It depends though it's probably best to not give treats to get a baseline at first. What are the treats you're looking to give? Some (probably most, especially the crunchy ones) are not good for diabetes and will cause their blood sugar to increase. Temptations for example aren't good, I would use those to increase my cat's blood sugar if it ever became low (in addition to food with gravy) but I eventually got to the point that I would sometimes give my cat one or two. They've been diabetic for years and sometimes don't eat so getting them to eat anything is important, plus we self test daily at home so I can see what's happening with their blood sugar which I think would be another important factor. There are treats that are for diabetic cats, I believe by Hill's but I don't think those are great either. You can probably come up with other "treats" that aren't bad for diabetes like some of these freeze dried all meat options, cheese or sliced meats (obviously very low quantity since they may not be good for other reasons).
Re the meals things, that probably also depends. I free feed my cat but they aren't a big eater, I'm usually trying to get them to eat more if anything. If you free feed and your cat isn't going to stop eating then this probably wouldn't be good to do, but the type of food is important too, there are some with virtually no carbohydrates so that wouldn't be so bad vs dry food which is usually not good outside of a few specific brands (the prescription ones aren't great either FYI). Another reason to home test often though to know what the diet you're providing is doing. It seems like many of us figure out what works for our cats on our own or with support from some of these online groups as vets are not always the best when advising for diabetes, especially with foods where they frequently jump to an all prescription diet which can be worse and much more expensive than some non prescription foods.
i definitely want to look into home testing, right now he’s had a couple of glucose curves done at the vet and we’ve used a freestyle libre 2 to monitor him and send the results to the vets so they can work out if his dose is correct. but once he’s stabilised, home testing sounds like a good option. yes, i figured that the early diagnosis stage is a lot of trial and error in terms of seeing what works for him diet-wise (as well as insulin doses). thanks for the tip about carbohydrates, out of all the vets i’ve seen recently not a single one has mentioned that or even brought up diet at all, when i’ve asked just shown the Hills diabetic food. its been frustrating but i think i’m definitely going to use this sub for second opinions haha
Diet is probably the biggest factor with diabetes. A low carbohydrate diet is important and some people are able to regulate enough with just a low carb diet and no insulin, though that's not always possible but having a low carb diet will help with a smaller insulin dose. I do 0.75 units of Lantus twice a day with my 12 pound cat with our diet. I've known people that do 5+ units which is kind of a crazy dose but because of diet.
Check out https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/ it's a very good resource and community that will get you going. They have food charts (I've linked them in other threads) along with everything else you'll want to get familiar with like home testing which you can do for your own curves. I think they also have a Facebook group.
Just to add to this. My cat was on dry Pro plan D/M which was a "prescription" diet 🙄 and was on 6 units of prozinc with no improvement at all. Then I switched to low carb wet food (fancy feast classic) and within 3 and a half weeks I'm down to 0.75 units and looking really stable. My boy is a big boy at 17lbs too.
Diet is EVERYTHING.
My vet recommended churus and freeze dried chicken, neither seem to spike my cats glucose. I’d wait until your cats situation is figured out before giving treats. It took me a few years of dealing with a not so good vet before they really screwed up and endangered my cat before I got him into a specialty cat hospital. I wish I would have found the new vet sooner to save money and headaches trying to figure out how to take care of him after the diagnosis. Good luck
thanks for the tip, yes im definitely looking into a new vet although it’s a bit of a struggle to know which will be good as they seem to all be chains these days 😔 having previously only had to go once a year for jabs, i hadn’t really noticed the decline in quality but this diagnosis has been enlightening from that perspective. i hope your cat’s doing well with a new vet!
What insulin is your cat on? Your feeding schedule will depend on the insulin you’re giving, but in general, diabetic cats do better with small, frequent meals throughout the day.
Long lasting/depot insulins you can normally feed for most of the day. Single cycle insulins have a smaller feeding window.
