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Deteriorata posted:Your admonition about never letting cats outside is rather over-the-top and silly. Whether cats should be able to roam unsupervised is entirely context dependent. We live in a suburb with little traffic and few predators. Our cats go outside whenever they want (as do all the neighbor cats) and there have been no incidents at all that I'm aware of in the 20 years we've been living here. The average dog, let to roam around, is just an rear end in a top hat that knocks over trash. They don't form packs and fall to anarchy because their owners are being douchebags. But there are laws to stop dogs from roaming because it's a lovely douchebag thing to do to let your pets tear up other people's poo poo. The same goes for the average roaming cat. Our neighbors think their cats need to ROAM FREE to experience the wilds like Simba so they can have fulfilled lives, and their precious little Simba spends his time digging up my loving flowerbeds and being a dick to my cats through the windows. I can't leave my windows open in the spring because of their lovely cat not being on their property. But hey, it's totes fine because we're in the country and there have been no incidents and they don't think it's dangerous. I asked them to please at least keep their cat on their property, but they tell me they really can't and it's cruel to keep cats indoors.
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Mar 14, 2014 19:52
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Even if the cat is safe, it's going to be murdering all the local birds and small animals. My parents kept their cats outdoor only because we lived on a quiet, residential street with very low traffic (in fact a dead end street). Every weekend my sister and I would have to take spades out to the front yard and shovel the dozens of mice, birds, small rabbits, and moles they would leave for us. One died after getting into a fight with another cat (also let to roam free) at 10 years old, one wandered off never to be seen again 16, and one was shock and surprise, hit by a car at age 2. Supervised is one thing, but in my opinion a cat ought to be leashed or penned just like a dog, because just like a dog it can decide to roam off where you can't get it, and unlike a dog it's not as easy to train them to always come back when called. And, unlike a dog, a cat's climbing/exploration/play/mental needs can be met easily indoors with enough effort.
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Mar 14, 2014 20:33
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Here is Oreohead enjoying the great outdoors: That's as far as he goes.  If I'm busy watching TV, I'll put a baby gate in the doorway. He's too old/lazy/scared of the outdoors to jump it. There's no A/C in my building so I have to open doors and windows in the summer to avoid melting.It's really nice to have a cat who is too scared of the outside (I'm on the 2nd floor and up the hill a bit from the main road, but if a particularly noisy car/truck drives past down there, he darts back inside) so I don't have to worry. I'm an indoors-only advocate. ETA: several years ago, he had to live with my (now ex-)in-laws for a few months. I told them over and over that he's an indoors-only cat. I was especially worried because they live on a lot of land in Texas and coyotes had killed several of their cats just a few months before. So what did they do? Let him go outside. He killed wild bunnies.  He came back to me with fleas, ear mites, and worms. Awesome. They didn't even help with the vet bills for all that crap, either. So yeah: lots of dangers outside. He has shown no signs of wanting to go back to that life, and he lived peacefully with 3 different pet bunnies over the years (one of which bullied him!).  (and a chinchilla who liked to hide behind things and jump out to scare him)
baxxy fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 20:59
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Whelp, Biopsy for the cat came back, she has cancer, and she is going to die soon. Good thing we spent about 900 fixing her teeth though! My next cat is going to get a new vet.
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Mar 14, 2014 21:22
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It doesn't matter if you don't think your cat will get run over, either way it's still killing birds and other indigenous species. And it still might get run over, or get a disease, or in a fight, or poisoned. E: beaten
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Mar 14, 2014 21:22
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drunk asian neighbor posted:So my cat, after 3-4 years of being good, is now developing a wire-chewing problem. I zip-tied most of the computer cables together and above the ground, which helped, but he just loving loves thin power cords. I've already gone through 2 each power adapters for my modem and router. I've tried 2 different kinds of bitter sprays, rubbing alcohol, hot sauce, etc. on the cords, but no dice. It's a pretty big area under my desk I'm trying to make him avoid, so those air-spray things probably wouldn't work. Any advice? They even make 1/4" split loom which wouldn't be too ridiculous on thin cables. We have a chewer cat at home (though she prefers meaty cables, like HDMI & power strip feeds) and it took split loom + keeping doors closed when unsupervised to stop the chewing. Also, you may want to have your vet look at your cat's teeth & gums in case irritation in its mouth is causing the sudden chewing problem.
