Tip for Treats for Cats with Bladder stones

Here is a tip from one of our PetPlace.com users. She actually wrote it for dogs but it applies to cats so we thought we'd share it with you cat lovers as well. Thanks to Carol Ellery – Mississauga, Ontario, Canada .

She wrote "My dog was on Hills Prescription s/d canned food due to a bladder stone problem. We are trying to dissolve the stones to avoid surgery. My vet advised that under no circumstances was Diesel to have any treats, not even celery, which I thought might be okay because celery is 95% water.

However, I felt so bad about not being able to give my little guy treats as rewards for good behavior, doing tricks, etc., I consulted once again with the vet and was given this idea. Use a can of the food to make him prescription treats. I sliced the can of food very thin and placed the slices on a non-stick baking sheet and put them in the oven at 250 deg. and baked them very slowly until they were almost completely dried out. I then broke the slices up into small treat sized pieces. It took about 3 hours at this low heat, but the enjoyment he gets out of these special treats and the pleasure I get from being able to reward him and see how happy he is, was well worth the time and effort to do it. AND more importantly he is not getting anything he shouldn't have during this 3 month course of treatment.

Hopefully the stones will dissolve and we will have no more problems. I learned a very expensive and difficult lesson from this illness. I was killing my dog with kindness by giving him treats that were not good for him, even though they seemed trivial, i.e. letting him lick out the leftovers in a pudding cup, a little piece here and there of cookies. Take heed and don't do it. These things are not meant for animals and I have learned my lesson."