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duckfarts posted:Go for a scissors-style one no more than $10, if it's not sharp enough, return it. More money doesn't equal a sharp/decent pair here, and deluxe doesn't mean poo poo. Hopefully you have a local store you can do returns at. I don't recommend human nail clippers for handling reasons, and because scissor style ones are slightly curved on both sides when they guillotine the claw for a better cut. That said, stay away from guillotine style clippers(where you put the claw through a hole instead of scissors style where you put the scissors around the claw) because they loving suck to deal with when you have a squirmy cat. Do you put the scissors around the nail side-to-side or top-to-bottom and then clip? Or does it even matter? I have a pair but keep trying to figure out the specific logistics before I burrito my grumps. Overthinking is the death of me.
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Nov 9, 2012 23:12
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Thanks a ton! I managed to do all of the front paws today. I'll let them resent me for a day or two before trying for the back.
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Nov 10, 2012 05:27
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My cats are super picky with their toys. The older ones (aged 10 and almost 11) aren't usually playful at all but when they and/or our younger (age 6) one get going, all they will play with are these crinkly balls filled with catnip and with a feather attached. They're only available in pack of 2, sadly. Can anyone think of a similar toy they might like?
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Apr 8, 2014 06:31
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Don't try to check her on your own, get her to a vet. My grandma's cat stopped being indoor/outdoor after he fell off a fence and into the neighbor's yard with their dogs. He didn't have external injuries but a vet visit revealed a broken jaw, cracked ribs, and a small, easy to miss bite wound on his stomach that abscessed and required a drain. He got a pain patch and had to eat first spoon-fed wet food mixed with water followed by eating it under his own power and eventually back to dry food.
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Mar 13, 2015 09:55
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Someone posted not too long ago about having a cat with fatty liver wondering about feeding tubes. One of mine got a feeding tube put in today and I'm glad to keep them/the rest of this thread informed about how it goes. First post with details will likely be tomorrow.
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Oct 20, 2015 22:59
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Rena got hers in yesterday and she's currently so weak that there was a chance of her not surviving the sedation. She hid her not-eating for a long time somehow and we're giving her 13ml of food/water through the tube every 4 to 5 hours along with plenty of medication. Her energy is already a little better so I hope it's just fatty liver; X-rays showed one kidney a lot smaller than the other and thick or inflamed intestines. We're taking everything with her one day at a time and hoping we can figure out how to pay for it all since Care Credit turned us down.
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Oct 21, 2015 23:15
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I figured I'd update on the other cat with a feeding tube around here. Hers had been in for two weeks now and while she nibbles a few pieces of Kitten Chow or Greenies, it's not enough yet. And not drinking means we still give her fluids; she's really calm about the needle. I, on the other hand, am the exact opposite of calm. My stomach is in constant knots and I fear that any little trouble with the tube is going to continue to cost more than we can afford. My wife is running a small fundraiser but it's not going too well. No recent pics because she's at the vet today and everything else is on my wife's phone. I'll edit one in later.
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Nov 2, 2015 19:29
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Making an appointment to get Rena's tube out once my wife wakes up! She's eating and drinking reasonably on her own and we hope the mirtazipine we get today will make that even better.
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Nov 4, 2015 17:43
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Mine seems to have come through her fatty liver incident no worse for wear. We still have mirtazipine to stimulate her appetite, but she almost doesn't need it anymore since she's eating pretty well on her own. Her jaundice is gone, her energy levels are back to normal, and her spine doesn't feel quite as bony so she must be gaining weight back little by little. All that's left is a patch on her neck where the fur's growing back slowly. In the meantime, it's nice and fuzzy.
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Nov 16, 2015 03:14
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Your area might have other private rescues too. For example, my wife and I volunteer with a local TNR group that also socializes the kittens of ferals and hands them to no-kills. We just finished with a brother/sister pair who were ready to be fixed and adopted out. The sister is shyer and got a parting shot on my hand when we were loading her into the carrier, but they're always worth it.
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Feb 5, 2016 05:48
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Klungar posted:Does anyone have any experience with Costco/Kirkland-brand versions of cat food? We've been feeding our two neutered male indoor only cats Blue Buffalo dry food since we got them, but now that we have a membership to Costco we were curious how their stuff measured up. I looked in the Pet Nutrition thread and didn't see Costco/Kirkland listed in there, so figured I'd just ask here. It's pretty good. We use the orange bag for our three and they all have really soft coats and love to eat it. The rescue my wife and I volunteer with feeds their resident cats the purple bag kind and, cat specific health problems aside, it seems good to them too. And on the dental work note, one of ours needed six teeth removed in September because of abscesses and other issues. She's missing her top canines now and the rest were molars. If we could've prevented that by having the money for preventative measures, we would've saved ourselves a lot of worry.