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Mar 14, 2014 22:00
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My three cats are all strictly indoor, and we have collars on them just in case they ever escape. The collars we use are not safety collars, since we've heard the safety kind come off too easily. We make sure to get the collars tight enough so it's very unlikely that they could get caught on something. But sometimes in the back of my mind I still worry. My two older cats have worn theirs for three years without issue. We recently put one on our one-year-old cat. She is much more active and acrobatic than the other two so I can't help but worry a bit, even though I can't even picture anything in our house that the collars might get snagged on. Have any of you actually experienced or heard first hand stories of indoor cats getting hurt from non-safety collars? Am I being foolish using them?
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Mar 14, 2014 23:34
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The point of safety collars is that they come off if they snag on something. My kittens used to pull theirs off when we first collared them but they've gotten used to them now and the catch is sturdy enough that they don't just fall off. Cats do all sorts of silly things, squeeze into small spaces and jump off tall cat trees or furniture, so I'd be really wary of non-safety collars. Even if it's unlikely that they'd get caught on anything, with a non-safety collar that unlikely scenario could injure or even kill your cat. Elasticated collars are almost worse as cats can get themselves tangled up in the silly things. Speaking of collars, can anyone recommend me a good place(an Etsy store maybe?) that sells pretty, sturdy safety collars with nice tags? Our local petstores mostly seem to sell cheapy-looking things and the ones we have are okay I guess but they've gotten a bit battered from being scratched at during the wtf-is-this-on-my-neck phase. I'd like to get something with a flat tag that goes along the collar instaed of dangling off it, but I feel like that's too much to hope for with a cat collar as they're so small already. My kittens are indoor-only and chipped, but I want to accessorise - and I feel like if they did get out, people are more likely to notice a cat with a collar - especially if said collar says 'I AM AN INDOOR CAT - I AM LOST!'. My area is full of outdoor cats(this is the UK, it's the norm) and only one of them I've seen wears a collar. floofyscorp fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 23:43
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As long as your cats are chipped it doesn't really matter if their safety collar comes off if they escape. Your cats are chipped, right?
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Mar 14, 2014 23:47
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TheAbortionator posted:Whelp, Biopsy for the cat came back, she has cancer, and she is going to die soon. I'm sorry to hear about your kitty.  It's good you were the kind of owner who cared enough to take care of those kinds of things for her.
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Mar 14, 2014 23:58
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NewcastleBrown posted:As long as your cats are chipped it doesn't really matter if their safety collar comes off if they escape. Your cats are chipped, right? Yes.
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Mar 15, 2014 00:27
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I couldn't find the diet megathread anymore for pets? It is all archived, I think. If I am wrong, I will move this post... My fat cat, Gimli, was adopted in the summer. We didn't mean to get a fatty but he kind of won our hearts over with his "hey here is my belly, please touch!" attitude... and he was so fluffy and fat and gah! Anyways, after many months on orijen, his weight kind of stayed around 16-19 pounds no matter what. We have tried to give him wet food, but he has diarrhea from any little nibble he gets. We got a huge giant cat tree, he has a lot of toys, we play with him often, and we have three levels of floors he must travel through each day if he would like to sleep, eat, and poop. For Orijen, he was eating about 3/4 to 1 cup a day. He was sometimes gaining, but mostly maintaining. We took him to the vet to see what was going on, because it would be great if he could get healthy - we want to have him for a long time! The vet weighed him and gave us this new diet food to feed him. He said it had a lot of filler to make him feel fuller, and that he was supposed to get 1 and 1/4c a day. Everything I read a while back said filler is bad, which is exactly why I buy the expensive fancy pants orijen. Anyhow, I figure he is an educated man and I should probably just go along with it. He weighed in two weeks ago at 7.5kg, today he weighed in at 9.2kg! Ahhh! Total opposite of what we wanted. The vet was super skeptical that I was not monitoring the food and that he was eating Bert's (our other cat's) food. I said that was absolutely not the case, we sit down there with Gimli and feed him. When he is done, we put it away. Bert's food is out of limits for Gimli, as he is too fat to jump that high. The vet didn't seem to believe me, and still wanted to continue on with the same food for the same amount.... And now that is why I am posting here. I have also suggested to the vet every time we see him (it has been four times now) that maybe he should get a blood test, and each time shoots me down, just tossing it to me not watching him eat. I just started tonight mixing Orijen with the diet food to get him back on it. I don't really trust this food now or trust the vet. He gained just over 4 pounds in two weeks! So this is where you guys come in. Do I really believe in the vet and his "diet" plan? Or do you think I should just switch back to Orijen and 100% monitor his food intake like how we have been with the "diet" stuff? Before when he was on Orijen, we measured out his food, but didn't really watch or know how much he was eating. I feel like if he gets back on Orijen and we do what we're doing now (watching him eat and then putting it away) that he would lose weight. He is indoor, approximately 2 years, neutered, and p cute. "Diet" food:  Orijen:  Fatty in question: 
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Mar 15, 2014 01:08
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jacido posted:Fatty in question: He's gorgeous! I would say: 1. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3549663 2. Get a new vet. Yours sounds awfully dismissive.
