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Anne Whateley posted:My parents' cats all have fleas, so please talk us down off the ledge. They have three, two long-hairs and a short-hair. All are inside cats, inside 100% of the time, no patios or balconies or anything like that. They're all up-to-date on shots. Current theory is that a flea jumped onto someone's cuff outside and jumped off inside to find a feast. Fleas are a relatively easy fix, all things considered. I mean it's super loving gross and stressful, but manageable. There are tons of tips online. Flea baths, flea treatments, and basically NONSTOP VACUUMING for a while will knock the little things right out, especially if the cats are sequestered indoors as they are. So tell your mom not to stress out! Just deep clean the place and put them on some flea meds for a bit and you'll be right as rain.
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Dec 28, 2015 08:02
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GimpInBlack posted:OH MY GOD. These guys sound like irresponsible assholes, I would keep the cat. If they're willing to leave him in lost and found like an object I would seriously wonder if they'd put up the money to get his hip fixed or if they'd take the easy route and have him put down when he becomes inconvenient.
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Dec 28, 2015 09:36
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I need some opinions about introducing cats when one of them is super shy. I know that best practice is generally meant to be wait until the new cat is comfortable in its isolation room before starting to introduce them together, but I'm thinking that in this particular case it might be better to put more effort into introducing them right now. Both cats are three years old, desexed females and both are very well socialised with other cats and have a strong history of being very very good and patient with and loving other cats. The new cat is very, very shy and scared right now. She's lived in the same foster home for all of her three years and has no idea what the gently caress is going on with these aliens kidnapping her. She spent a week in my bathroom huddled in her cat carrier and has now spent a further week in a different room, mostly huddled behind a desk but sometimes emerging for a little bit while I'm there and definitely having a bit of a wander while I'm not there. She's eating, drinking and using the litter box just fine but isn't showing any interest in dealing with me whatsoever. I'm just being patient and not bothering her and waiting for her to adjust. Anyway, first cat has mostly been acting scared and intimidated rather than offended or anything. New cat came with a pillowcase from her foster home which I put under the first cat's food bowl, so she's had to deal with smelling her scent everywhere when she's eating which she was a bit scared about at first but eventually got over. Basically, it seems to me like both cats are scared of each other but neither is aggressive, and it feels like if I had them interact more they might both realise quite quickly that the other cat is not a threat. I'm thinking that since the new cat is very cat-social, she might learn to trust another cat faster than she learns to trust me, and then my first cat could demonstrate for her that I'm really very nice and not a threat either. Is this a really bad idea? I have a lot of experience with individual cats but not with introducing cats who actually like other cats.
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Dec 28, 2015 13:11
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They're a pain in the rear end but not insurmountable. A flea bath plus treatment will eliminate them over time You'll want to vacuum the house like crazy for a month or so. I had fleas in the house and used store bought raid spray as well, which seemed to help. Obviously if you do that you'll need to quarantine the cats somewhere for however long you're supposed to stay away from it.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:10
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One note on the fleas - I had no luck with OTC drops for the cat. I ended up using a seresto flea collar and that took care of the cats problem. I'm told advantage is the best one for drops.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:14
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Don't even necessarily need to use a special flea bath if you're going to put on Advantage afterwards, just a regular bath will drown any adults currently on the cat. Doubling up flea bath + advantage has the (small, but not insignificant) chance of making cats sick cause you're basically doubling up the dose of pesticides they get. So just give them a good scrubbing with regular bath soap and put treatment on them immediately afterwards, the bath will wash away adults and the treatment will handle the eggs. Vacuum your house really well making sure to dump the bag/canister outside, and after you vacuum spray all the baseboards, corners, hidden areas and unvacuumable places with this stuff. We've had SPCA foster kittens in the house with fleas three times now. We've always managed to get rid of them easily by doing those steps I just outlined.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:23
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Organza Quiz posted:I need some opinions about introducing cats when one of them is super shy. I know that best practice is generally meant to be wait until the new cat is comfortable in its isolation room before starting to introduce them together, but I'm thinking that in this particular case it might be better to put more effort into introducing them right now. Both cats are three years old, desexed females and both are very well socialised with other cats and have a strong history of being very very good and patient with and loving other cats. The new cat is very, very shy and scared right now. She's lived in the same foster home for all of her three years and has no idea what the gently caress is going on with these aliens kidnapping her. She spent a week in my bathroom huddled in her cat carrier and has now spent a further week in a different room, mostly huddled behind a desk but sometimes emerging for a little bit while I'm there and definitely having a bit of a wander while I'm not there. She's eating, drinking and using the litter box just fine but isn't showing any interest in dealing with me whatsoever. I'm just being patient and not bothering her and waiting for her to adjust. You can't force them to trust each other. Give them time to work it out on their own. Cats have their own social systems and rules that you can't duplicate. It may take a couple months before they're comfortable.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:48
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Vet gave them all Capstar instead of a bath. In 24 hours everybody gets Revolution, which we'll do for the next few months. They gave us a spray for the house, but every inch still needs to be vacuumed and every bit of fabric gets a hot wash and dry. Fingers crossed that will do it! Thanks for the reassurance.
