Diarrhea in cats can be a simple irritation caused by a minor change, or it can be caused by a treatable disease or life-threatening ailment. Persistent, chronic feline diarrhea should always be treated by a veterinarian, who can run a full blood panel to show possible problem’s in the cat’s body. But before running to the vet, there are natural diarrhea treatments for cats that can be tried at home.

1. Slippery Elm Bark is a natural herb that has been used for centuries to soothe the digestive tract. It is found in health food and vitamin shops in capsules and powder form. To treat feline diarrhea, mix about a teaspoon of powder or up to one capsule full of slippery elm powder into water and mix in with the cat’s food. Alternately, the powder can be mixed into wet food. This treatment can be used daily but an improvement in stools could be seen in as little as one day.

2. Check the cat’s food label for any grains and fillers like corn, wheat gluten, and rice. If those ingredients are listed, slowly switch the cat over to grain-free food over a week. On day one, feed the cat 90% old food with 10% of the new, grain-free food mixed in. Slowly increase the new food to old food ratio over the next 5-7 days. Switching a cat’s food too fast can be the sole cause of diarrhea, as their digestive systems need time to adjust to new foods.

Cats are carnivores whose bodies were not made to digest the grains that are added by many of today’s pet food companies as low-cost fillers. This is the case with cats who have IBD, or Irritable Bowel Disease. Switching to a completely grain-free food and eliminating vegetables from the diet often ceases diarrhea and vomiting in these cats.

3. Probiotics can be given to cats with diarrhea to introduce helpful bacteria into the digestive tract. Probiotics made for humans are often more beneficial, because they contain more than one strain of bacteria. Refrigerated probiotic capsules found in vitamin and health food stores usually contain around 7 billion microorganisms per capsule. Half of a capsule can be mixed into the cat’s food twice a day, or mixed with the juice of canned cat food and give via syringe. (Do not mix into tuna juice or human milk; milk made for cats is ok.)

4. Another method to introduce extra beneficial bacteria into a cat’s digestive tract is with plain, fat-free yogurt. Many cats love the taste and can be given one or two tablespoons a day. If the cat won’t eat the yogurt, try mixing it into her food. Only fat-free, plain flavored yogurt should be used.

5. 100% pure canned pumpkin–not pumpkin pie filling–adds fiber to the diet. Pumpkin is a beneficial treatment for feline diarrhea and also helps with constipation in cats. Again, many cats love the taste and can be fed a tablespoon or two per day.

Warnings:

• Cats with diarrhea need extra fluids to guard against dehydration. Dehydration is a serious byproduct of feline diarrhea that will make matters much worse. Canned food is preferred, as it is much higher in moisture. Premium, grain-free canned food will not cause or worsen diarrhea and its moisture content is much healthier for all cats, healthy and ailing.

• Other ways to ensure cats with loose or runny stools get enough moisture is by giving water or cat milk via syringe, or mixing it into canned food. Many cats will also drink more water out of a fountain than from a bowl.
• If none of the above methods of treating diarrhea in cats produces improvement, see a veterinarian.

Recently, some readers have asked me what’s the best dry food to feed a pet who has chronic diarrhea, or what food to feed a cat that vomits often. Of course when these readers look to the internet for some answers, the first thing they hear is “take them to the vet!” And it’s true that these symptoms could be any number of serious problems. But some pet owners are pretty sure they have a healthy pet on their hands, EXCEPT for the diarrhea, or the vomiting, or a skin or ear or eye issue. And if that’s true, the key might be diet.**

If you think you need to change your pet’s food, here are some tips.

1. If your pet is currently experiencing a bout of diarrhea, give their digestive system a break by fasting them for the rest of the day. That’s right, skip supper for the dog and pick up the free-fed kibble for the cat. Resist giving in to those pleading puppy dog eyes and pitiful cat meows. They will be ok. And their butts will get a break.

2. When it’s time to feed them again (at least 12 hours later), give them a bland meal of boiled chicken and rice. This won’t upset their system and will digest easily. Feed them this meal for a day or two and hopefully the diarrhea will clear up.

3. Gradually start introducing the food you want to try. For recurrent diarrhea, vomiting, and chronic skin issues, if you really want to stick to kibble, give GRAIN FREE pet food a try. Troubling symptoms like these are often caused by grains in commercial pet food. For thousands of years, dogs and cats ate what they were created to eat: raw prey, protein, bones, organs, etc. In the 1900s, commercial pet food started being manufactured for convenience, and it was made cheaply with fillers, carbs and empty calories. Dogs and cats were meant to eat meat and protein. It’s no wonder they often suffer a myriad of problems when they are fed dry cereal day after day. Grains are often the culprit; our pets sometimes become *allergic* to their food. Start feeding grain-free and see if it helps. My favorites are Nature’s Variety and Wellness.