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Mar 15, 2014 01:21
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I free feed my cats that exact flavor of Orijen and to my untrained eye, they have maintained a steady weight over the last couple years. Or rather, my husband's untrained eye. I have a tendency to fret that Wheatley is too skinny and losing weight, but this is due to judging him against Abby, who is a lady of substance. And I second baxxy's opinion. A very handsome cat.
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Mar 15, 2014 01:22
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jacido posted:Fatty in question: Please mail me that gorgeous boy so I can squeeze his fat belly.
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Mar 15, 2014 01:33
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Aww thanks everybody! He loves you all too (truly! He loves everyone!). I don't know how I missed the pet nutrition thread, I guess it helps if you aren't looking for the word "diet" ahah. Thank you!
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Mar 15, 2014 01:51
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jacido posted:For Orijen, he was eating about 3/4 to 1 cup a day. He was sometimes gaining, but mostly maintaining. If you go back to Orijen, drop him to 2/3 cup per day, down to 1/2 a cup if he loses nothing for a month. My large-framed male cat lost and maintains on considerably less than the bag suggested for his ideal weight with a different food. On the plus side, the weight he's added is likely mostly water retention.
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Mar 15, 2014 02:16
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Yeah, my cats only eat 1/2 cup of Blue Buffalo spread out along the day. 3/4-1 cup seems high, let alone 1.25 cups of the new stuff.
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Mar 15, 2014 02:26
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Hey guys, so I've got myself a 7 week old lil rear end in a top hat who's taken to biting/scratching my and my partner's hands and feet. What's a good technique to stop the adorable fucker from doing this, as I don't want him to keep it up when his claws are no longer just pin pricks.
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Mar 15, 2014 02:51
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Facepalm Ranger posted:Hey guys, so I've got myself a 7 week old lil rear end in a top hat who's taken to biting/scratching my and my partner's hands and feet. You can teach them to do it without extending the claws and not hard bites, thats what I did, be rewarding when he is gentle, and go "OW OW" and pry him off when he gets painful to let him know you do not approve of it, thats what I did.
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Mar 15, 2014 03:40
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AtomikKrab posted:You can teach them to do it without extending the claws and not hard bites, thats what I did, be rewarding when he is gentle, and go "OW OW" and pry him off when he gets painful to let him know you do not approve of it, thats what I did. Ah cool. That's pretty simple, my girlfriend has been doing that and talking to him to explain his actions I thought about hissing at him and tapping his nose like a mother cat would do but, was unsure if I would make a grudge against me, so I'm glad I asked here first. In other news he did very well at his first visit to the vet, he's ears got cleaned and by the end the q-tips were pretty dirty. The vet clipped his nails so now his playing doesn't hurt as much but, he can still climb and poo poo. He was a bit scared at first and fell asleep after the vet was done. The whole check up with medicine and ear drops and 2 cans of shiba only cost ¥270 which isn't too bad. He's now asleep in my arm as I type this and I want to get up. The adorable little fucker.
