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Goddamn. I've just broken another spade (or whatever they're called in English) that I use to clean my cat's toilet. It's another one in a number of years so the fact of breaking is not the main annoyance. It's my cat digging to the bottom before going and then peeing so that the clump sticks to the bottom. I guess if I let it get completely dry it'll be easier to get out, but there's no way to gauge when it's dry and when it's unsanitary to leave the toilet unattended any longer. One idea I have is to add a second toilet to the roster (I have only one right now) and I'd be able to tell that one toilet is ready when my cat uses the other one, but I'm pretty sure that's nonsense. Maybe a closed toilet? Although I'm not sure how exactly that would help. Ideas?
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Nov 28, 2014 13:01
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I have that problem. If your cat digs there's not much you can do, unless you're willing to get a giant container and fill it two feet deep with litter sand. You might also try lining the bottom with newspaper (several sheets) but a digging cat might just tear it up. I fill mine as deep as possible, which is much easier with one of them because it is a bigger version of one of these with a hole cut in it for cat access. (Oddly enough, our female cat's piss clumps really well, into some sort of concrete-like material that can be cleanly separated from the plastic tray, unlike our male cat's piss which just kind of crumbles apart into moist lumps  )Edit: thanks Huntersoninski, that gives me a bit more hope 
Microplastics fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Nov 28, 2014 |
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Nov 28, 2014 13:38
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Barrista posted:She may be stressed. Have you tried the feliway plug-ins? We inherited my mother-in-law's cat after she passed and she took much longer to get use to our home than our others. She wouldn't leave our upstairs guest room even after we removed the gate. It took her a year to walk into the loft and now, after 2 years, she will finally come downstairs when she wants something. We did buy a plugin after taking her to the vet, I'm not sure if it made much of a difference but it can't hurt to buy a refill as we change things up over the next few days. We'll get her a new litterbox and move it to a more private area of the room (probably in the bathroom) and see how it goes. Today I'm going to go to town on the mattress with the "Urine Destroyer" to eliminate any smells in there as well.
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Nov 28, 2014 14:57
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Cat Army
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I ask mainly cause I don't know much and it's moot point as I clean my hands afterwards, but is it possible to actually catch anything through cat waste, feces or urine?
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Nov 28, 2014 14:58
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Toxoplasma is the one most people know of. It is a protozoal parasite that cats get from hunting or undercooked meat and is passed through the cats feces. Some cats get clinically ill, many do not. After 24 hours or so, the eggs in the cat feces can become infective by ingesting the eggs. Toxoplasma does nasty things to human feti and immunosompromised people - not a lot to normal people, but there has been some research suggesting it can alter human behavior - when it infects mice it makes them bold, so they are more likely to be eaten by a cat and continue the parasite's life cycle. A cat is generally infective once, and then immunity means they won't shed eggs again. If there is someone at risk for Toxo, wear gloves, change box daily to 2x a day, clean completely more regularly with boiling water, wash hands often (as you need to ingest it), and wash garden vegetables well for the out door cats that come and poo poo in your yard. Then there are the regular bacteria that can show in feces - Salmonella, E-coli, etc. - and part of that depends on if they ingest it on their diets. Urine is sterile until environmental bacteria get in it.
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Nov 28, 2014 15:47
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HelloSailorSign posted:Toxoplasma is the one most people know of. It is a protozoal parasite that cats get from hunting or undercooked meat and is passed through the cats feces. Some cats get clinically ill, many do not. After 24 hours or so, the eggs in the cat feces can become infective by ingesting the eggs. Toxoplasma does nasty things to human feti and immunosompromised people - not a lot to normal people, but there has been some research suggesting it can alter human behavior - when it infects mice it makes them bold, so they are more likely to be eaten by a cat and continue the parasite's life cycle. A cat is generally infective once, and then immunity means they won't shed eggs again. If there is someone at risk for Toxo, wear gloves, change box daily to 2x a day, clean completely more regularly with boiling water, wash hands often (as you need to ingest it), and wash garden vegetables well for the out door cats that come and poo poo in your yard. Woah thank you. Not going to be an issue as she doesn't got outdoors, but still good to know, if I ever start acting weird.