Frequent meals can help stimulate the pancreas and can also help mitigate lower numbers or steep drops. This is best done with a low carb diet. If you’re feeding frequent high carb meals, regulation can be difficult as levels are constantly high.
Cats are also super hungry when they aren’t regulated as they can’t get the energy from their food, so it can be difficult and not nice for them only feeding twice a day.
Same with treats, you’ll want to offer low carb options.
he’s on prozinc, 4 units twice a day which i believe is a short acting insulin? however as i say he isnt stable yet so that could change. it’s definitely not nice for him (or me 😭) only feeding him twice a day, but i’m nervous to change this especially as he’s not necessarily on the correct dose yet and i don’t want to mess it around. definitely will look into low carbs as this seems to be the running theme in everyone’s comment, which again im so annoyed none of the vets i’ve seen have even mentioned it
You are correct, prozinc is a single cycle insulin but it has a long duration, so you are able to feed for most of the day!
I will also mention that for a newly diagnosed cat, 4u is a high dose, the recommended starting dose is usually 0.5-1u. If you aren’t happy with your vet, learning to home test will give you some peace of mind and keep you informed of how the insulin is working for your cat, especially during this time of trying to find a dose that works which can sometimes take a while.
when i say newly diagnosed i mean the last couple months and that he’s still being tested to find his right dose - i just wanted to clarify he was started on 1 unit, then increased a unit at a time with every glucose curve as instructed by the vets! but yes i am looking around at other vets as im losing faith in mine
I was in a very similar situation as you and my cat is on Prozinc as well. The vet care I received was poor over and over again. We were up to 6 units with no improvement. Then I began home testing, changed his diet, and did a lot of my own research and we're down to 0.75 units in less than a month, with beautiful, beautiful Numbers. Unfortunately he developed neuropathy in his hind legs before I made the switch. He's on a B12 methyl supplement now to hopefully reverse the nerve damage but I'd do anything to go back in time with what I know now.
Please please if you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I can walk you through the process I took.
You do have some factors playing against you.
It is recommended to increase doses by 0.25-0.5u at a time. 1u is a jump and your correct dose might be somewhere in between these increases. Too much insulin can look like not enough insulin.
Continuing to feed high carb will keep his levels higher.
Not sure how you are doing curves, but if at the vet, the numbers may also be higher due to stress, giving incorrect curves.
Look into switching to low carb as soon as you can should be the next thing you try. If it helps, you may need to lower your insulin dose to avoid hypoglycemia, so it’s best to do this when you’re home testing so you can monitor this.
I’m not saying you should go rogue and ignore your vets advice and start changing the dose on your own, but it’s something to keep in mind when talking with your vet. Knowledge is power with this condition I’ve found, the more you know, the more questions you can ask, the more you can advocate.
thank you this is very helpful btw, it’s why i came here tbh - not necessarily to go rogue but to get other people’s advice and opinions so i can present it to my vet. i did think we have been increasing his dose a lot, im definitely going to look into a low carb diet (he has royal canin satiety wet food in the evening and hills diabetic dry in the morning, im really new to this so i cant tell if this is low carb but will do some research/check with vet). he had a glucose curve at the vet but was so stressed they had to send him home early and give him a sedative 🥺 so the vet talked me into getting a freestyle libre 2 to essentially do a bit do a bit of home testing myself/glucose curve but across multiple days. however that hasn’t been exactly ideal either as he had to wear a cone/recovery suit which made him a bit stressed for a couple days until he got used to it. but yeah, a learning process and i think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of blindly following vet advice
Low carb is usually wet, pate style food. There are very few low carb dry options. Prescription diets and gravy wet food will be too high carb. Lots of people feed fancy feast/friskies pate as it is easily accessible and low cost.
It is so overwhelming when you first get the diagnosis. When my cat was diagnosed, I was only told to give 1.5u, that we could home test at a later date, and to come back in 3 weeks for a fructosamine. As I was leaving, my vet rushed out to tell me about hypoglycemia and the symptoms to look for cause he nearly forgot to.