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Feb 18, 2016 12:53
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Invest in Feliway diffusers. It's calming kitty pheromones that make a situation more chill. And if they're calmer and associate this calm with the other cat, they might not hate each other or poo poo everywhere.
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May 16, 2016 08:55
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If you only want one cat, ask for one that likes being a solo cat. It gets the animal out of a really stressful situation and means you never have to worry about finding them a companion. Middle-aged cats, like 7 to 9 years old, are also awesome because they still have a lot of life in them but have generally mellowed out from being shitheads. Generally. My three range from 9 to 15 and still have holy terror moments.
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May 16, 2016 22:56
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As far as space goes, my wife and I keep 3 cats in a 650 square foot apartment. We also foster solo or pairs of kittens. Give them vertical space and places to hide so they can get away from each other when desired.
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May 20, 2016 03:15
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fknlo posted:
As someone who volunteers with strays and feral cats, my guess is 8-10 weeks. Remember that cats can be spayed or neutered as soon as they weigh 2 pounds.
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Jul 24, 2016 23:28
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Use Google liberally to find out if there are local charities if you can't afford a feeding tube on your own. Myself and one other poster here had cats who ended up on them last fall and they were lifesavers. I was outright told mine might not survive getting the tube in, but she did and now she's both regained all her weight and become friendlier. Whether or not you go that route, I'd also suggest learning how to administer subcutaneous fluids. They're the fastest way to rehydrate an animal.
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Aug 25, 2016 08:11
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Contact the TNR anyway. They'll probably scan him for a microchip if he's tame before they give him surgery and medical care, and if you want to adopt him from there you should be able to. Otherwise they can get him sent to a rescue where he'll be able to find a good home.
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Sep 1, 2016 02:37
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If you took in Sardine as an adult, there's no way she was truely feral as a kitten. There are a couple of important socialization windows for kittens to get used to humans; without them they develop the anger and shear terror that ferals have.
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Sep 4, 2016 04:17
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Vampess posted:Update on the kittens, saw one in the exact same place, pretty much right next to the road. BF says they're the neighbor's cats, which is probably true, in the sense that they're the offspring of. Sadly no one here seems to spay/neuter their cats, and an indoor cat is a novelty. BF said there's probably more kittens, but these are more adventurous, and I honestly think he's just telling me that to not take them inside. You shouldn't have to pay anything if it's a specific TNR program versus taking them to a vet or the local shelter.
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Sep 20, 2016 15:53
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I feel that declawing a polydactyl's extra claws if they're constantly causing the animal pain is one of the few reasonable uses of the procedure, the other being an aggressive cat that would otherwise be put down. One of ours has a normal number of claws but one just ended up ingrown for the second time and we're gonna keep a really close eye on it from now on.
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Oct 5, 2016 06:34
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Everyone with issues getting new cats to get along needs to invest in a Feliway diffuser. We had to take in a fourth who's basically a kitten (her previous human wanted to declaw her and then said we should just take her after we tried to talk her out of it) and our others are 9, 12, and 14. You can see the problem here. Molly, the new cat, has way too much energy for the others most of the time but with the diffuser they're all chill with each other to the point where our oldest ladies will try to bathe Molly's head and they curl up near each other. The only half-serious arguements are over who gets the top spot on the cat tree. Molly's previous home had her shut in a closet so she's a bit nervous of being in the bedroom or bathroom with the door shut. She was also clingy at first, needing to be on a person or petted all the time, but that's relaxed over the last couple of weeks. Now she's fine just jumping onto the shower chair when we're in the bathroom or resting near us instead of on us. And we got the large mats near her butt trimmed off, which is awesome. I think four officially makes my wife and I Crazy Cat People but we're okay with this.
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Oct 15, 2016 09:14
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m.hache posted:Awesome. Seconding that this is a good cordless vac. We use it for litter and other small dry messes around the apartment.