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Nov 28, 2014 17:12
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Nuebot posted:Well, I'm kind of pissed now. So I don't live alone and Panda, the cat that got hurt, technically isn't even my cat. His owners haven't really been that attentive after his surgery, and they've even made fun of me when I kept telling them to block off the stairs so the cat would stop climbing them as per the vet's orders. How about you inform them not to get another animal again because they are shitlords and take the cat yourself.
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Nov 28, 2014 19:18
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Ouhei posted:We did buy a plugin after taking her to the vet, I'm not sure if it made much of a difference but it can't hurt to buy a refill as we change things up over the next few days. We'll get her a new litterbox and move it to a more private area of the room (probably in the bathroom) and see how it goes. Today I'm going to go to town on the mattress with the "Urine Destroyer" to eliminate any smells in there as well. Besides the feliway plugin my vet has recommended adding some Rescue Remedy to my nervous cat's food or water once a day. I think it has been helping her somewhat.
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Nov 29, 2014 03:10
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Anyone have a good vacuum cleaner or brand they recommend that can suck up cat litter? My vacuum likes to just hold on to the litter and when it goes over a bump it dumps it from where it is hiding :|
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Nov 29, 2014 18:49
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Danith posted:Anyone have a good vacuum cleaner or brand they recommend that can suck up cat litter? My vacuum likes to just hold on to the litter and when it goes over a bump it dumps it from where it is hiding :| Shark rotator lift-away pro. It's expensive, but it does the best I've seen on cat litter that isn't a shop vac. A Dyson of some sort may also work, but the Shark was half the cost.
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Nov 29, 2014 21:44
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effika posted:Shark rotator lift-away pro. It's expensive, but it does the best I've seen on cat litter that isn't a shop vac. Beaten. Get a shark seriously you will thank me later. I love the pet hair attachment. I got mine on sale at target earlier this year for $150, they go on sale at kohls occasionally too.
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Nov 29, 2014 22:25
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Yep. We got a Shark handed down to us and it's fantastic. Ruby HATES the sound of it though and will dart into another room if she sees anybody so much as touch it. I got one of those Banana catnip toys mentioned a few pages back while we were out today and I cannot wait to take it home to her.
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Nov 29, 2014 23:38
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Joburg posted:Besides the feliway plugin my vet has recommended adding some Rescue Remedy to my nervous cat's food or water once a day. I think it has been helping her somewhat.
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Nov 30, 2014 05:49
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i like nice words
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Anne Whateley posted:Rescue Remedy is 100% bullshit. Then what do you suggest?
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Nov 30, 2014 19:48
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effika posted:Shark rotator lift-away pro. It's expensive, but it does the best I've seen on cat litter that isn't a shop vac. Charles Martel posted:Yep. We got a Shark handed down to us and it's fantastic. Ruby HATES the sound of it though and will dart into another room if she sees anybody so much as touch it. I've been eying the Shark vacuums a lot lately since Wal-mart has some on sale. But I did some research and bought a Bissell Cleanview 9595 on Amazon Prime a few days ago for $72 (now $69   ). This particular model has the highest praise for the lowest price I've seen (and it's just this one for some reason, no other Bissell). But if I hadn't found the Bissell 9595 or had Amazon Prime already, I was going to buy the Shark NV400 for $128. Some guy on YouTube tested the Bissell 9595 against the Shark Rotator Lift-Away Pro and found that they preform similarly despite the price difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o-HWC6HuZw How well does it do on pet hair and dander? I'll find out for myself soon enough. Ema Nymton fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Nov 30, 2014 |
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Nov 30, 2014 20:00
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drat, my mate's dog had fleas and some of them must've been on his clothes when he stayed over recently cos now I've got them in my house and my indoor cat had a few on him. I've been giving him tablets which are great for killing the adult ones currently biting but I'm struggling to prevent the larvae hatching in the carpet so I keep seeing tiny baby ones despite vacuuming non stop for two days. I know permethrin is toxic to cats, but if I leave him in the kitchen while I set off foggers in every carpeted room, is he going to be okay? I can't find any foggers that don't contain permethrin that aren't universally poorly reviewed.
