I am so happy to meet you Tiglet - I am sure your fur parent's tribute will educate a lot of people about these diseases. Too often a vet will tell the person to let the cat go (euthanize) but it is often not necessary and it upsets me that the vets give up so easily and don't tell us our options. My Angel Beyli had kidney failure and after being diagnosed (late - seems the vets didn't know how to read the blood tests properly!) he was with me for 5 more years happily. What helped him and I to live with these disease was giving him good quality canned food (dry food makes dehydration worse, and clumping litter with sodium bentonite is VERY dangerous - turns to cement in the box and does the same in your cat); gave him SubQs every few days (he took them like a little trouper knowing I was helping him to feel better); medications were Fortekor (generic Benazepril) for blood pressure which tends to be a problem with CRF and Famotidine (ie. Pepcid) which helps the kidneys a great deal because it cuts down on the acid buildup which causes vomitting and therefore dehydration. None of this is very expensive to do (got most of it at Wal-Mart) and takes little time.

I hope you and Tiglet are together for a long time. She is definitely acting like a cat - usually people who say they are like a dog just don't understand cats. There is a misconception that cats do not interact with us, just lay around and this is so not true, as we all know.