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Dec 28, 2015 17:31
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i like nice words
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Deteriorata posted:You can't force them to trust each other. Give them time to work it out on their own. Cats have their own social systems and rules that you can't duplicate. It may take a couple months before they're comfortable. That's not what I was asking. Right now I have them pretty much completely separated in separate areas of the house and I'm specifically avoiding them meeting until the new cat feels more comfortable coming out of hiding and I can start with things like feeding them on opposite sides of the door at the same time. What I'm asking is whether I should let them meet sooner so that they can start working their poo poo out and realising the other cat isn't so bad sooner or whether it's more likely to just stress the new cat out more and cause things to go badly.
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Dec 28, 2015 17:50
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Organza Quiz posted:That's not what I was asking. Right now I have them pretty much completely separated in separate areas of the house and I'm specifically avoiding them meeting until the new cat feels more comfortable coming out of hiding and I can start with things like feeding them on opposite sides of the door at the same time. What I'm asking is whether I should let them meet sooner so that they can start working their poo poo out and realising the other cat isn't so bad sooner or whether it's more likely to just stress the new cat out more and cause things to go badly. In that case, all you can do is try it and find out. It may be hiding specifically because it smells the other cat. I've never sweated much about cat introductions. There's always stress, but they're cats. Stress is their life. They get over it pretty quickly.
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Dec 28, 2015 18:22
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I've been tube-feeding my cat for several weeks now and, despite some technical difficulties, things are going well. Her liver is improving and she's been eating on her own more often. Do you think she understands what's going on when I tube feed her?
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Dec 30, 2015 00:32
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Deteriorata posted:In that case, all you can do is try it and find out. It may be hiding specifically because it smells the other cat. I must have been blessed with my cats- When we got the first one, he was in the ensuite for about 45 mins before he bashed that door down to explore the bedroom, then about 30 minutes later he was trying to remove the paint off the bedroom door to explore the rest of the house. Second cat was about 2hrs in the laundry, then both of them were yowling at the dividing door between em, so we let them meet, they hissed once, ignored each other for the rest of the day and at the end of the fortnight kitten piles! This whole experience has been somewhat followed with the curse of grain intolerance on one cat and a very easily frightened and traumitised second cat. Win some, Loose some.
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Dec 30, 2015 11:56
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I have a question about introducing cats that I'm sure has been asked before, but it's a long thread and I couldn't find it while searching through. After two weeks in isolation we're introducing a new kitten to a 6 year old resident cat, and we don't know how much aggression is considered too much and when to intervene? The resident has been stalking and chasing the kitten, which I know is normal, but at what point should we step in and separate them?
