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Turtlicious posted:So I introduced a kitten to my older cat Sega, (Sega is just over a year old, and the kitten is an indefinite age, but still little.) They aren't mean / meowling, they aren't really do anything bad and are just chilling maybe six inches from each other. Sega looked like he was going to take a swipe at the kitten once but I told Sega no and he stopped. (He raised his paw at the kitten.) That just really means you have two living cats. Everything else is up in the air until they're settled in for a while.  Lack of dismemberment doesn't count for everything. Our adult cat for example, never hit the kittens, but peed 12 inches outside the litetr tray every day until we built her somewhere to chill that the kittens couldn't get to.
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Feb 25, 2014 02:02
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What is the best cat tree at around the $120-150 price point? Looking for something tall with lots of shelves but a relatively small footprint ideally.
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Feb 25, 2014 07:00
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Turtlicious posted:So I introduced a kitten to my older cat Sega, (Sega is just over a year old, and the kitten is an indefinite age, but still little.) They aren't mean / meowling, they aren't really do anything bad and are just chilling maybe six inches from each other. Sega looked like he was going to take a swipe at the kitten once but I told Sega no and he stopped. (He raised his paw at the kitten.) Sounds like a good start. Don't worry about chastising the older one for swiping at the kitten. Swiping's fine in general, kittens are irritating and need to learn how not to be irritating. It's only a problem if blood is being drawn or it otherwise looks really serious.
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Feb 25, 2014 09:29
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God Over Djinn posted:What is the best cat tree at around the $120-150 price point? Looking for something tall with lots of shelves but a relatively small footprint ideally. Look at various armarkats on amazon
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Feb 25, 2014 15:39
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I feel so freaking horrible right now. I was unloading groceries and had a few empty grocery bags sitting on the table, and Toast managed to get himself caught in one. He completely panicked, and bolted around as fast as I've ever seen him run, slammed into a wall, stopped on the windowsill, peed himself and hissed at me out of fear before he finally let me get the bag off. Now he's putting very little weight on his front leg, so I think he hurt himself when he either hit the wall or while running. He's already putting a lot more weight on it than he was 20 minutes ago after it first happened, so I think maybe he pulled something or just landed on it funny. He won't let me touch the leg. The vet thought it was OK to schedule an appointment for tomorrow rather than today, at least. I just feel so guilty. All I did was turn away from a grocery bag for a few minutes.  I hope he can use his litterbox OK.And he's a loving idiot, because despite hobbling around he's still trying to get me to play with him.
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Feb 25, 2014 23:48
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So I know that not all cats have the react to catnip gene and I've heard that Australian cats in particular tend to lack it (since Australia is basically its own breeding population because you have to really try to import cats here) but if my cat devoured a patch of mint is it fair to say she's definitely going to like actual catnip too?
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Feb 26, 2014 06:02
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I have a dumb question about cat poop. I don't know how concerned I should be. My cat just did something interesting that I haven't seen - not that I regularly watch him poop or anything - but he threw up on the carpet. I've had cats that'll do this every once in while, and there was some hair in it, so it was probably a hairball extraction gone wrong, is what I figured. Then, as I was cleaning it up, he went to the litterbox. He pooped, like, a whole bunch. A lot for a small-ish cat like him, and then he seemed to strain for another good 30 seconds before he gave up and buried it and left like nothing was wrong. So my cat threw up, pooped a bunch, then strained to poop some more before giving up. Nothing really seems amiss beyond the straining. Exactly how worried should I be about it?
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Feb 26, 2014 07:55
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aghastly posted:I feel so freaking horrible right now. Aaah, bag loops. :3 It happens, I'm sure he learned nothing. I hope he's okay though.My giant tom cat managed to do something similar when I was out of the house. We worked it out via We'd had this large, shoebox sized wooden block with balls in it in the upstairs bathroom for the kittens to play with (they got shut up there at night to give the adults peace). We then added a giant rustly paper bag with around the block, big enough for an adult cat and the block inside it. Went out to see a goth gig, because Friday. Came home, couldn't find Witchkin. Eventually found him limping around upstairs with a back claw torn apart and bleeding, looking ashamed with a bag loop around his neck. Found the wooden block and the rest of the bag on the ground floor. He'd somehow ran around the house with a good pound of wood in a bag around his neck, and torn his claw in confusion. Thankfully he's a massive pudding and allowed me to clean and clip the stub so that it wouldn't cause any more mess, with just a little reproachful, "Meep!" when I'd finished. The two female cats would have shrieked my ears raw.
