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Dr Christmas posted:I'm told I have a week to get rid of my cats and I'm paralyzed. Jesus, that's a nightmare. Try calling around to cat rescues and see if any of them can foster your guys through end-of-life? I know the rescue I volunteered with has a few cats who will just live out their days in foster care. It's a hard sell right after kitten season, but try. The kindest thing might be to put them down, but try for a hail mary first. Who's issuing the ultimatum?
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Sep 23, 2018 03:29
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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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The cat that I got yesterday still hasn't eaten anything or drank any water as far as I can tell. I'd assume this is normal because he's stressed about being in a new environment, but I just wanted to check with y'all to make sure this is nothing out of the ordinary. On the plus side he now occasionally comes out from hiding behind the toilet and used the litter box at some point last night.
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Sep 23, 2018 16:17
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Pixelante posted:Anyone successfully dieted one cat and not another? Snowflake is sleek, but Ethics is turning into a pudge. I'm going through this right now. I'm measuring out fatto's food, then put it down for him in the bedroom with the door closed while I put the kitten's food down in the kitchen. After about 10 minutes I pick it up for both, and just keep an eye on them - the kitten gets more food as requested, once fatto's bowl is empty he's done until the next feeding (every 12 hours). It's frustrating because both prefer to snack, but fatto is starting to clear his bowl in one go, which makes life easier. I just have to be vigilant when butting the kitten's food down because fatto has an incredible sense of when food is accessible. On days I go into work, there's not nearly as much I can do, I just put down fatto's 2.1 oz. and the balance of the can in the kitten's bowl, fortunately it's only 3x a week. e: there's no way to put the kitten's food where fatto can't get it. Despite his corpulence and missing leg, it's not possible to keep him out of anywhere without shutting it off entirely, and since the two have become pretty good friends (and the whole point of the kitten was to keep him company when I'm not around) I'm not closing them off in different rooms all day. Corsair Pool Boy fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 16:35
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Koaxke posted:The cat that I got yesterday still hasn't eaten anything or drank any water as far as I can tell. I'd assume this is normal because he's stressed about being in a new environment, but I just wanted to check with y'all to make sure this is nothing out of the ordinary. 24 hours without water is not good. Using the litter box is.
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Sep 23, 2018 17:02
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Feeding cats differing diets is only really possible if you have set feeding times, without free feed options in between. Shove them in different rooms or just stand by to herd them as necessary. We had to do that for a good while with Sugi when he was on a diet a few years ago, it wasn't much trouble but it'll depend on your situation I guess!
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Sep 23, 2018 18:01
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Corsair, with my parents' cats, I would always just sit on the floor by them for the five minutes it took them to eat their food. If the fat cat would saunter his way over and start eating the leftovers that another cat didn't eat I would just throw it away. This managed to keep him at a healthy weight.
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Sep 23, 2018 18:33
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Recommending the SureFeed products for this like I seem to do every other page. We have a scarf and barf on UT food and a grazer using the surefeed microchip/tag sensor.
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Sep 23, 2018 19:35
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Glory to Italia!
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So my partner and I adopted a rescue cat. She's about five years old, and apparently did really horribly at adoption events - hissing and swiping at people, etc. We had a few in-home visits with her foster, and eventually brought her home and she's been great. For all the doom and gloom that her foster talked about - unlikely to be super affectionate right away, kind of a problem child, etc. - she's been delightful and affectionate and the couple of minor issues we've had so far have been easily dealt with, especially with help from the OP. A couple of questions, though: 1) Before we adopted, we got her a short cat tree that has a sisal rope scratching pole as part of the support structure. She's seemed completely uninterested, so we also got her an angled cardboard scratcher, which she's paid a little attention to, but not much. Saran wrap has worked a treat for getting her to avoid stuff she shouldn't scratch, but I'm curious how to go about getting her enthused about the stuff she should? 2) This kinda segues from question one, because it ties into "how do I do this when she's not interested in positive reinforcement?", but she seems uninterested in the treats we've gotten her. She eats and drinks just fine (we rotated her to a new wet food from the one that she was on with her foster, and she loves the new stuff we got her), so I don't think she's ill (and she had a vet visit a week before we brought her home), but treats get a curious sniff and then a "meh, not interested" head toss. Normal or weird? Do we just need to try different brands, maybe? As penance for asking probably silly questions, here's her perched on the windowsill. She loves it there.  
