Dysfunctional Pet Drugs

What a pleasure it's been doing business with this company. Though I'm not sure if they really are a company or just a guy in his mother's basement with pallets of stolen pet food.

Now that Ninja/Mr. Bitey needs special, kidney-friendly food, I have to find it online or else pay out the ass to buy it from the vet.

I found a couple of vendors - Pet Food Direct and another outfit, Discount Pet Drugs. Pet Food Direct was super easy - found the food, entered the vet info, checked out - package arrived a few days later.

With Dysfunctional Pet Drugs, I found the food, entered the vet info, checked out, and waited. And waited. In a day or so I got a cryptic email:

Hello,

You have not selected the food order option for shipping. Your shipping cost may go up. The shipping cost is $12.99 determined by weight. This only applies to pet food orders as stated on the website.

Please reply to this e-mail for your order to ship Shipping process will takes 7-8 business days for Food Items. If any questions us a call at xxx-xxx-xxxx

Thanks
Petrick

Never even noticed a "food order option" in the check out process, so I replied to ask for more information. I received this response:

Hello

We apologize
You have not selected the Food Orders option in Shipping method as below :

Via Food Orders
Your current invoice is as below :
[boring invoice info]

Please reply this email to ship out your order.
Thanks
David

As shown below. Below what? Where? There IS no "Food Orders option" to select below, you jackass! Nevertheless, I replied and approved the order for shipping. That was on February 7th.

I received this response the same day:

Hello

Thank you for sending the approval. Shortly, we will ship your order and send you the tracking number by email. Shipping process will takes 7-8 business days for Food Items.

Thanks
David

I'm still waiting for the email with the tracking number. Yesterday I sent an email asking for a status update. I received this response:

Hello

We apologize for any delay. Shortly, we will inquire your order from shipping department and inform you by email.

Thanks
David

When I didn't hear back from "shipping department," I sent another inquiry this morning:

Hi again…
Still waiting for a status update - or the product – really, I’d rather have the product I’ve already paid you for.

This is not good. My cat needs this food – I can’t just run down to the store to get it. Please let me know when this will arrive and why it’s taken so long. I have to say, I won’t be ordering from you ever again. This is totally unacceptable.

You charged me $13 for shipping which is already an astronomical charge, then the product doesn’t arrive for weeks.

How do you stay in business? This *is* a business, isn’t it, or were you going to donate the food? Because if you’re going to make it a charitable donation to my cat, that’s very thoughtful, but not worth much if it never arrives.
-J

I haven't received a response, but I did get a call from a wonderfully polite UPS robot letting me know that I'll be receiving a shipment tomorrow that someone must be present to sign for.

No idea if it'll be the pet food or a multi-million dollar check from an anonymous patron of snarky blog writing. To be totally honest, I'm hoping for the latter.

Update 2/25/10: Turns out, the UPS Robot Call was for something else. Still no word from DPD about where my order is. Complete and total failure.

Day 12 - Still Puke Free!

Day 12 and still puke free! Almost two weeks of only canned cat food and we're excited to report a total absence of barf, puke, upchuck, yakk, boot and gark.

Cat dandruff appears to be subsiding while perky personality traits appear to be emerging.

Ninja, aka El Gato Retardo, is playing like a kitten again, chasing his tiny tinsel balls all over the house. Not his balls, he's fixed. You know what I mean.

He's much more active during the day, too, visiting me often while I work, which sounds sweet but he's actually bugging the crap outta me.

He stands up on his hind legs and puts his front paws on the side of my chair, digging in a claw or two then plucking them back out. First one side then the other. He seems really proud of this trick.

Today it looked like Neo wasn't quite as bulbous. He's like a bowling ball on legs. I thought he might be losing some pudge, so I weighed him. If he has lost any weight, it isn't enough to register on the bathroom scale.

I weighed both the boys and they appear to be the same weight. Could it be that they've just lost the water bloat that comes with eating carbs? I wonder...

For lunch today I had a leftover pork chop. Before I could sit down at the table I had a captive audience. Even the little one, who usually has no interest in human food. They all enjoyed a wee piggy snack.