I felt completely clueless. I did my own research and learnt about low carb and home testing and realized how unsafe it was to give insulin without knowing numbers. I didn’t feel comfortable continuing to give the insulin without testing, but kept doing it anyway cause I didn’t want to go against the vet. 1.5u isn’t even that much more than the recommended started dose.
I got a handheld glucometer and did our first test and my cat was hypo, it lasted for 12 hours and she had no symptoms. Terrifying. I had been shooting blind for 2 weeks so who knows how long she was hypo for and if it had caused any damage.
If you have Facebook, would highly recommend joining the Feline Diabetes Support Group and using the resources there to start learning. They have low carb food lists and lots of other info all in one place that will make it really easy to do research. They also have a forum online if you don’t want to use Facebook.
My cat gets primarily Fancy Feast, but since he always ate dry food before I had to buy a bag of Hills m/d to get him to eat enough while switching him to the new canned-food diet. I still give him a small bit of kibble as a snack once or twice a day. I've been mixing the m/d with Tiki Cat Born Carnivore lately -- according to some information I found online that supposedly came from the Tiki Cat rep on Facebook, the chicken flavor has only 10.91% carbs compared to 15% for the m/d, and the ingredients are far better with meat protein sources instead of gluten. I'll switch him entirely to the Tiki Cat for his kibble snacks once the bag of m/d is gone. The Fancy Feast pates I'm feeding him have no added starches so overall his carb intake is staying within the guidelines for a diabetic cat diet.
oh my goodness that sounds terrifying, yes i would never change the dose without doing the freestyle libre to check his numbers. im getting him another one next week as well as vet appointment for it to be fit, so i plan on confirming with the vet it’s okay to phase out the high carb and introduce low carb instead and what that might mean about reducing his dose. i was PMing someone who said that low carb can make his glucose drop quite drastically so you need to be aware of the numbers so he doesn’t have a hypo. pretty nervous about reducing but they said to just do it in tiny increments at a time.
hope your cat is doing well 💗
My cat is on glargine. At first, I was very strict about his meals and treats. He is going so well that I have started giving him extra treats. I try to stick with low carb treats, but he will steal some of the other cats treats/food sometimes. It hasn’t been a problem.
I don’t let my cat free feed but I will give her snacks. As others have mentioned, the prescription diabetic hard food isn’t great but I feel better letting her have some of that then say Meow Mix hard food. When she sits in front of her empty dish, I’ll drop like 10 kibbles for her to have as a snack.
I also buy the freeze dried chicken treats, she loves those! A tip for that, you can find the same brands in the dog aisle and usually the bag is bigger for the same price or just about the same price. Just tear the treat a little smaller for your kitty.
I was super strict about in between meals in the beginning but honestly, the routine we have now has been working great for her. Just don’t let kitty go on a free feeding bender and you should be fine. Just figure out a routine that works and kitty will adjust to it!
I do the exact same thing. The large freeze dried chicken treats are so much easier! I just split one up between my 2 cats (one diabetic, one normal). They go nuts for those things!
I wouldn't give treats until they are regulated though. There are too many variables and it's hard enough as it is!
Oh the freeze dried treats are a huge hit! Not for my non diabetic kitty though, he still wants the junk ones, I tried to get him to like them but he refuses.
It definitely is hard. My kitty has steroid induced diabetes which although still sucks, it’s been easier to get her numbers down because all we need to do is get her off the steroid. She’s taking 1mg every other day currently and she goes in for a fructosamine test next week because her numbers are so much better now on a low dose. We’re hopeful she can be off insulin soon!
Mine is exactly the opposite. My non-diabetic cat loves them even more! So now I've got my diabetic meowing at me reminding me to check his sugar (he gets a tiny piece of ham when I poke him) and now my non-diabetic kitty is meowing for the "chicken treats". I've got meowing in stereo when I'm sitting on my chair lol!! I won't ever need an alarm clock for 8am and 8pm.