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Sep 24, 2018 13:47
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How long have you had her for? If it hasn't been long then she might just not be relaxed enough in her new environment to be into scratching things or treats. Or you might not have found the right treat yet!
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Sep 24, 2018 14:08
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Organza Quiz posted:How long have you had her for? If it hasn't been long then she might just not be relaxed enough in her new environment to be into scratching things or treats. Or you might not have found the right treat yet! Only about a week or so, so that makes sense. I just wanted to see if there was any immediate thing we could rule out. Her foster is really happy about how much she's warmed up to us in that time, though - she's done a ton of stuff with us that she never did with her foster, and near as my girlfriend and I can surmise, it's that she was never happy with being around other cats with her foster, but now that she's home with us and the only cat, she's much happier and less stand-offish. She loves taking naps with my girlfriend on the couch and apparently she never did that with her foster, so we're both really happy with how much of a lovebug she is. The cardboard scratcher did come with a small amount of catnip, and boy did she love that, but it didn't seem to translate into "this thing had catnip at one point so it's a good thing" yet.
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Sep 24, 2018 14:13
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My cats just didnt use the scratchers til I got them a big enough one that they could really stretch out on, like a 3-foot one. Then again you may have a cat that just doesnt like using them so you'll have to watch her nails yourself.
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Sep 24, 2018 14:18
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Things my cats like to do at 5AM Climb up the curtain near my bed. Jump from the curtain on me. Wrestle eachother on top of me. Bite my knee Repeat until i'm awake and completely up. They are soo adorable......
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Sep 24, 2018 14:41
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My beloved kitty of 19 years had to be put down last week. She participated in a few PISSmases about 10 years ago and was just the best and sweetest snuggly girl. We aren't even 100% sure what ended up doing her in, it seemed like kidney disease was going to slowly take her, but her levels were pretty steady for about 3 years! Then this past winter she developed a cough, and investigating that issue led to discovering her hypertension, and then a month or two later she wouldn't come out of her hidey-hole bed for her nightly wet food and medicines. I left her to herself that night and then it was the same way the next day and she couldn't even stand up, so we took her to the emergency vet. They said she was severely dehydrated and her arthritis was really flaring up causing her inability to walk. When food was brought right up to her she still had plenty of appetite though, so that was encouraging. She stayed overnight and then transferred to her regular vet for a few more overnight days. She was getting better - each day I visited she was a little more perked up. By day 3 she was standing up and turning around, purring and leaning her head into my hand, she seemed like she was getting over it. They said they thought she would be able to go home the next day! The next morning I got the call that she took a turn for the worst overnight and that I needed to come right away. They came in that morning to find her laying on her side, struggling to breath, so they gave her something to make her expel the fluid in her lungs but she was still so wheezy and making little crying noises when I got there. It's so frustrating that we thought the dehydration was the big problem and then suddenly the problem is that she's full of fluids in the wrong place!! I had to make the Big Traumatic Decision and I stayed with her the whole time. **Trigger warning? Details of euthanasia** The way that they did it was interesting - I've put a few pets down and it was always a couple of injections. I had one cat start convulsing, and the shot in the muscle made my dog scream out. But not here, I really appreciated this vet. They put a clear box over top of her (letting me stick my fingers in to hold her paw) with a hose attached to let the gas in. She just slowly drifted to sleep, and then they were able to put the gas-mask on her face without upsetting her. Once she was fully out they took her pawprint in clay and then gave her the pink shot. It was the least awful way to do the most awful thing. I'm glad she had me there. Here she is about midway through her hospital stay. My pretty girl.  I didn't mean to make this post so long and emotional, I actually just came to ask a question. I have a bunch of leftover Hills K/D food. Chewy refunded me for the cost but they don't take food back. Can any cat eat this stuff? My dad is struggling financially and has a cat, and I'm sitting on a bunch of free food that I could give him. But if not I will donate it to a rescue or a shelter. I just wanted to know if it would be harmful for a non-diagnosed cat to eat it. Hell, for all I know the cat has K/D, but it hasn't been to a vet in years. He's about 11.