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Feb 26, 2014 11:00
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My crazy little 14 week old kitten has issues with sitting on your lap - unless she has previously crawled inside a plastic bag. Then she is a little love bug you can put wherever you like. I don't understand. Sounds better than being completely freaked out by bags though. 
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Feb 26, 2014 12:19
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one sexy loser posted:My crazy little 14 week old kitten has issues with sitting on your lap - unless she has previously crawled inside a plastic bag. Then she is a little love bug you can put wherever you like. I don't understand. Sounds better than being completely freaked out by bags though. Okay, that's almost eerie because my neighbour and I just rescued a cat about that age that looks a lot like the kitten in that picture. One night I heard this panicked mewing that I thought was one of my two, and I went to the living room to find that they were both just fine. The heartbreaking meows continued from outside my door, and I opened my door to see this adorable little grey kitten who was shivering from cold and terrified. We have a pretty big feral colony here, but she was knew. My immediate neighbours, being human excrement, threw some food at her (almost literally) and slammed the door in a panicked attempt to "keep her out!!!!" I found this exceptionally callous considering that they have two cats themselves, so I can only imagine what kind of life theirs have. My neighbour from two floors up was holding the kitten and we figured out pretty quickly that she was a housecat that someone abandoned. She was going to adopt her herself, but she found a very willing co-worker to take her. Happy ending to a sad story that I thought that I would share, given the similarity between the kitten in the photo above and the one that we saved.
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Feb 26, 2014 16:37
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Well, there was a last-minute cancellation last night, so I was able to get Toast in to see the vet. He's fine, nothing fractured and minimal swelling. The vet thinks he probably just whanged his shoulder really hard and it'll be inflamed for a little while. So they sent me home with an anti-inflammatory and told me to try to keep him from running crazy too much. They did have to sedate him at the vet, though, because he wouldn't let them even approach that side of his body without making horrible garbage truck noises and struggling. I had never seen him so drugged before; he was really kind of pathetic. Eat a few bites of food, flop over, eat a few bites of food, flop over. He spent a good portion of the evening staring at the wall. I was worried, again, because I'd never seen a heavily sedated cat before (he was neutered in the morning and was discharged at night, so a good bit of the sedation then had worn off). He's fine this morning, though. But I guess because he's trying to hide the fact that he's hurt, he's attempting to play as normal. 
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Feb 26, 2014 18:11
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I have a behavioral question about one of my cats. I have two, one male and one female. The female is 1-2 (we got her from the shelter and that's as specific as they got regarding her age) and the male is now 14 months old (he was 10 months when we got him). The female, Tonks, is very friendly with other cats and has great cat social skills. She's even managed to make headway with my roomate's extremely anxious/antisocial cat, and respects it when my roomate's cat draws back and hisses in a "don't come any closer, leave me alone" type way. The male, Lupin, is also extremely friendly and affectionate, towards both humans and cats, but it's like he wasn't raised around other cats or something. He doesn't seem to understand he has claws and uses them way too much in playing, and he totally ignores it when my roomate's cat tells him to buzz off. He just keeps advancing (not aggressively- his ears are forward, eyes fully open; he looks playful) until she starts growling and swatting at him, at which point he sometimes backs off. My roommate is moving out tomorrow, so I'm not worried about Lupin's interaction with his cat, but I am wondering about the behavior between Lupin and Tonks. They generally get along well, although I've only seen them sleeping together once or twice- usually Tonks tries to lay down next to him but then starts grooming him for like 5 minutes straight until he gets aggravated and swats her away. Normally they like to sleep within six feet of each other. But when they play, it almost always turns into fighting. They'll start out clearly playful, stalling each other and chasing each other around, and then one will pounce on the other and they'll wrestle a bit, and then one disengages and tries to run away but the other catches them. And then they're both sitting with their ears back and one paw up swiping at each other, tails swatting back and forth angrily. There's never any hissing or growling- I haven't seen that since Lupin kept trying to start a mating ritual with Tonks back before he was neutered. Just swatting and ears back and angry tails. Recently, Lupin laid down in the kitchen and Tonks just walked up to him, stopped, sat down and pulled her ears back and started swatting her tail she pulled her paw up and started swatting rapidly as Lupin rose to do the same. Usually there's only one "wrestling" engage if they even have one- it's mostly just swatting. I don't get what's going on. Normally they seem pretty friendly, and they've never had any real fights (with hissing and mewling and all that), but they seem to get on each other's nerves constantly. I suspect Lupin's poor cat social skills are a part of it. Is there anything I can do to help them sort whatever this is out?