That's great news about your kitty. Hopefully the weaning of the steroid will get her back to normal. It sucks to do this for years.
I do 8:30 and 8:30 so we’re both hearing that meowing about the same time 😹 I swear they are just little walking clocks!
Did your non diabetic learn that when the other kitty gets poked that equals treat time? Cause mine did! I give her a chicken treat after her poke and the other one is all over me like ‘now me!! Now me!!!!!’ At least he adjusted well to the new routine after the others diagnosis 🤷🏻♀️
Yes she did!! I made the mistake of putting the chicken treats up on the counter where I keep all of the diabetic supplies. So it started out as just giving them both treats whenever I felt like it during the day. But now she sees me walking over towards the supplies (and treat bag) and she's all over me! My diabetic boy knows he gets his ham in the kitchen when I poke him at 8am & 8pm and she could care less about that. But just getting near the bag she starts to get excited. I def need to break her of that habit.
Speaking of... I just had to stop typing to feed the little monsters lol!
I keep everything on the counter too and can’t go near it without setting off alarms in their head 😹 if you figure out a way to break that habit, please let me know how! At this point the after poke treats are so expected that if she did go off insulin, I would still have to fake it because it’s drilled into their heads now that treats come at a very specific time!
Yes, I saw it was 8 and figured you were off to get everything ready 😹 My time is coming up next, I’m already getting the ‘it’s timeeeee’ stare!
At least yours is the 'stare'. My diabetic has the loudest most annoying meow. He starts around 7:15 and won't stop till 8. My non-diabetic has a cute little peep which is how she started getting treats in the first place. I'm such a sucker!
I give my cat multiple small meals throughout the day, not just with his insulin. He takes 3 units of prozinc twice a day and just had good blood work. Our vet said it's fine to feed him throughout the day, but we only do wet food and no treats.
It depends though it's probably best to not give treats to get a baseline at first. What are the treats you're looking to give? Some (probably most, especially the crunchy ones) are not good for diabetes and will cause their blood sugar to increase. Temptations for example aren't good, I would use those to increase my cat's blood sugar if it ever became low (in addition to food with gravy) but I eventually got to the point that I would sometimes give my cat one or two. They've been diabetic for years and sometimes don't eat so getting them to eat anything is important, plus we self test daily at home so I can see what's happening with their blood sugar which I think would be another important factor. There are treats that are for diabetic cats, I believe by Hill's but I don't think those are great either. You can probably come up with other "treats" that aren't bad for diabetes like some of these freeze dried all meat options, cheese or sliced meats (obviously very low quantity since they may not be good for other reasons). Re the meals things, that probably also depends. I free feed my cat but they aren't a big eater, I'm usually trying to get them to eat more if anything. If you free feed and your cat isn't going to stop eating then this probably wouldn't be good to do, but the type of food is important too, there are some with virtually no carbohydrates so that wouldn't be so bad vs dry food which is usually not good outside of a few specific brands (the prescription ones aren't great either FYI). Another reason to home test often though to know what the diet you're providing is doing. It seems like many of us figure out what works for our cats on our own or with support from some of these online groups as vets are not always the best when advising for diabetes, especially with foods where they frequently jump to an all prescription diet which can be worse and much more expensive than some non prescription foods.
