<< But, she is also addicted to her dry science
diet,  >>

Have you tried Hill's k/d for cats with kidney disease?  I have a cat with
kidney disease and he hates it but he does love Hill's g/d which is lower
protein than normal Hill's but not as low as k/d.  He finds it quite palatable
and yummy.  I hope your protocol works out for your little girl and you have a
lot more time with her.  Try the g/d, not all vets carry it but I'm sure they
can order it for you.

Candace
(take the litter out before replying by e-mail)

See my cats:
http://photos.yahoo.com/maccandace

"One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other
than human."  (Loren Eisely)

Yes, it's good to feed a low protein food if you can, but it's not the end
of the world if you can't. Personally, I feel controlling phosphorus is more
important than controlling protein (though the two can go hand in hand to
some extent).

Dandelion for one is a diuretic. I don't see the point of giving a diuretic
to a CRF cat who already has problems maintaining hydration.

Cats have no nutritional need for vegetables, they would normally only eat
the small amount that might be found in a mouse's stomach. Feeding her
vegetables is not going to do a thing for her weight loss. If you're trying
to offset protein, you would be better off doing it with fat.

I suggest you read this page:

http://www.felinecrf.org/diet_and_nutrition.htm

If she's losing muscle as well as weight, she could have metabolic acidosis.
High phosphorus levels may also be a concern. I'd suggest you read up on the
basics of CRF here so you can decide what to focus on:

http://www.felinecrf.org/quick_summary.htm

HTH

Helen

<Well, I've read many archive posts (about 200 there are about
<force-feeding) and I came up with something different on my own that
<seeeems to be working.
<

This from my a past experience of mine:

Bed Bath & Beyond sell a jumbo syringe inteneded for subcutaneous
turkey basting.  It has a capacity of around 60 ccs, and the nipple
is large-bore, once you drill out the little cone inside the nipple
which was intended to hold a needle (this operation, drilling out
the bore, is trivial.  a matter of seconds).  If you drill out
the nipple and then push a short length of surgical tubing onto
it, you now have a large-capacity force-feeding syringe with
the capability of delivering its contents as rapidly as you need.

For food, I'd blenderize a can of A/D with a minimum amount
of water -- one or two tablespoons.  The resulting gruel
was easy to draw up into the syringe, and easy to squirt
into the beast as rapidly as was comfortable.  To my great
surprise, I found that the two cats I had to use this on could
swallow the entire contents of the syringe in two or three
gulps, and exhibited no discomfort or tendency to vomit it
up afterwards.  My vet told me that as long as they were keeping
it down, I wasn't over-feeding.  In both cases I cautiously
worked my way up to a half-can of A/D in one session (100 ml
or more), with no apparent problems.  This is a LOT of calories
with a minimum of struggle and fuss.

One caveat: I would insert the tubing-covered nipple at one
corner, the hinge of the jaw, and this resulted in a reflexive
chomp-chomp-chomp of the tubing.  In at least one case, as I
pulled the syringe out of the cat's mouth, the tubing came
off and -- apparently --was swallowed.  As this was a very
short length of small-bore surgical tubing, no problems
appeared to result, and my vet was not nearly as upset
about it as I.

To summarize, if it HAS to come to this point, this method
allows you to get a half-can of A/D down a cat with a minimum
of struggle and fuss.  I've sent more than one of these to
a friend in a similar situtation, and it seemed to work
well for her too.

-- cary