My kitten died.

Hi Dr Marie,

We came home on Sunday after a night away (less than 24 hours) to find our poor kitten had died overnight. Gizmo was 10 weeks old and had just been to the vet a week before to get his FVRCP, pronounced perfectly healthy apart from a small limp he got when jumping from my husband's shoulder. :)

We lost another 3 month old kitten earlier this year to what looked like cardiomyopathy (his legs went completely limp, he went very slack and started crying, and within an hour - on the way to the emergency hospital - he had passed away). But we don't know what happened to Gizmo because we weren't there - and yes, we feel absolutely wretched for leaving him!

We had thought he would be OK overnight, we left plenty of dry food and water, etc. The first thing we noticed when we got home was some dry food scattered on the floor, then we noticed Gizmo lying close to his food bowl, and realised he had died. He was lying as if asleep and there were no signs of any accident or struggling.

We wondered if maybe he had choked on his dry food (we recently switched to IAMS and noticed the pieces were larger than the Royal Canin we were using). He had a habit of swallowing without chewing. Could this be possible, or, what are the chances of the same thing (cardiomyopathy) happening twice to two unrelated kittens? Both were rescued from the Humane Society and we had both for less than a month before they died, but gave them plenty of food, water, love and play in those short weeks.

I really don't want this happening again, if there is anything we might be doing wrong, but I have lived with cats for most of my life (until I went to college) and never had any issues. Any thoughts you have would be welcomed.

Jen