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Jan 13, 2017 06:42
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I'm on a break from my TNR volunteering, but we work with the city and rescues so we have internal numbers on the cats taken in by the various groups either as strays or surrenders as well as our own numbers on how many cats we take in a year for surgery. In the last 3-4 years, the number of strays and ferals taken to the city for adoption or euth has decreased so dramatically that often we give particularly tame cats and kittens directly to the city to be adopted out instead of strictly to private rescues. The city simply has that much more room for animals now. And as a whole, we're taking in fewer animals than in previous years which is direct proof that the colonies we're aware of can no longer reproduce at their former rates. There will always be new colonies to find and treat, new hoarders to try and work with, and new cats abandoned, but I believe firmly that any problems of TNR are vastly outweighed by the measurable benefits to a city. I know that Hawaii in particular has a huge battle on this issue because cats are invasive and terrible to the wildlife, but euthing strays and ferals still isn't the answer to me. Slow and steady wins out in this case.
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Feb 4, 2017 06:53
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One of our ladies is getting old and arthritic so we got her a foam orthopedic style bed to rest on on the floor rather than jumping up to the bed or couch all the time. Of course she doesn't have any interest in it, but our other older girl does.
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Jun 13, 2017 04:01
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First I'd say get them to the vet to see if there's any medical cause.
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Jun 27, 2017 02:09
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the escape goat, if you're asking because you're worried about Cat 2 also getting sick, you have nothing to worry about. ALL isn't caused by the FeLV virus.
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Aug 13, 2017 09:03
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Forced cuddles. Hold him lightly by the scruff and pet both his belly and up in his armpit. He's young enough that with enough holding, playtime, and treats, he'll come around with time.
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Oct 2, 2017 03:26
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Brigdh posted:Any tips on getting kittens to eat more? I've got a pair of 10 week old kittens that are smaller than I feel they should be, and are not consistently putting on weight. OP of the foster thread should have my rescue's recipe for supplemental formula. I can't link because I'm on my phone.
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Nov 2, 2017 06:34
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There's no "may be" because this place is going to be the ones to call and talk to - http://www.bayareaa4a.org/tnr/
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Jan 5, 2018 05:33
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Yep! Forced socialization for street kittens just means give them lots of cuddles. Try to touch their toes once in a while so they get used to it and their claws can get trimmed easier as they grow. This also means flip them onto their back like you would to examine their bellies or toes. They'll squirm but if you do it a little longer every day or two, they'll get used to it. Your older cat will also get used to it the more they're around. He may never love them but in general shouldn't be aggressive towards them. Also, try to weigh the kittens every couple of days to make sure they're growing well and don't need supplemental feeding.
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May 30, 2018 02:41
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Catnip is part of the mint family, so it will take over whatever place you plant it in. You can give it to them fresh because I know nothing about drying it out.
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Jun 7, 2018 07:23
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If anyone needs kidney diet wet food, my family has 22 cans of chicken flavored restricted diet that we don't need anymore we're willing to ship as long as recipient covers the cost of sending it.
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Jun 26, 2018 03:29
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I took care of my grandma's cat once after some dogs roughed him up and broke his jaw. Had to feed him wet food mixed with water while it healed and he had a kitty fentanyl patch that made him pretty groggy while it was on.
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Jun 27, 2018 09:08
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Koaxke, I don't have the link handy but someone else should be able to link you to Chili's thread where he got Butterscotch to lose half his weight with slow changes.
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Aug 28, 2018 18:45
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Agreed. Terminal or medical fosters are a thing some rescues will do -- they'll cover medical expenses and the foster family gives them the best life possible while they're around.
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Sep 23, 2018 08:21
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We have a big thing of Greenies but our cats run for Meow Mix Ocean Explosion. They're to the point where they think anything resembling the sound of that packet opening makes them run to us and they'll delicately take the treats right from our hand.
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Oct 11, 2018 03:08
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Existing bonding pairs are harder to adopt out, I believe, so if you specifically look for one the rescue/shelter will be thrilled.
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Nov 16, 2018 12:09
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Sudden behavior change in an older cat is definite cause for a vet visit to make sure there's no medical reason.
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Feb 2, 2019 03:36
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There's a flu vaccine for humans that's nasal drops and at work we ask parents if their small child has had any in drop form so in theory I see nothing wrong with this. Don't have mental energy to look up the specifics on the one you mentioned at this hour, so hopefully someone else will add to what I know.
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Jun 14, 2019 12:43
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Two of my three like that exact same type because of the noise it makes. We let them have it for a bit while it catches their interest and their the plastic out once they've moved on to something else.
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Jun 19, 2019 21:37
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