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Nov 30, 2014 21:53
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Quote-Unquote posted:drat, my mate's dog had fleas and some of them must've been on his clothes when he stayed over recently cos now I've got them in my house and my indoor cat had a few on him. I've been giving him tablets which are great for killing the adult ones currently biting but I'm struggling to prevent the larvae hatching in the carpet so I keep seeing tiny baby ones despite vacuuming non stop for two days. I would try steam cleaning before fogging. I've read that the heat kills the eggs and putting up with a damp carpet would be better than putting toxin in your home.
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Nov 30, 2014 22:12
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That sucks, man. Fleas are annoying and terrible. I don't know if counts as a toxin toward cats, but Borax powder is great to sprinkle down on carpets to eventually kill fleas when combined with vacumning. I had an episode where my dog got them from somewhere a couple of summers ago and I am never going through that again if I have to buy barrels of Frontline.
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Nov 30, 2014 22:16
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Don't know if you can even get borax in the UK, never seen it anywhere. My parents have a steam cleaner but I'm not seeing them for another three weeks, ugh, might have to see if I can afford to rent one. I'll check with the vet about fogging just in case as it's much cheaper to do, combined with vacuuming and the pills for the cat (which is necessary anyway). Already sprayed all the carpets and washed all my clothes and bedding, and will keep doing that daily. At least I'm only seeing tiny ones now, so I guess I'm getting them early before they can lay more eggs.
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Nov 30, 2014 23:26
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My clumsy-rear end fat cat just got discharged from an week of observation at the vets because she FELL OFF THE ROOF from our 8th floor apartment and evidently landed on her left side because she had bleeding in her left lung and swelling in her left eye. The vet said that she made a full recovery with no lasting damage but still is there anything I should do or anything I should keep an eye out for???? pic of the dumbass 
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Nov 30, 2014 23:41
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goatse.cx posted:My clumsy-rear end fat cat just got discharged from an week of observation at the vets because she FELL OFF THE ROOF from our 8th floor apartment and evidently landed on her left side because she had bleeding in her left lung and swelling in her left eye. The vet said that she made a full recovery with no lasting damage but still is there anything I should do or anything I should keep an eye out for???? How'd she get out there/fall? This is a legitimate fear we have seeing as we're on the 7th with balconies.
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Dec 1, 2014 01:45
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Having your cat slowly die on a Sunday night is the worst. She's been given opioids, so she should at least be comfortable.
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Dec 1, 2014 01:55
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Rand McNally posted:Having your cat slowly die on a Sunday night is the worst. She's been given opioids, so she should at least be comfortable. Ugh, gently caress. Sorry for your loss.
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Dec 1, 2014 02:49
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goatse.cx posted:still is there anything I should do or anything I should keep an eye out for???? How about keeping an eye out for however she got on the roof in the first place, hth.
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Dec 1, 2014 03:06
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Rand McNally posted:Having your cat slowly die on a Sunday night is the worst. She's been given opioids, so she should at least be comfortable. I'm sorry for your loss. One of my outside cats, a HUGE Tom we've had living in our back yard for years got killed by a coyote before today before sunrise. Only one of the two surviving ones has returned so far, but it's the one day a year we get rain in drought-ridden L.A. so hopefully she shows up soon. Even though he was a stray who moved into our backyard, he was very close to a domesticated indoor cat. He'd walk into our living room in the last couple years and plop down on the floor while we watch TV.
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Dec 1, 2014 03:22
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100YrsofAttitude posted:How'd she get out there/fall? This is a legitimate fear we have seeing as we're on the 7th with balconies. Clawed through the mesh window screen
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Dec 1, 2014 04:27
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Dienes posted:How about keeping an eye out for however she got on the roof in the first place, hth. I didnt watch out for it because years of animal planet/discovery channel indoctrination has had me believe that falling from height is basically no big deal for cats.
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Dec 1, 2014 06:15
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 I watch those channels (and TV in general) only sporadically. What do they say there about cats? Does that by any chance include such expressions as "The cat fell from the eighth floor and survived. Holy poo poo!"
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Dec 1, 2014 08:03
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Allegedly cats are more likely to survive falling 6+ floors than they are under six, because they have time to twist their bodies into a shape where their terminal velocity is greatly reduced.