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Mar 15, 2014 04:23
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David Cattenborough bites or scratches me pretty much every time I come near. I've had him for exactly 14 days now. Is this normal? Do you think he'll ever stop? I haven't even gotten to the point that I can pet him really yet. Is this cat some sort of feral monstrosity?  I wasn't expecting the adoption to go like this. My boyfriend wants me to take him back to the shelter but it would break my heart to give up so soon.
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Mar 15, 2014 04:23
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No playing with hands and feet with claws or teeth EVER, even gently, needs to be your rule, Facepalm.
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Mar 15, 2014 04:26
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Topoisomerase posted:No playing with hands and feet with claws or teeth EVER, even gently, needs to be your rule, Facepalm. So how do I stop the lovable little poo poo?
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Mar 15, 2014 05:38
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Yell every time she claws you and walk away.
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Mar 15, 2014 05:39
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dongsbot 9000 posted:Yell every time she claws you and walk away. gotcha!
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Mar 15, 2014 05:41
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So, my cat likes my fiancee more than me (to be fair, that is just good taste) but I miss my girl. What can I do to make her love me again?
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Mar 15, 2014 06:36
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Shbobdb posted:So, my cat likes my fiancee more than me (to be fair, that is just good taste) but I miss my girl. What can I do to make her love me again? Feed her. Seriously. Beyond that, cats often fixate on a single person for primary affection. This can drift with time and they can open up to more people, or shift their affections to another, so you're not necessarily forever unrequited. It's the classic bit about cats picking their people. You can't make her cuddle with you, but you can force her to at least acknowledge you by being the one who feeds her.
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Mar 15, 2014 06:53
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I followed the thread title's advice. 
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Mar 15, 2014 06:59
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caiman posted:My three cats are all strictly indoor, and we have collars on them just in case they ever escape. The collars we use are not safety collars, since we've heard the safety kind come off too easily. We make sure to get the collars tight enough so it's very unlikely that they could get caught on something. But sometimes in the back of my mind I still worry. My two older cats have worn theirs for three years without issue. We recently put one on our one-year-old cat. She is much more active and acrobatic than the other two so I can't help but worry a bit, even though I can't even picture anything in our house that the collars might get snagged on. Slightly late to the party, but yes a couple we know came home to find their cat had been strangled by his collar when it got caught over their backyard fence. If your cats don't go outside then obviously "fence" stops being a hazard, but "thin objects that can get caught under collars" do not. I use safety collars on my cats and I've probably lost about 4-5 over 2 years. However, my cats go outside in them so they get left in all sorts of random places - and the way I see it, for every time they pop their collars that's another time I count that they have avoided hurting themselves in a situation where a normal collar would not have broken away. For snazzy safe collars, I like SewSmooth on etsy. And for fatcatchat: Not all vets really know or care much about the nutrition side. My old vet informed me that all cat food is created equal and that I could waste my money on premium brands but it would be better to just feed my cats whatever's cheapest from the supermarket. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 15, 2014 08:03
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I have a cat 'training' question (ahahaha). One of our cats, Pedro, is a total rear end in a top hat when it comes to food. Before we got him he used to be free fed dry stuff with a bit of wet in the evening, but he was quite overweight so we have switched to a largely wet food diet, 3 times a day. However he meows LOUDLY and for a long time before feeding time is coming up. Not so bad in the afternoons/evenings, we are either out or can distract him with playing or something. However he has taken to meowing from 5am, constantly, when we normally get up at around 7am. As much as I love my kitties I can't take 2 hours of sleep deprivation every morning! What I normally do, which I'm hoping isn't too much of a mean move, is to get up, let him follow me into the kitchen/diner and then shut him in and go back to bed. It's a large space where the food, water and litter is all kept. We can't just shut our bedroom door as he will just sit outside it meowing loudly and scratching at it. Another option would be to shut him and our other cat in the kitchen/diner at night before we go to bed, but they don't really enjoy being confined to one space. I was hoping that I could just absolutely ignore him and make sure we only feed him as the last thing we do before we leave the house in the morning so he associates us getting out of bed slightly less with food. However he's a slow learner (we have never ever fed either cat early because they have nagged us) and I'm not sure I can take 2 hours of cat yells every morning!! Any ideas on what might work, or should we be resigned to shutting them downstairs at night? We can make the place comfortable for them I'm sure.
