Increasing Intake of Water May Prevent Kidney Disease in Cats

A few years ago, our 16-year-old cat had to be put to sleep when he developed kidney failure. For several weeks before his death, I gave him subcuteaous treatments twice a day to keep him hydrated. Although this was a very difficult experience, I was grateful that he at least did not have to suffer through years with CRF (Chronic Renal Failure), a common ailment in cats discussed in Branwen66's article, How To Cope with Chronic Renal Failure in Elderly Cats.

After this experience, I decided that I would do whatever I could to minimize or possibly even prevent kidney disease in my next cat (or cats, as it turned out, since we ended up adopting two cats within 3 months of each other). Other important steps to help your kitty live longer are spelled out by Sarah Holmes, in her article, Secrets Behind A Long Life for your Pet Cat , but I am going to focus on only one of the keys - their intake of water, and the various methods I have used to assure that my cats get plenty of fluids, which I will detail later in this article.

Except for feline leukemia, more cats die as a result of kidney disease than any other condition. There are many possible causes, including such things as being born with a kidney or kidneys that do not function correctly, infections and other diseases, and exposure to toxic chemicals. Another kidney-related disease in cats is kidney stones, which Joseph Baylon talks about in his article, Kitty Kidney Problems.

While the possible causes of feline kidney disease are numerous, the steps you can take to minimize your cat's chances of developing feline kidney disease are few and quite simple. Because of genetic and disease-related causes, there is no sure way to prevent kidney disease. But by watching their diet (low protein, high carbohydrate and fat), making sure that they get plenty of fresh water, keeping them away from toxic chemicals, monitoring their behavior for any changes, and making sure they have annual visits to the veterinarian, you can greatly increase your cat's chances of not contracting feline kidney disease.

Of all these preventative measures, increasing their water intake can be the most tricky. Cats don't generally like water or being around water and although they will, of course, drink water when they are thirsty, they can be "picky drinkers." At a bare minimum, you must always make sure their water dishes are changed frequently. Also, the dishes need to be wiped out with a paper towel, as the bowls tend to get oily if the cat drinks water after eating a moist cat food. But this is sometimes not enough if you have a cat that doesn't really like to drink water. If that is the case, here are a few ideas that may help:

From the time they are kittens, explore different ways of getting them to drink water. My son's cat will only drink water out of his dish if it has ice cubes in it!! One of my kittens used to love to drink out of my water glass. Any time I would bring a glass of water into the living room to drink while watching TV, Sylvester would be up on the table and have his nose buried in the glass. That, of course, is going to lead mostly to a lot of spilled glasses of water!! So what I began to do was to run a small coffee cup full of water and bring it with me when I poured myself a glass of water. He soon learned that the cup was his and he could drink to his little heart's content!

Some cats enjoy playing with, or drinking, water when it is coming out of a bathroom faucet in a small stream. We observed that our cats were often in the bathtub drinking the small puddles that formed from our endlessly dripping bathtub faucet. So we decided to quit trying to fix the leak, and just put a water dish in the tub and let the water drip into it. They both love the running water! Gracie drinks from the dish, and - if she's in the bathtub by herself getting a drink - ends up with water dripping off her forehead. Sylvester laps the water from around the faucet. So the little girl has finally figured out that if she gets in the tub and drinks while the "big guy" is lapping the water from the faucet, she doesn't get her head wet!

And finally, I always add water to their moist food when I feed them their nightly "treat," making a gravy that they love, and that also increases the amount of water they are getting. If you don't feed your cats moist food, you can use this same trick with dry food. Just put a dozen or so pellets of dry food in a small dish and pour hot water over them, mashing the food with a fork until it has formed a gravy. Once the water has cooled, give it to your cats. They will think it's a special treat!

These steps are simple and may be the key to keeping your cat from developing kidney disease. Give them a try!