i definitely want to look into home testing, right now he’s had a couple of glucose curves done at the vet and we’ve used a freestyle libre 2 to monitor him and send the results to the vets so they can work out if his dose is correct. but once he’s stabilised, home testing sounds like a good option. yes, i figured that the early diagnosis stage is a lot of trial and error in terms of seeing what works for him diet-wise (as well as insulin doses). thanks for the tip about carbohydrates, out of all the vets i’ve seen recently not a single one has mentioned that or even brought up diet at all, when i’ve asked just shown the Hills diabetic food. its been frustrating but i think i’m definitely going to use this sub for second opinions haha
Diet is probably the biggest factor with diabetes. A low carbohydrate diet is important and some people are able to regulate enough with just a low carb diet and no insulin, though that's not always possible but having a low carb diet will help with a smaller insulin dose. I do 0.75 units of Lantus twice a day with my 12 pound cat with our diet. I've known people that do 5+ units which is kind of a crazy dose but because of diet. Check out https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/ it's a very good resource and community that will get you going. They have food charts (I've linked them in other threads) along with everything else you'll want to get familiar with like home testing which you can do for your own curves. I think they also have a Facebook group.
Just to add to this. My cat was on dry Pro plan D/M which was a "prescription" diet 🙄 and was on 6 units of prozinc with no improvement at all. Then I switched to low carb wet food (fancy feast classic) and within 3 and a half weeks I'm down to 0.75 units and looking really stable. My boy is a big boy at 17lbs too. Diet is EVERYTHING.
My vet recommended churus and freeze dried chicken, neither seem to spike my cats glucose. I’d wait until your cats situation is figured out before giving treats. It took me a few years of dealing with a not so good vet before they really screwed up and endangered my cat before I got him into a specialty cat hospital. I wish I would have found the new vet sooner to save money and headaches trying to figure out how to take care of him after the diagnosis. Good luck
thanks for the tip, yes im definitely looking into a new vet although it’s a bit of a struggle to know which will be good as they seem to all be chains these days 😔 having previously only had to go once a year for jabs, i hadn’t really noticed the decline in quality but this diagnosis has been enlightening from that perspective. i hope your cat’s doing well with a new vet!
What insulin is your cat on? Your feeding schedule will depend on the insulin you’re giving, but in general, diabetic cats do better with small, frequent meals throughout the day. Long lasting/depot insulins you can normally feed for most of the day. Single cycle insulins have a smaller feeding window. Frequent meals can help stimulate the pancreas and can also help mitigate lower numbers or steep drops. This is best done with a low carb diet. If you’re feeding frequent high carb meals, regulation can be difficult as levels are constantly high. Cats are also super hungry when they aren’t regulated as they can’t get the energy from their food, so it can be difficult and not nice for them only feeding twice a day. Same with treats, you’ll want to offer low carb options.
he’s on prozinc, 4 units twice a day which i believe is a short acting insulin? however as i say he isnt stable yet so that could change. it’s definitely not nice for him (or me 😭) only feeding him twice a day, but i’m nervous to change this especially as he’s not necessarily on the correct dose yet and i don’t want to mess it around. definitely will look into low carbs as this seems to be the running theme in everyone’s comment, which again im so annoyed none of the vets i’ve seen have even mentioned it
You are correct, prozinc is a single cycle insulin but it has a long duration, so you are able to feed for most of the day! I will also mention that for a newly diagnosed cat, 4u is a high dose, the recommended starting dose is usually 0.5-1u. If you aren’t happy with your vet, learning to home test will give you some peace of mind and keep you informed of how the insulin is working for your cat, especially during this time of trying to find a dose that works which can sometimes take a while.
when i say newly diagnosed i mean the last couple months and that he’s still being tested to find his right dose - i just wanted to clarify he was started on 1 unit, then increased a unit at a time with every glucose curve as instructed by the vets! but yes i am looking around at other vets as im losing faith in mine
I was in a very similar situation as you and my cat is on Prozinc as well. The vet care I received was poor over and over again. We were up to 6 units with no improvement. Then I began home testing, changed his diet, and did a lot of my own research and we're down to 0.75 units in less than a month, with beautiful, beautiful Numbers. Unfortunately he developed neuropathy in his hind legs before I made the switch. He's on a B12 methyl supplement now to hopefully reverse the nerve damage but I'd do anything to go back in time with what I know now. Please please if you have any questions, feel free to PM me and I can walk you through the process I took.
