Animal control is doing it's absolute best. The staff there and the administrators who run the organizations are at least as well educated re the overall situation of cat over-population as any of us. They resort to euthanasia because they understand it is the most humane option for unwanted animals. If you have an unwanted cat, take it to your local animal control center and let them deal with it in the most educated and humane way possible. People make it seem like "kill" shelters are the evil option. They aren't sitting waiting, drooling, over their next batch of stray cats they get to kill. They have exhausted all other options, and known that euthanasia, while unpleasant, is better than the other alternatives. If you are going to bother putting a stray cat in your car and transporting it somewhere, please take it to the nearest shelter--kill or no-kill. And offer a donation while you are there.

JJ, Renal failure is extremely common in elderly cats (and often in not-so-elderly cats). Unfortunately, it is as variable a disease as are the number of cats who endure it. There really are no "norms" where renal failure is concerned. There are cats who live for years after diagnosis, and there are cats who fail very quickly. The only thing you can "expect" with renal failure is the inevitable end. It is a terminal diagnosis. As lf mentioned, many of the symptoms of CRF are manageable. The keys to management of CRF are education and vigilant caretaking. You have already been given the URL to one CRF website, but the website which I consider to be the "CRF Bible" is linked below. If you spend as much time as possible reading through these sites, you will learn a tremendous amount about this disease, its associated ailments, and its management. There is nothing more important you can do for your cat right now than to educate yourself about CRF. To answer your questions, at-home subQ fluid administration is a critically important skill to acquire and practice. Your vet can and should teach you how to do the fluid administration, and the websites offer pictorial tutorials to reinforce the procedure and offer helpful tips that your vet might not mention. You'll probably find it a bit nerve-wracking at first, but you'll get the hang of it, and your cat will become more and more cooperative as you become more proficient. It really is a life-saving procedure that provides considerable health benefits to the CRF cat with negligible (if any) discomfort. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of CRF is that a cat's condition can change from day to day, sometimes hour to hour. A cat who is critically ill one day may rally to relative health the next ... or not. We CRF caretakers tend to hold out for the next rally because it's so difficult to tell when a bad day will turn around or when it really does mark the end. If your cat does require hospitalization at some point, you will just need to trust your instincts and your knowledge of your own cat to help you decide whether to give him a chance to rally or to let him go. I, too, have a cat who is in the early stages of CRF with slightly elevated BUN and CREA values. He's my fourth CRF cat, and I know that he could become critical at any moment, or he could live in reasonable health for years. I've been down this road before, so I know what to watch for. I'll be having bloodwork run on him every 3 mos or more frequently if he becomes symptomatic. When his brother developed renal failure a year ago, I couldn't get his condition stabilized and was having to run bloodwork every couple of weeks to keep up with his changing blood values and symptoms. Unfortunately, I lost Bitsy just 3 mos after diagnosis. My first CRF cat, though, lived quite happily for 4 yrs after diagnosis. That's how variable this disease can be. I know you must be feeling overwhelmed right now, and you'll probably feel even moreso once you start reading the CRF websites. Don't let all the info make you crazy. I had to read the same info many, many times before it sank in and stuck. Just remember that the more you know about this disease, the better you'll be able to manage your boy and keep him comfortable and reasonably healthy for as long as possible. I wish you and your cat the best, Laurie Here is a link that might be useful: Tanya's CRF Information website

I have not had a lot of luck with 'training' cats to get along, and behavioral modification in cats can be frustrating (many cats seem to want to be the only ones in the home and misguided attempts to get them a 'friend' often end in disaster). Still ,it is certainly worth trying. I have several clients who own cats and have one 'bully'. Sometimes fluoxetine works well for these cats (I have actually had very good success with this medication when used for this purpose in cats). This is the generic for Prozac and it's now sold as Reconcile specifically for animals. This drug works very well, too, for anxious cats that tend to have behavioral urination problems (way better than any other medication I have tried). I know medications are not the cure all for behavioral problems, but some do help a lot, often saving a pet from being sent to the pound for euthanasia. Still, in some homes, there remains some tendency for fighting and a constant tension may exist... and some of these owners elect to separate the cats into a few permanent groups if possible.

Young people about to marry and have kids, should honestly rethink the whole pet ownership thing and indeed in these troubling economic and polictical times their own morality, there are 6 1/2 billion humans on our planet, the earth can only physically substain 12 billion and what quality of life is that?, no pets, wildlife, no fresh air,water, no nature. indeed seriously if humans don't start fixing each other on a scale like we do animals one day cannibalism, and death will become the norm as food either becomes too expensive to get or runs out. Most of the humans in the world are starving and dying from diseases. Our very lives are so for so many of us dull and depressing at work, it seems amoral to have kids, not adopt but have kids. Pets are wiser for couples to have IMO because they don't aid to the growing human problem, they don't grow up, get drunk, not liston to your advice, go to parties,do drugs/ect. Spoiling a pet is better then a child because pets unlike humans never grow up and leave you, the real world (if you never rehome) is their world of love and I can get whatever I want as long as it isn't violent, nasty ect. Do that to a human child and your doing one of the meanest things you can do to someone. As for a pet getting along with kids, you can put the pet in another room, mix blankets that have baby scent, slowly introduce the two, ect.