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Dec 30, 2015 17:05
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LondartAssassian posted:I have a question about introducing cats that I'm sure has been asked before, but it's a long thread and I couldn't find it while searching through. After two weeks in isolation we're introducing a new kitten to a 6 year old resident cat, and we don't know how much aggression is considered too much and when to intervene? The resident has been stalking and chasing the kitten, which I know is normal, but at what point should we step in and separate them? If there's an actual fight.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:04
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Bismuth posted:These guys sound like irresponsible assholes, I would keep the cat. If they're willing to leave him in lost and found like an object I would seriously wonder if they'd put up the money to get his hip fixed or if they'd take the easy route and have him put down when he becomes inconvenient. Yeah, we're absolutely keeping him. Fortunately the law's on our side: in Montreal, after three days with no apparent owner, an animal is considered "abandoned" rather than "lost," and it took them 9 days to contact us. They also never filed a missing pet report with the SPCA or posted on any lost pet boards/Facebook groups/etc. that we checked. And we checked a lot. In other news, Ned had his combination "fix the hip/lose the balls" surgery yesterday and came through like a champ. Two weeks of strict bed rest and a few more of light activity and he'll be good as new. Pics when my wife gets back from picking him up. EDIT: Behold the cone of shame: 
GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 19:35
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We've got 2 boy cats and 2 girl cats and the only problem we have is the older boy cat Rodney is not a fan of the younger boy cat Carl. He doesn't have a problem with either of the girl cats, but he's aggressive towards Carl. We initially tried to let them work it out but it ended up with Carl making a trip to the ER for an abscessed bite on his tail. Now we keep the cats separately paired up when we're not home. Rodney and the older girl Blakely have bonded more and Carl and the younger girl Tipper play with each other so it's a natural pairing. Rodney and Blakely hang out in the master bedroom and Carl and Tipper get the rest of the house. When we are home we put a harness on Rodney (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007KAX8DO/ref=s9_dcbhz_bw_d0_g199_i1_bs) and open the bedroom door giving everyone full access. Rodney will still yowl at Carl and chase after him, but with the harness on he's not fast enough and can't jump high enough to get to the younger boy. It's very strange, when we let them all out there are many times where Rodney and Carl can be both laying on the bed 2 feet from each other and Rodney couldn't care less, he's even gone up to Carl and got a big whiff of his tail and then just walked away, but then there's times where no matter what we do Rodney fixates on Carl and we have to get in his way and redirect him. We also started giving Rodney amitriptyline from our vet, which does seem to chill him out some, but we still have episodes where Rodney chases Carl up on a table. We've tried positive association and reintroduction, making sure Rodney gets 30 minutes of hunt play a day, we have 3 Feliways going in the house, and they've been living together since Feburary 2014. I know you can't expect any given two cats to be best friends, but if there's anything we could do to stop Rodney from treating Carl like prey and/or Carl acting like prey we'd do it. Do you guys have any thoughts? EDIT: Also, we got them in February and had our first trip away from the cats that May. Before the trip there was some minor aggression from Rodney but nothing that required this level of separation. After we got back we noticed the aggression had gotten worse and it was July 1st that year when we had to take Carl to the vet ER. Reik fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 23:19
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GimpInBlack posted:Yeah, we're absolutely keeping him. Fortunately the law's on our side: in Montreal, after three days with no apparent owner, an animal is considered "abandoned" rather than "lost," and it took them 9 days to contact us. They also never filed a missing pet report with the SPCA or posted on any lost pet boards/Facebook groups/etc. that we checked. And we checked a lot. I'm so glad he's staying with people who care so much about him.
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Dec 31, 2015 00:40
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My boyfriend's cat is peeing directly outside the litter box. He apparently had an issue peeing in different spots in the last house, which my boyfriend countered by putting boxes in all those spots and cleaning the boxes every time they were used. The cat likes to hold it all day and take one big dump and one big pee, and he prefers a spotless box. He has never pooped outside the box, just peed. He wasn't having any issues in our new (August) house until a few weeks ago, when we saw a puddle in front of the box he liked. We disinfected and deodorized it, and tossed away the litter mat that might have caught some scent, and saw another puddle a couple days later. Boyfriend noticed a crack in the box and hoped that might be it, so we bought a new box. All the cats liked it, including problem cat, and then a few days later the puddles appeared again. We had to go out of town and bought puppy pads to put in front of the box so our sitters would have an easier time, and he used several of them. We got back a couple of days ago and he's gone through two more pads. He does it overnight, so we can't catch him in the act. We shower him with praise if we do catch him in the box, and he uses it sometimes, just...not all the time. To clarify, we clean the boxes at least twice a day, so they're not dirty. Suggestions?
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Dec 31, 2015 14:02
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Zaftig posted:My boyfriend's cat is peeing directly outside the litter box. Generally a trip to the vet is in order to rule out medical stuff. If it's painful for him to pee he may start associating the litter box with pain. I had this issue and it turned out to be feline idiopathic cystitis (I think that's what it was?) which is basically "it hurts to pee for no real reason." In my case we got another litter box and placed it far away from the other one, got a bunch of feliway diffusers and made sure to clean up messes thoroughly with that natures way stuff that breaks down the enzymes. We also resorted to puppy pads. The vet prescribed pain meds and an anti inflammatory which we gave the cat for two weeks. She stopped doing it after a month or so.