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Feb 26, 2014 19:31
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Zandorv posted:I have a behavioral question about one of my cats. ... I don't get what's going on. Normally they seem pretty friendly, and they've never had any real fights (with hissing and mewling and all that), but they seem to get on each other's nerves constantly. I suspect Lupin's poor cat social skills are a part of it. Is there anything I can do to help them sort whatever this is out? If they aren't making noise, and aren't drawing blood, the general advice is that it's playfighting/establishing social pecking order. I'd just leave them be and they'll probably end up buddies. Also, there's something ironic about a cat named Lupin.
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Feb 26, 2014 19:46
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I got my girlfriend's cat a Da Bird as suggested in this thread and now she loves the poo poo out of me. Thanks, thread!
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Feb 27, 2014 06:37
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one sexy loser posted:My crazy little 14 week old kitten has issues with sitting on your lap - unless she has previously crawled inside a plastic bag. Then she is a little love bug you can put wherever you like. I don't understand. Sounds better than being completely freaked out by bags though. One of my kittens loves plastic bags too.. Whenever I'm putting the shopping away she climbs into one of the bags and likes it when I pick her up in it and carry her around hehe On another topic.. My kittens are going to be spayed next week on Wednesday and I'm so nervous I know it's so unlikely anything bad will happen to them during the surgery but I can't help but worry! I'd be so heartbroken if anything happened to them. The vet clinic it will be done at is where they've been for their checkups, vaccinations, etc, and they seem to really care for the animals that come in so I know they'll do their best to make sure there's no problems. At least this time next week it'll be over and they'll be back home being spoiled rotten while they recover 
Rah fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 08:18
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If you have a male cat, play this youtube video loud when they are nearby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbS8Alai_hw
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Feb 27, 2014 09:24
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aghastly posted:I feel so freaking horrible right now. Don't worry too much about this. Cats are idiots, but they do learn (sort of). Mine still does this, but doesn't freak out anymore. He loves getting into bags and licking the insides (weirdo) - something about them using animal fats in bag manufacture. But he'll run around with a bag as a super-hero cape when he's done. Sometimes I think he does it on purpose.
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Feb 27, 2014 10:36
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In three weeks we are driving cross country to Seattle with two cats, one being highly terrified of anything that ain't me and his last short trip down the road was a wreck. Our plan is getting two larger dog cages to keep them in with boxes and to drive the 38 hrs without stopping. We are bringing them to the vet to get check ups and I was going to see about sedation, at least to get him in the crate and on the way. I am also getting a harness and a thunder shirt in hopes he will be easier to manage or calm down a bit. Probably get a feliway spray too, but I'm not sure how much that will work. Any other advice or tips on what we are doing?
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Feb 27, 2014 15:56
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Duckie posted:In three weeks we are driving cross country to Seattle with two cats, one being highly terrified of anything that ain't me and his last short trip down the road was a wreck. Our plan is getting two larger dog cages to keep them in with boxes and to drive the 38 hrs without stopping. We are bringing them to the vet to get check ups and I was going to see about sedation, at least to get him in the crate and on the way. I am also getting a harness and a thunder shirt in hopes he will be easier to manage or calm down a bit. Probably get a feliway spray too, but I'm not sure how much that will work. Are thundershirts recommended for cats? I'd think that would further stress them out if their movement is restricted. Since your driving in one straight shot try not to worry *too* much. Short drives with turns and sudden stops are much stressful than just long stretches of highway. Pack plenty of spare towels and since you're giving them big crates give them disposable litterboxes(like aluminum baking trays or something) with some of their existing litter inside of them. If your cats are food crazy then wet food snacks really do help if they'll accept them. I feel for you, my parents are retiring and moving with the family cat from TX to MI (usually a 3 day drive) in the next few years and it's highly debatable the best way to go about it since there's no direct flights to where they live and it seems terrible for a cat to endure airport stress, a 3 hour flight followed by a 5-6 hour drive.
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Feb 27, 2014 16:35
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I was planning a 2 week vacation next month. My cat isn't extremely sociable and doesn't really like ever leaving the house. He's young and likes lots of attention basically from me only. I was planning to leave him with my roommate who is the one other person he seems really comfortable with, but I just found out said roommate is scheduled to travel for work the same two weeks i'm gone so he won't be able to do this. I have other options, like leave him with my parents or a cat sitter, but I'm worried that he will be miserable the whole time. My parents have a dog and a cat who he's been around for a few hours once or twice and hid most the time, and I think he would just hide on a cat sitter or at least be extremely inactive around them which is opposite to how he usually acts, even among my friends who he kinda knows. Even when I've left him with the roommate he likes for a few days in the past, he was reportedly acting a little depressed. I'm really tempted to cancel the whole trip and just reschedule it for some other time, which honestly I wouldn't really mind doing except for the fact that I feel it may not be a normal/healthy thing for a 25 y/o man to cancel a trip due to worrying about his cat and I'm not sure if this fact or the cat worries me more. Part of the reason I'm being overly paranoid is because the first cat I got right before this one from some people on craigslist was sick when I got him and had to be put down within a week of me getting him, which I later found out was probably due to the cat getting depressed when their owners went away for like a month and stopped eating. This was a pretty traumatizing ordeal for me. Any tips/advice? Am I normal?