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Sep 24, 2018 16:37
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 I'm so sorry to hear that you had to go through any of that.Were they able to figure out what happened, what went wrong? Was it just a combination of issues or what? God, what a horrifying thing to be put through. I can only hope I never have to experience it for myself. It was hard enough when I was 3 and I was told that my favorite cat was put down while I was sitting in the vet's parking lot, it's another entirely to have to actually make that decision for yourself. Just thinking about it gets me anxious, I'm not sure I could ever make that choice so I can only hope I'll never be in a position to choose.
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Sep 24, 2018 16:49
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drat Bananas posted:**Trigger warning? Details of euthanasia** The way that they did it was interesting - I've put a few pets down and it was always a couple of injections. I had one cat start convulsing, and the shot in the muscle made my dog scream out. But not here, I really appreciated this vet. They put a clear box over top of her (letting me stick my fingers in to hold her paw) with a hose attached to let the gas in. She just slowly drifted to sleep, and then they were able to put the gas-mask on her face without upsetting her. Once she was fully out they took her pawprint in clay and then gave her the pink shot. It was the least awful way to do the most awful thing. I'm glad she had me there. I was a vet tech for a few years, and let me begin by saying it legit hosed me up. I always got these cases as I was the only one able to hold his poo poo together for the rest of the work day, but inside I was utterly destroyed. I also went through a few personal pet losses, one of which was a very rough euthanasia. I still have involuntary flashbacks that will ruin a day out of nowhere. I expected this to trigger me badly, but it did the opposite. One of the cases that has stuck with me was very similar, and we had an identical rig built from an old huge fish tank. It was one of the saddest cases I'd ever worked, and it was the one time I had to excuse myself after the procedure and take a long break. This helped put it in context and think of how comforting using that method really was for the animal and owners, compared to the alternative of having to restrain a frightened, struggling animal in their last moments. I'm so sorry for your loss, but I just wanted you to know some good came out of you sharing.
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Sep 24, 2018 17:14
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FirstAidKite posted:
Thank you. It's very hard to give the go-ahead, but in my experience the vets are not afraid to say when they think it's the right time for us to stop prolonging the inevitable. As for what went wrong - kind of? Her Xrays from this winter showed her lungs full of something - could be fluid, could be cancer, could be scar tissue. The meds to treat fluid didn't help, and at her age treating for cancer is very rough. So for many months we just focused on the hypertension and kidneys. On the last day, the vet said she can't say for sure, but she would guess that it was cancer. I don't doubt, since our bodies are all interconnected systems, that the weakness in her lungs, heart, kidneys, and who knows what else just exacerbated each other. Something was going to give, it was just her time. BaronVonVaderham posted:I was a vet tech for a few years, and let me begin by saying it legit hosed me up. I always got these cases as I was the only one able to hold his poo poo together for the rest of the work day, but inside I was utterly destroyed. I also went through a few personal pet losses, one of which was a very rough euthanasia. I still have involuntary flashbacks that will ruin a day out of nowhere. I'm really glad! Thank you for doing what you did, and helping all those people and those animals on those terrible days. I can't imagine having that as one of my work duties. Vet techs have always been awesome. Maybe I just looked like I really needed it, but they always gave me hugs afterward which is nice. Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Sep 24, 2018 |
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Sep 24, 2018 17:14
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It's always so hard to lose a kitty. Back in February my boy Teddy started sneezing and having a runny nose, so we took him to the vet and all his panels were clear but they put him on fluids, antihistamines, and antibiotics because he wasn't eating or drinking (since he refused to eat). He seemed to be doing okay, for a week, and at his next vet visit they said he was hydrated enough but put him on stronger meds because they weren't clearing it up. We rode it out hoping the meds would kick in and he'd just be okay. He died in his sleep next to my daughter. It's still so raw for me and my oldest son (Teddy's bff) that we can't even talk to each other about him. I kept some of his black and white fur and I'm planning to make them into a yin yang pendant for my son but everytime I touch it I break down. I think it would have been easier if he'd been hit by a car or had cancer because I can't help but feel like I could have fixed it, like I didn't try hard enough. The hardest part for my son is his 6 year old little sister keeps asking where Teddy is, and now draws pictures of him dressed as an astronaut because he told her Teddy died and went into the clouds. Edit: We had a necropsy, and it was FIP. He must have gotten it from his feral mom. We still have his brother Simba and every time he so much as sneezes our hearts drop. Losing a kitty really hurts. Stairs fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Sep 24, 2018 |
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Sep 24, 2018 23:16
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My dumbass cat might have just eaten the plastic end off of the pull-string for some blinds. I can't say for certain because I'm not sure if it was already gone, but she was over there loving around on the cat tree, I saw her act like she was trying to swallow something, and before I could stop her it was gone. Should I be immediately concerned and call the vet tomorrow morning, or watch for a few days and see how she is acting?