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Dec 31, 2015 16:28
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Zaftig posted:My boyfriend's cat is peeing directly outside the litter box. How many cats and how many litter boxes do you have? What I've seen recommended is having 1 more box than you have cats to prevent any territorial disputes. Maybe with the new box it took a few days for one of the cats to claim it and after that he wasn't comfortable entering the other cat's territory. The fact that it only happens when you guys aren't present also makes me think it might be a societal situation. Reik fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 16:32
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Re: associating pain with the litter box, wouldn't that extend to pooping as well? He's fine going in there to poop. I won't rule it out, but given his prior history of sporadically peeing in different spaces, I don't know if that's the case. We have three cats and two boxes. We originally had three boxes but one of them was never used, so we went down to two boxes and the cats seemed cool with that. One cat is more abrasive and uses a different box, and problem cat likes the one box he pees outside of. My cat uses both boxes. I've seen my cat and problem cat use the box right after each other, and they're generally pretty friendly with each other; my cat only bullies problem cat about food. It's mostly happening when we don't see it because we're asleep, but it's happened once while I was in another room and problem cat was by himself with the box. We're going to try sprinkling catnip in the box and see if that helps, and then try three boxes again if it doesn't. Vet visit will definitely follow if he shows any symptoms, but otherwise I think we'll wait until they all need shots in a few months.
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Dec 31, 2015 17:03
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Zaftig posted:Re: associating pain with the litter box, wouldn't that extend to pooping as well? He's fine going in there to poop. I won't rule it out, but given his prior history of sporadically peeing in different spaces, I don't know if that's the case. I'd definitely try adding in a couple more boxes temporarily and see if the behavior persists. Also, if it's a urinary tract issue, it might not extend to pooping, just peeing.
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Dec 31, 2015 17:09
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I've got a 9 year old indoor-only Maine Coon mix that has been losing weight and coughing and I'd love some advice about how to manage the symptoms. His vet appointment two weeks ago didn't turn up much- lungs were fine, only abnormal labs were high creatinine (maybe from weight loss) and low white blood cell count (maybe from acute stress). We're going to retest the blood panel in two weeks to see if there's a pattern of decreasing white blood cell count. The vet recommended working on asthma triggers by removing dust, getting a humidifier, and switching his litter (my husband picked up Arm and Hammer around when the coughing began). He also suggested we consider an elimination diet. Since I got back from vacation and I have started cleaning more aggressively, bought a humidifier, and bought new litter. But I don't want to try an elimination diet just yet, since they're already eating a fairly high quality chicken-based diet (Simply Nourish Senior). I'm nervous about the weight loss (16.5 lbs -> 14lbs in an unknown period, maximum of a year). He was mildly overweight to start so he isn't underweight yet, but he's on the low end of normal based on rib feel. He seems to be less interested in food, mostly eating the broth out of his canned shredded chicken and eating way less kibble. If our scale is accurate enough to judge this, he's lost .3lbs in two weeks. How do I get him to eat more? What else should I be doing? dopaMEAN fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 20:39
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dopaMEAN posted:I've got a 9 year old Maine Coon mix that has been losing weight and coughing and I'd love some advice about how to manage the symptoms. Do you guys do any hunt play before eating? The typical wild cat routine is hunt -> kill -> eat -> sleep so maybe chasing around a feather toy for 15-30 minutes before meal time would encourage him?
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Dec 31, 2015 20:53
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Reik posted:Do you guys do any hunt play before eating? The typical wild cat routine is hunt -> kill -> eat -> sleep so maybe chasing around a feather toy for 15-30 minutes before meal time would encourage him? We don't! They've always been free fed, but we might need to start feeding them twice a day to monitor intake and such, so this is a great idea! His sister is about 14 years old and only 10 lbs but she restricts his access to the food bowl until she's had her fill. So we're uncertain about what would happen if they were fed for a limited period. Do you think adding broth to his dry kibble (along with upping the wet food frequency) would help?
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Dec 31, 2015 20:59
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dopaMEAN posted:We don't! They've always been free fed, but we might need to start feeding them twice a day to monitor intake and such, so this is a great idea! If you switch to timed feedings a switch to wet food in general might be best, unless their current diet is vet recommended. Wet food is generally seen as a healthier option but you can't really free feed with it. They make food bowls designed to slow down the cat while it tries to eat, so maybe if you gave his sister one and gave him a normal food bowl they'd finish around the same time.