4. Don’t feed just dry food, and don’t feed one food forever. Your pet should get some canned food every day, alone or mixed in with dry. You might even want to try feeding more canned than dry or all canned. There are a few reasons for this:

A) It is a myth that dry food keeps your pet’s teeth clean. You need to brush their teeth and take them to the vet for teeth cleanings regardless of what you feed them. Both of my kibble-fed cats lost their teeth and had to have teeth removed as they aged.

B) What is the main piece of advice that any doctor give you when you are sick? Get more fluids. This is true for pets, too, and the best way to get them more moisture is to FEED them more moisture. Canned food delivers more nutrition, more efficiently. It is great for prevention and helping during illness.

C) Kibble-only diets are notorious for causing carb addiction, which can lead to obesity and diabetes (just like in humans who love their cookies and bread and chips!). They also can cause kidney problems because of the lack of moisture, especially in cats who aren’t as keen drinkers as dogs are. I cringe when I hear that a cat had a UTI and is now to strictly only eat Science Diet kibble. There are better foods for pets with UTI’s than that food, and treating a bladder infection with only dry food does NOT make sense.

D) Pets need variety in their diet. Feeding only one food over time can cause allergic reactions and their body can start to “reject” the food. If you rotate their foods carefully, their system will not only get used to the variety but it will thrive. I often read about how the oldest living pets, such as Baby the cat, who lived to be well over 35 years old,  and Chanel the 20 year old Dachshund, were fed a large variety of food throughout their long lives, including whatever their humans were having. Of course you need to do your research about what NOT to feed your pet, but variety is the spice of life.

5. Some pets with compromised digestive systems cannot sufficiently break down and process dry kibble. Often these pets have Irritable Bowel Disease. You might find, as I did with my cat, that even grain free kibble does not end the diarrhea. The only cure for him was raw food, and I hope you’ll consider looking into that option if nothing else helps. (You can also try home-cooked meals; just do your research on the nutrients pets need. Dogs and cats have different needs.)

In response to my blog post about how raw food cured my cat’s vomiting and diarrhea, a representative from Nature’s Variety sent me the following email:

“I work as a demonstrator for Nature’s Variety and am absolutely ecstatic that our food helped your kitty so much! I also wanted to pass along some nutritional information that applies to both cats and dogs. There are four main things you want to avoid when purchasing any pet food. Check the ingredients for CORN, WHEAT, SOY and BY-PRODUCTS. Any food without those 4 should be an excellent food.

Corn, wheat and soy have little to no nutritional value and are used as inexpensive proteins (fillers). They can cause terrible digestive problems and also excess shedding and skin problems. By-products are what’s left after animals are processed for human consumption. It’s deemed unacceptable for humans but some companies think it’s ok to use as another source of cheap protein in their pet foods.

Another great tip is to use rotational feeding so pets don’t develop allergies or other problems associated with feeding the same food regularly. Plus they won’t get bored with their food!”

More info on this topic can be found at catinfo.org, a very helpful web site written by a Veterinarian Lisa M. Pierson. I hope it helps you as much as it did me!

**Note: I’m not saying not to take your pet to the vet. But if you have and you can’t find a problem,
or you don’t want to go on yet another round of antibiotics just yet, trying some of these ideas
might hit the gold mine. It did for me and my cat Oscar when I put him on raw food!

When a cat begins vomiting more frequently, or having diarrhea, many cat owners become nervous; myself included. Often we begin internet search before a vet visit, or after one if the vet has no or few answers for us. Early in 2008, both my cats began vomiting a few times a week and, more upsetting, my 13 year old Persian cat started having chronic diarrhea. Here is my in-depth account about how I cured my cat of his chronic diarrhea. I made one change to his diet and the diarrhea never returned.

A vet prescribed antibiotic, but the diarrhea only went away for 2 days and returned midway through the antibiotic treatment. The vet said if the antibiotic didn’t help, he would need to start performing tests for more serious ailments and it could be anything, even cancer. But I thought before going that route, I’d start researching cat food to get a better idea of what I was feeding them.

I had been feeding them Nutro dry and canned for years, and although I knew it wasn’t the healthiest brand available, I was comfortable with it because it was more healthy than the grocery store brands and one of the best at PetSmart.