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Mar 15, 2014 09:07
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Xibanya posted:David Cattenborough bites or scratches me pretty much every time I come near. I've had him for exactly 14 days now. Is this normal? Do you think he'll ever stop? I haven't even gotten to the point that I can pet him really yet. Is this cat some sort of feral monstrosity? 14 days? tell me more about his situation, but at 14 days he still won't trust you.
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Mar 15, 2014 14:28
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"Hey thread, my cat is being a fuckface and is [BAD BEHAVIOR]ing and it sucks! How do I get that rear end in a top hat to stop doing that?" Generally, this is my recipe: Deterrent + Alternatives If your little shitlord is scratching up your sofa, use repellent or double-sided tape and have a few alternative scratch surfaces available. If your fluffy douchebag likes biting cables, try bitter apple spray and having some other toys available to bite the poo poo out of. You might be able to deal with the problem with only a deterrent or only alternatives, but it doesn't work as well in my experience. If you just double-stick the sofa or use a spray bottle, your cat probably still wants to scratch something. If you just get some scratch pads, your cat may still really like scratching your sofa. Also for alternatives, they need to be adequate and available, meaning that they need to be good enough for your cat to want to use them and easily accessed. You can get a scratch tower and put it somewhere in your home, but don't expect your cat think "I feel like scratching something, so I'll get off this couch and head over to that other room where the tower is". Disclaimer: YCMV
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Mar 15, 2014 15:09
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It seems that we're all having a little trouble trying to understand our furry little loved ones and wringing our hands in despair. Fear not, help is at hand, I came across this article today and thought that this might enlighten us all further. Daily Mail UK (apologies if you aren't able to access this outside the UK) I'm hoping this link will give us all a clearer picture of the relationship we share with our feline companions and how they truly feel about us :-)
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Mar 15, 2014 17:18
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My mother was concerned that one of their cats was sick...she would not leave their bedroom for 3 days, not even to eat. They had to pick her up, take her to the food, she'd eat some and then scuttle back to the bedroom. Turns out she was just afraid of a balloon that was in the living room for 3 days. They removed the balloon and she was back to being a normal big fat loving idiot.
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Mar 16, 2014 03:48
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Robot Mil posted:I have a cat 'training' question (ahahaha). Scare the poo poo out of him. Seriously. When my cat used to meow early in the morning for food, is open the door, scream, and chase him down the hall. He stopped after a few days because he realized it had terrifying consequences. Alternately, try putting him on a morning food timer. My cat also meowed hours before mealtime in the evening, and the only way I got him to shut up then was by having his food on a timer so he stopped expecting it from me and knew that food only happened when the timer went off. He's nearly perfect now, unless I forget to set up the bowls and then he just meows at me when I come down in the morning but doesn't wake me up for it.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:23
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Serella posted:Scare the poo poo out of him. Seriously. When my cat used to meow early in the morning for food, is open the door, scream, and chase him down the hall. He stopped after a few days because he realized it had terrifying consequences. I see no way this could backfire horribly. Don't feed him first thing in the morning, right after you wake up. Feed him after you've completed YOUR morning routine (or feed him at night). Don't put out food unless its been a few minutes since he's pestered you. You need to break the relationship between "Meow for food" --> "FOOD." A timer system can help because the timer will be paired with food presentation, not waking you up.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:34
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Serella posted:Alternately, try putting him on a morning food timer. My cat also meowed hours before mealtime in the evening, and the only way I got him to shut up then was by having his food on a timer so he stopped expecting it from me and knew that food only happened when the timer went off. He's nearly perfect now, unless I forget to set up the bowls and then he just meows at me when I come down in the morning but doesn't wake me up for it.
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Mar 16, 2014 17:10
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Dienes posted:I see no way this could backfire horribly. Obviously ymmv. It's just about alarming them, in the same line as the vacuum cleaner method, where people put a vacuum by the door and turn it on when the cat bugs them, except I'm the vacuum cleaner.
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Mar 16, 2014 17:30
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| # ? May 15, 2024 11:17 |
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I was brushing Leo and CJ's teeth just now and I got a little aggressive with CJ since I saw the opportunity to reach her back teeth, and when I was done, I noticed the brush had a slight red tint to it.  At least her gums will thank me. 
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Mar 16, 2014 17:35
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