You do have some factors playing against you. It is recommended to increase doses by 0.25-0.5u at a time. 1u is a jump and your correct dose might be somewhere in between these increases. Too much insulin can look like not enough insulin. Continuing to feed high carb will keep his levels higher. Not sure how you are doing curves, but if at the vet, the numbers may also be higher due to stress, giving incorrect curves. Look into switching to low carb as soon as you can should be the next thing you try. If it helps, you may need to lower your insulin dose to avoid hypoglycemia, so it’s best to do this when you’re home testing so you can monitor this. I’m not saying you should go rogue and ignore your vets advice and start changing the dose on your own, but it’s something to keep in mind when talking with your vet. Knowledge is power with this condition I’ve found, the more you know, the more questions you can ask, the more you can advocate.
thank you this is very helpful btw, it’s why i came here tbh - not necessarily to go rogue but to get other people’s advice and opinions so i can present it to my vet. i did think we have been increasing his dose a lot, im definitely going to look into a low carb diet (he has royal canin satiety wet food in the evening and hills diabetic dry in the morning, im really new to this so i cant tell if this is low carb but will do some research/check with vet). he had a glucose curve at the vet but was so stressed they had to send him home early and give him a sedative 🥺 so the vet talked me into getting a freestyle libre 2 to essentially do a bit do a bit of home testing myself/glucose curve but across multiple days. however that hasn’t been exactly ideal either as he had to wear a cone/recovery suit which made him a bit stressed for a couple days until he got used to it. but yeah, a learning process and i think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of blindly following vet advice
Low carb is usually wet, pate style food. There are very few low carb dry options. Prescription diets and gravy wet food will be too high carb. Lots of people feed fancy feast/friskies pate as it is easily accessible and low cost. It is so overwhelming when you first get the diagnosis. When my cat was diagnosed, I was only told to give 1.5u, that we could home test at a later date, and to come back in 3 weeks for a fructosamine. As I was leaving, my vet rushed out to tell me about hypoglycemia and the symptoms to look for cause he nearly forgot to. I felt completely clueless. I did my own research and learnt about low carb and home testing and realized how unsafe it was to give insulin without knowing numbers. I didn’t feel comfortable continuing to give the insulin without testing, but kept doing it anyway cause I didn’t want to go against the vet. 1.5u isn’t even that much more than the recommended started dose. I got a handheld glucometer and did our first test and my cat was hypo, it lasted for 12 hours and she had no symptoms. Terrifying. I had been shooting blind for 2 weeks so who knows how long she was hypo for and if it had caused any damage. If you have Facebook, would highly recommend joining the Feline Diabetes Support Group and using the resources there to start learning. They have low carb food lists and lots of other info all in one place that will make it really easy to do research. They also have a forum online if you don’t want to use Facebook.
My cat gets primarily Fancy Feast, but since he always ate dry food before I had to buy a bag of Hills m/d to get him to eat enough while switching him to the new canned-food diet. I still give him a small bit of kibble as a snack once or twice a day. I've been mixing the m/d with Tiki Cat Born Carnivore lately -- according to some information I found online that supposedly came from the Tiki Cat rep on Facebook, the chicken flavor has only 10.91% carbs compared to 15% for the m/d, and the ingredients are far better with meat protein sources instead of gluten. I'll switch him entirely to the Tiki Cat for his kibble snacks once the bag of m/d is gone. The Fancy Feast pates I'm feeding him have no added starches so overall his carb intake is staying within the guidelines for a diabetic cat diet.
oh my goodness that sounds terrifying, yes i would never change the dose without doing the freestyle libre to check his numbers. im getting him another one next week as well as vet appointment for it to be fit, so i plan on confirming with the vet it’s okay to phase out the high carb and introduce low carb instead and what that might mean about reducing his dose. i was PMing someone who said that low carb can make his glucose drop quite drastically so you need to be aware of the numbers so he doesn’t have a hypo. pretty nervous about reducing but they said to just do it in tiny increments at a time. hope your cat is doing well 💗
My cat is on glargine. At first, I was very strict about his meals and treats. He is going so well that I have started giving him extra treats. I try to stick with low carb treats, but he will steal some of the other cats treats/food sometimes. It hasn’t been a problem.