They seem to be getting enough of their own food - there's food left in the bowls for quite a while after breakfast and dinner - they take their time working through it. But now they seem much more in tune with All Things Meat. They're more like little wild animals and not as much like living couch cushions.

Yesterday morning after breakfast I packaged up the meat I'd bought at Costco to store in the freezer. Ninja came out of a deep slumber to investigate. He's never done that before.

I'm excited to see them become more active and seemingly happy, but I wonder if at some point they'll get super primal and start gnawing on our legs.

New Cat Diet - Day 7

Captain's Cat Food Log, Day 7:

The Natives are restless... but in a more-active-than-usual, not-as-sloth-like way. We've switched them to an all-canned food diet - no more kibble.

So far, no complaints, though they still don't speak English, so how would we know?

We do know there's been no more cat puke since making the switch and we've also noticed they're not constantly visiting the water dish like they just got off a long bus ride from Arkansas.

As of last night, one native in particular was up at all hours playing Raccoon. This could be an unfortunate side-effect (for us) of having more energy and being more cat-like than sloth-like. On the plus side, Raccoon Boy needs to burn off some pudge, so, good for him, bad for my beauty sleep.

Why put everyone through this experiment? I was tired of cleaning up cat puke (not hairballs, just puke) and worried about why one of our cats kept doing it, no matter how I fed him or the quality of the food, which is always the best I can find.

After reading countless cat food labels I kept wondering, would a cat naturally hunt down barley or boil up a pot of rice? I would love to see my cats trying to cook rice.

I did some digging and found information about cats developing diabetes or pre-diabetes, possibly caused by the excess carbohydrates in typical dry food formulas. I wondered if Ninja's puking and repeated trips to the water bowl could be signs of serious trouble. He was getting up repeatedly throughout the day to get a drink.

Neo, the Bowling Ball, aka Raccoon Boy, needs to lose a few pounds but reduced-calorie kibble has more carbs, less protein, and has never worked to help him slim down.

I'd always thought kibble would help keep their teeth healthy, but after watching them inhale the bits and rarely chew them, that theory wasn't holding up. Every time Ninja puked up his kibble it was mostly un-chewed bits that could go right back into the bag.

So, I started reading Do Cats Hear With Their Feet by Jake Page. He includes some of the same info I'd found online (and much more - great book). Cats are designed to eat meat, not carbs. Also, very important - they need to get their hydration from their food, not the water dish.

His book mentions a website, catinfo.org, full of nutrition and feeding info for cats, written by a veterinarian. Another book he recommends for good nutrition info is Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life.

Since we made the switch, Ninja hasn't gotten sick and isn't constantly visiting the water cooler - very encouraging signs. Litter box output all looks normal - no change in the size of clumps, no diarrhea. They still sleep a lot, but now they're up & playing in the early afternoon - not out cold from breakfast until dinner time. I'm also hoping to see the dandruff clear up, something the boy cats have had for years.

Some folks worry that too much protein is hard on their kidneys, but what I'm reading cites the lack of hydration as the main problem leading to kidney stones or kidney failure. If they're designed to eat meat and only meat, I suspect their kidneys are designed to manage that properly.

I'm not ready to start grinding up tubs of raw chicken just yet, so I'm using the canned food I've fed them for years - Wellness. It's pretty good quality though still has some ash in it, which I really don't like.

Catinfo.org mentions a couple of options - Feline's Pride and Nature's Variety - they're expensive. Wellness has come out with a new canned formula - Core - that has more protein & less starch.

Overall, all signs point to this working out well, unless they're all up and playing throughout the night, then they might be getting canned-food dinners with valium dust sprinkled on top.

What a Dick, Van Patten

All Nikita's tests came back normal, so the only X factor in this equation is Dick Van Patten's Unnatural Offbalance food.

The vet thinks that must have caused the REPEATED PROJECTILE VOMITING and EXTREME DIGESTIVE TRACT UPSET.

Just a little bit of the new food mixed in with her regular food was enough to do the trick. So, lesson learned - no new food, ever - stick with the one that works (which is Wellness, btw).

I'd never have guessed that something purported to be so high-quality would cause such a problem. I'd like to punch Dick Van Patten in his big fat pasty face.