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Dec 31, 2015 21:03
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Reik posted:If you switch to timed feedings a switch to wet food in general might be best, unless their current diet is vet recommended. Wet food is generally seen as a healthier option but you can't really free feed with it. They make food bowls designed to slow down the cat while it tries to eat, so maybe if you gave his sister one and gave him a normal food bowl they'd finish around the same time. How can I feed wet food without going broke? We tend to feed Simply Nourish, and if I follow their guidelines I would have to give him 3 cans and her 2 cans per day. That's $5 a day, which we don't really have in the budget right now unless it's vital. We have a baby coming in June and are trying to be careful- the current cat budget is $60/month, not including vet costs.
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Dec 31, 2015 21:07
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dopaMEAN posted:How can I feed wet food without going broke? We tend to feed Simply Nourish, and if I follow their guidelines I would have to give him 3 cans and her 2 cans per day. That's $5 a day, which we don't really have in the budget right now unless it's vital. We have a baby coming in June and are trying to be careful- the current cat budget is $60/month, not including vet costs. I kinda cheat by wetting otherwise dry food. Being paranoid about my cats' water intake, I really wish I could do wet diets, but I simply can't afford it. What I do instead is get one of the "high-end" dry foods, and then add a splash of water to each serving. My cats lick up the gravy as they eat the kibble without too much fuss. v  vNote - I do mealtimes, and the cats usually eat their meals without delay. I would be more hesitant to hydrate kibble that's going to be sitting around much longer than half a day. Additionally, I ended up steering away from Nature's Variety Instinct because it has "a coating of freeze-dried raw chicken" and I didn't feel comfortable rehydrating raw chicken. Alehkhs fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 21:14
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Alehkhs posted:I kinda cheat by wetting otherwise dry food. Being paranoid about my cats' water intake, I really wish I could do wet diets, but I simply can't afford it. What I do instead is get one of the "high-end" dry foods, and then add a splash of water to each serving. My cats pretty eagerly lick up the gravy as they eat the kibble. v Awesome, I actually just bought some low sodium broth today so I'll probably offer that plus kibble available twice a day for about an hour? I think their kibble doesn't have any raw meat... I'll add the actual canned tasty stuff once every day or two for interest. Should I remove their food bowl now?
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Dec 31, 2015 21:18
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dopaMEAN posted:I've got a 9 year old indoor-only Maine Coon mix that has been losing weight and coughing and I'd love some advice about how to manage the symptoms. If they suspect asthma, you might want to ask about inhalers. Made a huge difference for my cat.
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Dec 31, 2015 21:24
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Dienes posted:If they suspect asthma, you might want to ask about inhalers. Made a huge difference for my cat. Thanks, I'll do that when we recheck the labs!
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Dec 31, 2015 21:26
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dopaMEAN posted:How can I feed wet food without going broke? We tend to feed Simply Nourish, and if I follow their guidelines I would have to give him 3 cans and her 2 cans per day. That's $5 a day, which we don't really have in the budget right now unless it's vital. We have a baby coming in June and are trying to be careful- the current cat budget is $60/month, not including vet costs. I'd try and go by calories instead of volume regardless of what they eat. 15-20 calories per pound depending on how active they are is a good measure, but if you're going to be seeing the vet when you recheck those labs you should ask them. We feed our cats Innova Evo which is about 540 calories a cup, so we can feed our cats around half a cup each and they're maintaining weight just fine.
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Dec 31, 2015 21:46
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Reik posted:I'd try and go by calories instead of volume regardless of what they eat. 15-20 calories per pound depending on how active they are is a good measure, but if you're going to be seeing the vet when you recheck those labs you should ask them. We feed our cats Innova Evo which is about 540 calories a cup, so we can feed our cats around half a cup each and they're maintaining weight just fine. Ok. Given the 365 calories/cup in Simply Nourish senior, I'll give Fival 0.75 cups a day and Sadie 0.5 cups a day. Sadie, the 10lb female, is getting a bit chunky in her dotage so maybe we'll reduce that a bit eventually. I just dumped their big food bowl out, we'll be feeding them at 7:30am and 6pm from now on I guess!
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Dec 31, 2015 22:39
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Are you sure the creatinine was high? Weight loss with loss of muscle mass results in low creatinine.
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Jan 1, 2016 03:03
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Braki posted:Are you sure the creatinine was high? Weight loss with loss of muscle mass results in low creatinine. No- I knew it flagged but it's been two weeks so I could have the direction wrong.
