About this Site

The 1st encounter I had with the idea of "force feeding" a kitty was in 1997 when an acquaintance said his cat was sick and was just going to let it die. Horrified, I took Isky to the vet and learned he probably had fatty liver disease. It was recommended that a sliver of his liver be taken and sent the the lab and at the same time of the surgery, a feeding tube would be implanted to enable us to get more nutrition in him and heal the disease. I was clueless and believed the vet knew best, so I said "ok." Well, the kitty had a stoke on the operating table and he had to be put down a day later. I later learned that I could have force fed him by hand and he would have survived. Why, oh why, was I not given that option?

1 year later, my beloved calico was diagnosed with Vaccine Induced Feline Sarcoma. She stopped eating, so I began force feeding her. I had no clue what I was doing... I was just bound and determined NOT to have to put a feeding tube in her. The new vet did what he could to help me, but it was the "blind leading the blind." I finally got into a routine, but never felt that I was doing enough and didn't even know if I was providing her with what she needed. She was a sweetheart till the end, and I attribute the force feeding for allowing us to spend more time with each other than the vets believed.

Fast forward to January 2003. My calico's brother, Bubba, began to eat less and less. He started losing weight and the vets did not know why. Every test under the sun was run and nothing was found. I was fed up with everything, so I started force feeding him.

Bubba is also CRF (chronic renal failure) kitty and I belong to the Yahoo CRF Group. I wondered... did Yahoo have a group for force feeding kitties? YES! And now they are calling it "Assist Feed" instead of force feed. How nice! So I joined the group and received SO much help! I learned various techniques and detailed information that I wish I had years ago. What a wonderful thing for people to gather and share information to help our beloved kitties.

The Assist Feeding Group did not have a web site, so I contacted the list owner for permission to start this site. This site is for you, by you. The purpose of this site is to compile as much information as possible in one location to assist those that are brand new to assist feeding as well as help fine-tune the techniques of those who have been assist feeding for awhile.

Purrs,

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