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Feb 27, 2014 16:55
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Kerfuffle posted:Are thundershirts recommended for cats? I'd think that would further stress them out if their movement is restricted. Since your driving in one straight shot try not to worry *too* much. Short drives with turns and sudden stops are much stressful than just long stretches of highway. Pack plenty of spare towels and since you're giving them big crates give them disposable litterboxes(like aluminum baking trays or something) with some of their existing litter inside of them. If your cats are food crazy then wet food snacks really do help if they'll accept them. Well, they make them for cats? Haha, and quite a few people have reviewed it on amazon and most said it was ok. A lot of people said they just flopped there like cats are known to do. I just want to try to make it as best I can for him. I am going to wrap him in a towel to stick him in the crate because he FLIPS out when I tried to put him in last time, I wasn't prepared for it and it was a pretty awful experience for the both of us. I was def planning on getting disposable litter boxes and wet food(also so we don't have to have water at all times, they can get a lot of that from the food). I didn't think of putting in existing litter, but that makes sense. I was going to add in some of our shirts too just so they have something familiar in the car too(one cat loves my underwear for some reason, he rolls around like he's on catnip lol).
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Feb 27, 2014 17:07
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jjttjj posted:Any tips/advice? Am I normal? Moving house will be more traumatic than strange people. Get a sitter to check in on him every day - he may hide but he'll be fine as long as he eats. If you think it's likely that he won't eat, board him at the vet. It'll be stressful but unlikely for him to manage to starve himself.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:08
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Any tips on training a cat not to claw at the rug? I've heard a water bottle works, and we're trying to avoid a big scratching post.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:14
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Dirty Job posted:Any tips on training a cat not to claw at the rug? I've heard a water bottle works, and we're trying to avoid a big scratching post. Cats need to scratch something. Give him an alternative and you can teach him to use it instead of the rug.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:17
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Dirty Job posted:Any tips on training a cat not to claw at the rug? I've heard a water bottle works, and we're trying to avoid a big scratching post. I've had good luck with this thing: http://www.walmart.com/ip/SmartyKat-SuperScratcher-Plus-Cat-Scratcher-Cats/3363306
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Feb 27, 2014 17:19
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Dirty Job posted:Any tips on training a cat not to claw at the rug? I've heard a water bottle works, and we're trying to avoid a big scratching post. Get a bunch of cardboard scratchers, I'd say at least 2-3; deterrents won't really work unless you offer sufficient alternatives too and like Deteriorata said, they'll need to scratch something.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:31
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Dirty Job posted:Any tips on training a cat not to claw at the rug? I've heard a water bottle works, and we're trying to avoid a big scratching post. I have bought cat scratchers, and that's helped. The Turbo Scratcher is a hit. My secondary defense is having cheap, lovely rugs instead of nice ones.
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Feb 27, 2014 18:31
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Duckie posted:Well, they make them for cats? Haha, and quite a few people have reviewed it on amazon and most said it was ok. A lot of people said they just flopped there like cats are known to do. I just want to try to make it as best I can for him. Worth a shot then. You could do a test run before you move and see how your cat reacts. Good luck!
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Feb 27, 2014 19:22
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Where is a good place to get cute cat collars?
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Feb 28, 2014 16:49
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Silver Nitrate posted:Where is a good place to get cute cat collars? I love Cloe's Collars! http://cloescollars.com/catalog/index.php He is so pretty :3  toilet gets one too: 
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Feb 28, 2014 17:59
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Silver Nitrate posted:Where is a good place to get cute cat collars? I got mandy and nelly's from here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/graciespawprints I really like them. Good customer service, too. When mandy's showed up, it was sewn together the wrong way (most of the pattern was on the inside of the collar). Emailed her, and she immediately sent a replacement + threw in an extra collar.    And they're pretty sturdy. mandy's has held up for about a year, and she normally destroys them:  (I have NO idea how she managed that  )
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Feb 28, 2014 18:44
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CORN NOG posted:I got mandy and nelly's from here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/graciespawprints I just saw they sell cat/dog dresses.. I so want to buy some for my kittens, Sophie and Chloe. I bet they'd look super cute in them.