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Jan 1, 2016 08:32
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Help. Cat introductions are going poorly. My resident cat (Apricot) is a 10 y/o spayed female. Pretty skittish, but comfortable at my place. New cat (Poinsettia) is a 7 y/o spayed female. She WAS terrified and hit in a blanket entirely at first, refusing to go anywhere, but that has almost completely disappeared. I kept them separate for two about two weeks, first behind closed doors, then with the door cracked while I was there. Apricot would hiss a little, but otherwise didn't seem to care, so I opened the door all the way. Apricot would hiss, then eat her food or whatever, so I left the door open. Poinsettia has decided to turn into an rear end in a top hat now, though, so she spends most of her time hiding under my bed or something, until Apricot's head is turned or is walking away, at which point the new cat runs up on her and takes a few swats or just scares the poo poo out of her. I know some conflict is normal, but it is getting to the point where Apricot starts taking legit aggressive stances (ears back, crouched low, growling instead of hissing) if she sees Poinsettia walking towards her. Poor cat is stressed out as all hell too. Any suggestions? I don't want to take Poinsettia back to the shelter.  I don't think I could separate them again - I live in an efficiency style apartment. I had her in a large closet at first, but any attempts now to put her back in there go really terribly (she's small and fast and darts out the second the door opens).
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Jan 1, 2016 17:16
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IuniusBrutus posted:Help. Cat introductions are going poorly. That all sounds completely normal. I don't see what you're worried about. Cats will naturally assert and defend themselves, it's all part of their social interactions. The charging and hissing is about setting limits for each other. Neither wants an actual fight, so they'll just strut and hiss and show off. Whacks are with claws in, bites are with jaws open. You don't have a problem unless there is actual blood. Otherwise it's just cats being cats.
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Jan 1, 2016 17:36
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Just before Christmas we took our cats in for their booster shots and annual checkup. Things are generally fine but the vet observed that Cinnamon is starting to get a little tubby, while Loki has actually lost a bit of weight(although he's still a perfectly healthy weight) since the last time we brought him in a few months ago. My guess is Cinnamon is hogging the dry food - we feed them sachets of fancy wet food(James Wellbeloved Turkey) in the morning and some cheapy dry stuff(Go-Cat Indoor) in the evening, and while both of them gobble up the wet food in one sitting they tend to graze through the evening on the dry food and I think Cinnamon is doing more grazing than Loki. We've gone back to serving the dry food in one of those puzzle ball things to slow her down a bit and force her to work for her food, but I don't love this solution because we end up with bits of kibble all over the drat floor. And if she's determined enough, she'll still end up eating a lot more of it than Loki does. I'm not sure how to go about controlling the amount Cinnamon eats while ensuring Loki is still getting enough. Part of the problem might be that the Go-Cat probably isn't a terribly well-balanced food, so if we changed to something better it might help Cinnamon maintain a healthier weight? There are so many different brands of food though, I'm not sure what's good. All the recommended ones in the Nutrition thread are US brands, so I'm not sure which I should be looking for here in the UK. The other thing that came up in their checkup is their teeth - they're starting to get plaque buildups, and if we want to avoid expensive/stressful trips to the vet for scaling we need to start taking better care of their teeth. I know you can get cat toothbrushes/toothpaste and while I don't think we'd have too much trouble getting Loki used to the idea, Cinnamon does not like being prodded and handled unless she initiated cuddle-time herself. The vet mentioned that we could get 'dental food' instead that I guess is some kind of kibble that scrubs their teeth while they eat, but that sounds too good to be true to me. Still, I'm not a vet. Can any UK goons recommend a good 'dental food' we could try(solving two problems with one buy?), or should I just get the toothbrush and start getting them used to having their teeth brushed? How often should you brush a cats teeth, daily?
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Jan 1, 2016 18:35
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Deteriorata posted:That all sounds completely normal. I don't see what you're worried about. Cats will naturally assert and defend themselves, it's all part of their social interactions. I wouldn't be so worried, but Apricot is very clearly pretty stressed out - she normally is very affectionate and patient with me, for example, and since the other cat has been out in the open she has changed quite a bit.
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Jan 1, 2016 19:36
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IuniusBrutus posted:I wouldn't be so worried, but Apricot is very clearly pretty stressed out - she normally is very affectionate and patient with me, for example, and since the other cat has been out in the open she has changed quite a bit. Of course she's stressed, she's terrified that the new cat may rip her to shreds. The sooner you let them sort out their issues and make a truce, the better off she'll be. Cats are always stressed. Relax.
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Jan 1, 2016 19:38
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