Caring for Senior Cats: Unlocking Health, Mobility, and Vitality | The Feline Wellness Summit with Michael Daly

 Welcome to the cat dad show. My name is Scott Colby. And if you have a senior cat, you are going to love this. This is a clip of my interview with Michael Daly. He is a holistic pet health coach. He's been a veterinary technician. Um, and in this clip, I asked him specifically. What is the first thing you tell someone when they ask you how to keep their senior cat healthy and happy?

As somebody who has owned senior cats in the past, I know this is a very important topic. I know you're going to love it. Michael was a special guest for my feline wellness expert. If you would like to listen to the entire interview as well as the interview with 20 other feline wellness experts, just go to feline wellness summit.

com. You can grab a free ticket, but for now enjoy this clip with Michael.

Oh gosh, well number one is Letting them know that they rule the house Absolutely. I mean, you know, um, but, uh, health wise, you know, wet diet is always, you know, I know that's nutrition's a big thing to discuss, but just water, water, water, water, wet, wet, wet, um, is the number one thing I would say if they're gonna do anything.

Yeah, that's awesome. And I would add in there, even if they're not seniors. Cats still rule the house, right? They're the boss, whether they're newborns or 20 years old. And I know we're going to dive into, um, different health issues like kidney disease, and we'll dive into nutrition, and I also want to share.

my two cats that like I m because one of them did h things.

Kidney Disease in Senior Cats

We're going to be disease and mobility issu dive right into kidney di so common in older cats. Why happens and share some natural or holistic approaches to managing it. Sure. Yeah,

so, um, So also so I have a senior cat as well So which is he has been really my big teacher on a lot of this stuff Because I've been able to you know, I've had him he's 17 now And I've had him.

I met him at a vet clinic. Um, and I never, it's interesting. I never took cats home when I worked at vet clinics. And, uh, and for some reason this cat, like I opened the cage he was in and I was like, you're my cat. Oh, nice. That way, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and so He, and that was 17 years ago. So, like, I have been able to really sort of try different things for him, different supplements for him.

Um, so he's really been a big teacher

of mine.

Um, and so with kidney disease, basically, you know, it depends on Um, really the age of the cat. So a lot of times, you know, so if, if I have Nemo, which is my cat comes in and we, and I'm actually about to repeat blood work on him. And so, and currently he's had no elevation in his kidney values whatsoever, um, which has been great knock on wood.

But if my, um, You know, my vet comes by, we do some blood work and we see some elevation. You know, there's a couple of things I need to think about. So the kidneys jobs is basically to process waste out of the body. And so if I start seeing any sort of elevation, and so they consider kidney disease into four different stages, one through four.

And

so when we start to see level one, um, they start to say, okay, well, we're looking at kidney disease. Now, back in the day when I was first a technician, they called it kidney failure. There's kidney failure was the big word, but now that we've kind of learned more and vets have learned more, it's turned into a kind of a nicer, you know, kidney disease.

Managing Kidney Disease Holistically

Um, and so, you know, and so if I have a 17 year old cat that is looking at some elevated, and so the enzymes that we're looking at, the primary enzymes that we're looking at are the B1 and creatinine. Um, and so if I'm starting to see some slight elevation in those, um, you know, there's a couple of questions I need to ask myself, you know, and one of them is, Age, you know, so like usually if we have a pet that I feel like, and I tell this to clients a lot of times is, you know, if you have a pet that is older and they pass away from either, you know, cancer that they get that age or kidney disease and your cat has lived a pretty good life because it's one of those two that eventually may get us, you know, as we're older.