Chloe's Corner

Wow! What started out as just a little bit of fun turned in to a very long and rough few days! It all started on a typical Monday morning. After a long weekend of being cooped up in my kennel at the clinic, I was eager to start my rounds of begging for treats and attention, sleeping in the sun, knocking things off the counter, and just getting into trouble. I went to the treat jar and knocked it off the counter. I have done this a million times and before I have a chance to steal more than a couple of treats, someone catches me and takes the treats away. I started to eat the treats as fast as I could before someone came and took them away, but no one came so I continued to eat. After half a jar, I told myself “just one more”, but the next thing I knew, the jar was empty. I quickly hid the evidence by sweeping the empty jar behind a door and went on my merry way. “Oh what a sweet kitty!” the client said, “Here, have a few of the treats I brought for Fluffy.” This went on all day – I thought I was in Heaven! I ate my dinner like I normally do and curled up and went to sleep, or tried to sleep, that is. My tummy was churning – I did not feel good at all!

The next morning, I felt even worse. As soon as my staff opened my kennel door, I took off. Normally I eat breakfast, but I had no interest in that today. I was so embarrassed by how much I overate yesterday and I didn’t want anyone to know. But I was sick!! I crawled in to the basement and threw up all over the place. No one noticed because I was very stealth about it. They became suspicious when I hadn’t eaten my breakfast and had no interest in dinner either. Uh oh, time for a physical exam, blood tests, x-rays, and lots of other embarrassing things. After an afternoon of being the patient, I found out I had a case of pancreatitis – inflammation of the pancreas caused by eating too much fat the day before. I was moved to a kennel in the treatment room for closer observation and treated with intravenous fluids and injections of antibiotics and anti-nausea.

I was lucky – I started to feel better right away and was back to my normal self within two days. Many dogs and cats are not as lucky as me. Moderate to severe cases of pancreatitis can last for days to weeks, causing severe abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss, infections, bleeding disorders, and in very severe cases, can result in death.

I would like to say I learned my lesson, but I’m a cat. If we are given a bag of treats or a fatty meal, we will eat it and not think about the consequences. Dogs are even worse – they will even eat rotten food from the garbage! So it’s up to you, pet owners. Make sure you don’t over feed us with treats or fatty foods. Keep the garbage someplace where we can’t get to it. Feed us a well balanced, healthy diet. You don’t want your beloved furry friend to have to suffer through pancreatitis like I did!