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Feb 28, 2014 19:18
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Rah posted:I just saw they sell cat/dog dresses.. I so want to buy some for my kittens, Sophie and Chloe. I bet they'd look super cute in them. Do it do it do it doitdoitdoit do it and post lots of pictures.
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Feb 28, 2014 22:02
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Duckie posted:Well, they make them for cats? Haha, and quite a few people have reviewed it on amazon and most said it was ok. A lot of people said they just flopped there like cats are known to do. I just want to try to make it as best I can for him. I am going to wrap him in a towel to stick him in the crate because he FLIPS out when I tried to put him in last time, I wasn't prepared for it and it was a pretty awful experience for the both of us. I was def planning on getting disposable litter boxes and wet food(also so we don't have to have water at all times, they can get a lot of that from the food). I didn't think of putting in existing litter, but that makes sense. I was going to add in some of our shirts too just so they have something familiar in the car too(one cat loves my underwear for some reason, he rolls around like he's on catnip lol). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TteYkDkfE0 Cat thundershirts will never not be hilarious.
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Feb 28, 2014 23:14
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SynthOrange posted:Cat thundershirts will never not be hilarious. agreed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOcfS7xwVfY
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Feb 28, 2014 23:25
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This is my life now.
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Feb 28, 2014 23:40
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So I have three cats, and two of them have been sick lately. Sam (11 years) has a spot on his lower back that is extremely sensitive, dry (I see flakes of skin) and patchy. There is almost no fur in that entire spot and if we even touch around the spot he swivels his head to nip and meow. We've brought him to the vet since it started and he always said "It's fleas and he is having an allergic reaction to the flea meds" So we've been brand hopping to eliminate fleas and try to help but it didnt work. A few weeks ago we took him back (Fun fact the receptionist knows Sam by his piercing meow now!) and now the vet thinks it's an allergy to food so we switched to Blue Buffalo Wilderness and holy poo poo I am seeing improvements in all three cats. Sam is losing weight and his coat looks silky yet fluffy plus his spot isnt as flakey or red!! The other two are just silkier than ever and their poops arent as smelly! The second cat that's been sick is my sweet little boy Octavian (4 years). He is a very curious cat, likes to walk around the house and explore/poke his nose in everything and see what everyone is doing. Lately though he has been hiding, hiding behind the couch, under the bed, all the way in the basement in a box, under my nightstand. He was very lethargic and hardly ate or drank. He ended up peeing on our couch and laying in it. This all happened so quickly that I thought he was gonna die. I even slept on the floor with one arm under the bed touching him so if he DID die, at least he was being petted by one of his parents. We brought him into the vet and he discovered one of his kidneys was way bigger than it needed to be and his white blood cell count was wayyy higher than it shouldve. He was put on antibiotics and a special wet food to ease him back into eating but still provide him with nutrients he needs and oh my god in 3 days he is almost 100% back to himself. It really makes you appreciate the little things they do when you seriously think one of them will die. I never thought I would miss almost running into him putting groceries away or hearing him jump up on the toilet for pets.
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Mar 1, 2014 05:15
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in_cahoots posted:9 litter boxes for 11 cats actually isn't that great. The general rule of thumb is 1 box/ cat. Are the boxes cleaned every day and emptied every two weeks? They are cleaned every day, if not multiple times a day, and emptied every two weeks -- and she lives in a five bedroom house with a furnished basement; there's plenty of space for all of the cats. And it's just the one cat that does it, and she's been consistently doing it for basically forever.
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Mar 1, 2014 07:40
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One of my cat's claws looks weird!  (artist's impression, photography proved too hazardous) It's got a whole bunch of green carpet fluff caught under a ragged edge, and it looks like a tiny new claw inside. Will the rest shed normally? He doesnt seem to be avoiding using that foot.
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Mar 1, 2014 09:46
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My 2 year old cat started having sneezing and wheezing fits about a week ago. We took her to the vet on Thursday. He suspects a viral infection and prescribed an antibiotic course to ward off any bacterial infection that may stem from it. He also expressed concern that she was breathing abdominally, and asked us to make a follow up in this coming week, once the infection has cleared up. She's been on the antibiotic 3 full days now, and we aren't seeing much improvement. She seems to be helped by keeping her in a humidified room, but continues to sneeze every half hour or so. The abdominal breathing has also continued. Googling for information about it is not encouraging, and I'm pretty concerned. It seems very odd that she has no symptoms such as discharge from the eyes or nose, loss of diet, lethargy (she's never been much for activity). Should I be concerned?
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Mar 1, 2014 10:21
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