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Dec 1, 2014 08:28
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supermikhail posted:
example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2OCwQJSHZM It was a believable thesis to me: cats possess a 'righting reflex' that allows them to re-orient mid-fall and land on their legs, minimizing damage my cat evidently didnt manage to re-orient herself, but she got off with basically nothing anyway (recovered in a week, no broken bones) so the thesis is only partially disproven
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Dec 1, 2014 08:35
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Anyone have any advice on how to deal with/handle a 8 month old kitten that will eat almost anything? He ate nearly 8 tortillas we accidentally left out last week and I just caught him eating a cloth towel. Pica, maybe? I certainly don't think he's under fed.
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Dec 1, 2014 09:03
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For a very long time this looked like a three-legged cat. I mistook a leg for a tail and where I thought a leg should be, there's what looks like a stump
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Dec 1, 2014 10:26
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goatse.cx posted:example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2OCwQJSHZM Yeah, I would say she got only minimal injuries, and it doesn't say that after 7 floors they are completely unscathed, or land only on their feet. It says they are harmed less. More importantly, your post sounded like those channels basically advocated cat skydiving as a sport.
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Dec 1, 2014 14:42
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Quote-Unquote posted:Allegedly cats are more likely to survive falling 6+ floors than they are under six, because they have time to twist their bodies into a shape where their terminal velocity is greatly reduced. What magical shape would that be? A cat with feet pointing down does not create considerably more drag than a cat falling some other way. It's mostly the distance of the drop and the mass of the cat, but even a short fall can result in broken bones and internal injuries, regardless of whether or not kitty sticks the landing. Edit basically the more time they fall the faster they are going = more forceful impact to whatever body part hits the ground. CompactFanny fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 17:51
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Apparently there is some truth to cats having special aerial positioning abilities to help them survive falls. It's an inborn skill they have because they evolved living in trees. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17492802
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Dec 1, 2014 18:31
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Small update on the rear end in a top hat rescue kitten that keeps jumping our adult cat: I will still hear thumps and growls from another room followed by the adult running away, however I've now caught the adult instigating it a couple times. It seems like if the kitten is lying on the nice sunny spot on the carpet or some other choice location according to my cat's retard-brain he will go up to the kitten, growl, and smack him hard in the head a couple of times to get him to move. The kitten enthusiastically takes this as on obvious invitation to play fight, and seems confused when the adult growls/hisses again and runs away. I did get some nail clippers so the damage the kitten can do is at least more limited. Otherwise I'm going to stay the course and let the two figure it out on their own, assuming it doesn't escalate to full on death-matches anytime soon.
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Dec 1, 2014 19:15
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Sasha's gone now. I"m okay now but tonight, when I don't have her to snuggle.. yeah. 23.5 of the best years of my life (there weren't that many before that, got her when I was 5). One of the last photos of her was from last weekend.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:21
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Rand McNally posted:Sasha's gone now. I"m okay now but tonight, when I don't have her to snuggle.. yeah. 23.5 of the best years of my life (there weren't that many before that, got her when I was 5). One of the last photos of her was from last weekend. I'm so sorry to hear that. I know from experience that losing a long-term pet is always hard. It's obvious that you loved her and treated her well, which is just about the best kind of life that any house-cat could hope for.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:39
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CompactFanny posted:What magical shape would that be? A cat with feet pointing down does not create considerably more drag than a cat falling some other way. It's mostly the distance of the drop and the mass of the cat, but even a short fall can result in broken bones and internal injuries, regardless of whether or not kitty sticks the landing. You could Google it rather than being snarky http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/how-do-cats-survive-falls-from-great-heights/ It's not exactly proven but heavily theorised. Bit tricky to research it because, you know, chucking cats off buildings has some ethical concerns. Quote-Unquote fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 21:39
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Rand McNally, I'm sorry for your loss. Sasha looks majestic in her little outfit and I'm sure she had a happy life with you. Update on the cat who didn't want to go to the kennel: She looks fine! I think she really doesn't like the cheap canvas carrier, so I'll get her a nice plastic one. Expensive tastes, I guess. She's back to her old weird self, it looks like. Which is a relief. Here's the little monster snuggling on me two minutes ago. You can still kind of see the scratches from the damage she did to my arm during her drama queen freakout.   Next time I'm hiring an in-house sitter.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:42
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