I was a difficult boy today. 🙃 I like to throw random medical crises at mom just to keep her on her toes! Good news is: I’m feeling better. Mom needs a drink though (and she doesn’t even drink)! (fb)

Walter’s weaning routine as a cleftie looks a lot different from weaning a kitten without a cleft and even from weaning cleft puppies! Cleft puppies are much easier all around!⁣ ⁣ Now, this isn’t what things looked like on weaning day one. This is after weeks of baby steps and practice. Cleft kittens often want to nurse their food and that’s a perfect storm for shoving the food up into their nose. 🙃 [Clefties can’t have liquidity or soft/mushy foods.] For Walter specifically, that means popping the meat cube into his mouth and pulling my finger back right away so he doesn’t nurse it against my finger. Once he has the food in his mouth, he does a good job of swallowing it. The texture of his food is such that it’s moisture rich (which is super important for cats) but it’s not mushy and doesn’t break down easily.⁣ ⁣ As you can see, he’s super eager to eat and he taps me between bites to remind me to pick up my pace. 😂 As he gets full, his enthusiasm wanes and once he stops accepting food, he’s full. When he’s done, I sneak a quick peak at his cleft to make sure it’s clear. If he has food up there, I suction it out. He doesn’t love this part of the routine, but it’s a necessary evil!⁣ ⁣ Clefties will be more prone to sinus infections and URIs but cleft repair has a high failure rate and subsequent procedures are more difficult following a failed repair, often leading to a larger defect than what was there pre-op. Deciding to pursue surgery requires a thorough risk/benefit analysis for each individual patient, which is hard to do if you a) don’t have experience raising clefties, and b) aren’t an expert in oral anatomy. Most clefties don’t need repair - they just need modifications to their eating routine (namely the right food) and treatment for URIs if they arise. (fb)