing and cremation seemed a good way to honour the memory of a loved pet as i can sprinkle his ashes high on some hills.

I'm sorry to hear about your cat. Honestly I doubt if there was much that could have been done. I had a girl (aged only 7) whose symptoms were just drinking a lot, not eating, and sleeping a lot more than usual. She went on a drip and then on medication and picked up dramatically but it cost about £500 by the time she had been hospitalised and all the tests had been done, and it only bought her about two months. It can be treated really aggressively but involves you putting subcutaneous fluids into the cat every night, expensive and probably difficult. I think your vet made the right decision.

Liz

The picture's lovely. He was an adorable looking ginger and obviously well loved, lounging on the bed like that!. If you had taken him home you would have had an agonising few days dreading the time you had to return to the vets and that would have been hard on you too. What you do with your pet's remains is such a personal thing. I buried my first cat in the garden and planted a flower, but it made me terribly sad and then when we moved I felt so guilty about leaving him there. I also had this bizarre, wild urge to dig him up in the first couple of weeks, which made me think I was going off my head. Other cats have been left at the vets for standard mass cremation, in the belief that once my cat has passed away I can do nothing more and have discharged my duty to them. Perhaps what you have done is the sensible middle course.

__________________


The GCCF Supreme Cat Show - UK's Number 1 Event

"Love a lot, trust just a few and always paddle your own canoe"
"Who is the greater fool - the fool themself or those that follow them"