Yes, constant hydration is important besides an all canned diet especially
with cats that consistantly get UTI's or blockages.

"cshenk" wrote in message
...
"val189" wrote

Friend's cat seems to have UTI - she wonders if a change to a cheaper
litter a month ago might be a cause? Vet hasn't given her any results
yet of urine sample. He said the bladder was empty, but the cat's
been straining and not peeing very much.

While there is a problem obviously, it's not apt to be the actual cat
*litter*. Bowel obstruction (constipation?) comes to mind. Change in
diet may have accompanied cheaper litter?

If the cat isnt drinking much, it will pee less. Some cats seem to get
most of their water from wet food eating. Mine gets it from both wet
food, fresh water, and a daily dose of various salt-free (or very salt
low) broths.

Today's diet for her was a 3oz portion of wet food (pedigree this time,
beef with liver) in the morning (rest of can tonight), and 3 TB of dashi
(dipped out before I added the miso for the rest of us for our breakfast).
I dont know how much fresh water she drinks because she and Cash-pup share
both the bowl in the back room and the 'feeder bottle' in the kitchen. I
can only say it holds about 1G and when we stick the one in the dishwasher
and pull out the clean one, there is about 1/2g left. Mostly Cash-pup but
she loves to use his water-feeder now and will mostly ignore her old water
bowl.

Oh, she gets only 2 TB or so of dry kibble at this stage, per day. She
eats about 1 TB of it and the rest tends to land in Cash-pup's tummy.