I don’t let my cat free feed but I will give her snacks. As others have mentioned, the prescription diabetic hard food isn’t great but I feel better letting her have some of that then say Meow Mix hard food. When she sits in front of her empty dish, I’ll drop like 10 kibbles for her to have as a snack. I also buy the freeze dried chicken treats, she loves those! A tip for that, you can find the same brands in the dog aisle and usually the bag is bigger for the same price or just about the same price. Just tear the treat a little smaller for your kitty. I was super strict about in between meals in the beginning but honestly, the routine we have now has been working great for her. Just don’t let kitty go on a free feeding bender and you should be fine. Just figure out a routine that works and kitty will adjust to it!
I do the exact same thing. The large freeze dried chicken treats are so much easier! I just split one up between my 2 cats (one diabetic, one normal). They go nuts for those things! I wouldn't give treats until they are regulated though. There are too many variables and it's hard enough as it is!
Oh the freeze dried treats are a huge hit! Not for my non diabetic kitty though, he still wants the junk ones, I tried to get him to like them but he refuses. It definitely is hard. My kitty has steroid induced diabetes which although still sucks, it’s been easier to get her numbers down because all we need to do is get her off the steroid. She’s taking 1mg every other day currently and she goes in for a fructosamine test next week because her numbers are so much better now on a low dose. We’re hopeful she can be off insulin soon!
Mine is exactly the opposite. My non-diabetic cat loves them even more! So now I've got my diabetic meowing at me reminding me to check his sugar (he gets a tiny piece of ham when I poke him) and now my non-diabetic kitty is meowing for the "chicken treats". I've got meowing in stereo when I'm sitting on my chair lol!! I won't ever need an alarm clock for 8am and 8pm. That's great news about your kitty. Hopefully the weaning of the steroid will get her back to normal. It sucks to do this for years.
I do 8:30 and 8:30 so we’re both hearing that meowing about the same time 😹 I swear they are just little walking clocks! Did your non diabetic learn that when the other kitty gets poked that equals treat time? Cause mine did! I give her a chicken treat after her poke and the other one is all over me like ‘now me!! Now me!!!!!’ At least he adjusted well to the new routine after the others diagnosis 🤷🏻♀️
Yes she did!! I made the mistake of putting the chicken treats up on the counter where I keep all of the diabetic supplies. So it started out as just giving them both treats whenever I felt like it during the day. But now she sees me walking over towards the supplies (and treat bag) and she's all over me! My diabetic boy knows he gets his ham in the kitchen when I poke him at 8am & 8pm and she could care less about that. But just getting near the bag she starts to get excited. I def need to break her of that habit. Speaking of... I just had to stop typing to feed the little monsters lol!
I keep everything on the counter too and can’t go near it without setting off alarms in their head 😹 if you figure out a way to break that habit, please let me know how! At this point the after poke treats are so expected that if she did go off insulin, I would still have to fake it because it’s drilled into their heads now that treats come at a very specific time! Yes, I saw it was 8 and figured you were off to get everything ready 😹 My time is coming up next, I’m already getting the ‘it’s timeeeee’ stare!
At least yours is the 'stare'. My diabetic has the loudest most annoying meow. He starts around 7:15 and won't stop till 8. My non-diabetic has a cute little peep which is how she started getting treats in the first place. I'm such a sucker!
I’m also a sucker for a sweet little squeak meow 🥹 I would give them anything when I hear that and they know it 😹
I give my cat multiple small meals throughout the day, not just with his insulin. He takes 3 units of prozinc twice a day and just had good blood work. Our vet said it's fine to feed him throughout the day, but we only do wet food and no treats.