After some research, I tried to switch him to California Natural, which was marketed as being free of fillers and better for “sensitive systems.” I started learning that cats bodies can start to reject a food that is fed to them too long, and their bodies can become “allergic” to it. No vet had ever said anything like that to me. I would later learn about IBD (Irritable bowel disease).

My cat’s diarrhea and vomiting did not improve even after a very slow, very careful switch to California Natural. The more reading I did, the more I kept seeing the phrases “grain free” and “raw food.” At first, I scanned completely over any article that said “raw” because that seemed too far off the deep end to me. I also didn’t think you could feed RAW food to a cat that was having diarrhea…after all, the vet had prescribed antibiotics because of bacteria, so how could I give my cat bacteria laden raw food?!

Then one day I stumbled upon a post from a cat owner on a pet forum whose cat was having the same symptoms as mine – diarrhea every day, vomiting every few days. She gave her cat raw food one day, and the diarrhea stopped that very same day. She said one month later, the diarrhea had not returned. Wow. If the result was that immediate for her, maybe I could give it a try. If the seemingly best commercial cat food out there (California Natural) and raw food didn’t help, then I’d go back to the vet for those tests.

I researched and researched raw food for cats and found a site by a veterinarian that explained it fully. She explained how to make it at home and even recommended a couple of pre-made brands that she felt were the next best thing if you really didn’t want to make it yourself. So I thought I’d buy one of these brands just to see if there was any change in my cat.

The brand I bought was Nature’s Variety. (Side note here: although I would love to sell their food at my pet gift shop, GoFetchGifts.com, I am unable to get it from any distributor because I do not have a loading ramp. So rest assured I don’t sell this food, I simply love the brand for saving my cat.) They sell three pound bags of one-ounce medallions. My cat, being a small 8 pounds, would need about 3 medallions a day. I defrosted one and put it in his bowl. Much to my surprise, Oscar–who had always been an OK eater but not an enthusiastic one–wolfed this medallion down like it was his first meal in weeks, then stared at me waiting for more! He had NEVER been that excited to eat in his life, except maybe the day I found him in a cold alley in Chicago during the winter of 1997. He never wolfed down aroma filled canned food or even dry food that fast. I couldn’t believe it and quickly defrosted another medallion for him, which was again wolfed down. My other cat wanted nothing to do with this weird raw food but I didn’t care about that right now, he was more healthy than Oscar.

So I sat back and waited, and watched. At this point, about two months after Oscar’s diarrhea had begun, he was leaving me about 5 runny piles per day (all over the house!); so I didn’t have to wait long. For the rest of the day there was no diarrhea. The next morning, he used the litter box and left a mushy, but almost solid dropping. The next day, completely solid. And that’s it. I kept feeding him Nature’s Variety raw, and the diarrhea and vomiting NEVER returned!

I got another surprise, too. Being a Persian cat, Oscar at one time was very fluffy. He hadn’t been fluffy for years, and I attributed that to his age. I had told vets that he had lost his fluff, but none of them ever said anything about it or seemed worried about it. Two weeks after Oscar’s start on raw, I looked at him one day and said to my friend, “am I crazy or does Oscar look a little fuller in his coat?”

One month later there was no mistaking it – Oscar’s fluffy undercoat was growing back for the first time in years!!! He was also more energetic. He was playing again. He was singing songs and chasing “ghosts.” He was a kitten again, at the ripe age of 13! Here I had been crying, thinking he was so old his body was failing him…thinking the tests at the vet would be so expensive I’d have to put him to sleep because I wouldn’t be able to afford care. And all I needed to do, for now, was change his diet.

So what had happened? Oscar had either become allergic to the food I’d fed him for so long, or his body could no longer break down and process any nutrition from dry food or even processed canned…possibly due to age. But I am now convinced that I hadn’t been giving his body the proper source of nutrients. He is a cat and I was not feeding him like one. And the entire pet food industry made me feel like I was feeding him the best. My friends and I had sworn by Nutro canned and dry for years. My cat was simply one of those cats that could not handle processed foods.

There are many options in feeding cats raw food. Click here to learn about the different ways to feed raw to cats. Some cats do fine on dry and canned food. But some cats don’t, and I would recommend all owners of cats suffering from diarrhea, allergies, and IBD to try raw food. It is unprocessed and grain-free, and it might be just what your cat needs.

There are also some natural treatments for diarrhea in cats that can be given instead of, or in conjunction with, antibiotics. These include probiotics and slippery elm, safe treatments you can buy today at a vitamin store.