Knowing how to keep your cats kidneys healthy is one of the most important areas for anyone lucky enough to share their life with a cat or two. Cats weak link is their kidneys, so if you don’t know how to keep these healthy, they are very likely to succumb to some form of renal disease, be-it difficulty urinating, bladder crystals, utis or kidney failure. It’s just a matter of degree.
Preventing it or catching it early is obviously the most effective way, but even those with advanced kidney failure, a turn around can occur. So never say die. When there is life, there is always hope.
The same strategies apply in all cases, although recovery time, if they are affected, will vary. And for those who are badly affected, extra help may be needed.
First, why do cats suffer with kidney problems?
As already stated, it’s their weak link, but there are certain things that exacerbate the problem. So learning to avoid these will prolong the life and health of your cat, without any veterinary care at all.
Cats need to be super light weight to hunt. This means their body structure has ditched many areas that other animal have, to lighten up. The bones are less dense and the organs are not as complicated. Having organs that are less sophisticated means they are more vulnerable.
So what are they vulnerable to? Well, let’s look at what they aren’t.
Cats are carnivores. They thrive on consuming fresh and whole small animals. Mostly herbivorous animals. Herbivorous animals have already done the hard work in digesting vegetable matter, which IS hard work. By comparison, the meat from a carcass is much easier.
Now look at the ingredients on the food you feed your cat. My guess is that the major ingredients are plant based food.
Cat’s organs are not designed to consume plant based food. That demands more complex organs. So they mostly fail. Their system can’t digest or utilise the ingredients. And that is evident in their poo. The poo (poop for those in the USA) of a cat fed a healthy, natural diet is hugely different to that of a cat fed plant based food. It has much less odour and is formed, dry and crumbly. Not the normal pasty, smelly poo.
There is another important aspect to consider if you want to learn how to keep your cats kidneys healthy (actually there are many more things). And that is that chemicals abound in commercial cat food. Often they are not listed in the ingredients or they are given a general name that doesn’t offend (unless you are a cat food police officianado, as I am).
The chemicals that are found in cat food would never be allowed in human food. They are far too toxic.
If you want to learn more about how to keep your cats kidneys healthy, if fact how to keep your cat healthy, period, then please check this out – Naturally Healthy Cats – where you’ll find much, much more about the harmful ingredients and food domestic cats are typically given to eat, and what you can do instead. And how to convince them to adapt to the new changes. Not always easy.