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Sep 25, 2018 00:32
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My cat has swallowed something and had to get it cut out of him before. He’s also swallowed stuff and either thrown it up or passed it. It’s a tough call. Hopefully he will throw it back up within 24-48 hours. That sounds like something that would be too big to pass through without getting stuck somewhere. Check his poop over next 24-48 hours too. If he doesn’t pass it and starts throwing up his food or dry heaving or has trouble pooping then you need to take him to the vet for X-ray (may not be able to see it) and possibly surgery. You really don’t want a blockage or tearing of the intestines. My cat recovered really well after he swallowed part of a cat toy that has a elastic band and metal piece on it. Probably worth a call to the vet in the morning unless he starts showing symptoms tonight. Edit: I’ve learned to tie those stupid curtain strings up to the top of the curtain rod. They are dangerous for everyone except for human adults. Kids can get strangled in them and animals eat them.
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Sep 25, 2018 01:16
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siggy2021 posted:My dumbass cat might have just eaten the plastic end off of the pull-string for some blinds. I can't say for certain because I'm not sure if it was already gone, but she was over there loving around on the cat tree, I saw her act like she was trying to swallow something, and before I could stop her it was gone. Keep an eye on the litter box. If she isn't pooping, vet. If she starts throwing up, vet. If she won't eat, vet. Basically any indication that she might have a piece of plastic stuck somewhere. If it's small, there's a good chance she'll just poop it out.
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Sep 25, 2018 01:19
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Thanks. I wish I could say this was the first situation I've had with her, but a few years ago she ate a toy and cost me thousands in surgery and hospital stays, then last year she suffered some kidney failure that I was told would be a manageable, but permanent issue that she then decided to miraculously recover from. The vet was flabbergasted when her blood test results came back fine multiple times in a row. I love her, but she is dumb as hell sometimes.
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Sep 25, 2018 02:09
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Just wanted to echo the difficulty of trying to diet one cat and not another. Sureflap works okay IF the fat cat is dumb as hell and not aggressive; and ideally the non-dieting cat is okay to eat a full meal in one sitting. We've just basically admitted defeat for the time being trying to manage Decoy and Hugo. Decoy's appetite is out of control and he has lost all sense of moderation, whereas Hugo is a committed grazer who needs constant access to food for his mini-meals. The sureflap microchip feeder worked for a year until Decoy worked out he could rip the plastic lid off its hinges - I sent a video of this to the people at Sure PetCare and their response was basically "welp, we got nothing - never seen a cat do that before". Gluing a piece of plastic to the front stopped him ripping it open, but he was enraged enough by this development that he just started restricting his daily movement to within earshot of the feeder, and when Hugo opened it he would rush him and push Hugo's face into the ground so the door didn't close and he could frantically clean out the bowl. Hugo's response was to refuse to eat unless someone stood over him to protect him, so he lost a bunch of condition. He's now getting an extended stay with my parents to relearn normal eating behaviour and put condition back on without fear of molestation. We did think about putting one or more additional microchip enabled cat doors between Decoy and Hugo's food, but Hugo learned how to open the microchip cat door when it was locked and I wouldn't put it past Decoy to learn quickly or just bulldoze his way through anyway.  e: Decoy ate the nipple off a baby bottle a few years ago. I didn't realise it was him until he took a dump on the floor and it had the nipple on the end of his turd. Hopefully the blind cord end will pass through too.
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Sep 25, 2018 03:14
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Thought I'd post an update on my girlfriend's one-eared boy. Kitty had a TECA-BO surgery which removed his left ear back in late March, and at that time he was diagnosed with a type of skin cancer that had been growing in his head. Since that time he's done relatively well, but we noticed a very subtle and progressive paralyzation of the left side of his face. This was a known complication of the surgery though and we accepted it as a means to keep him with us for a little while longer. It started mostly him having trouble blinking (while still being able to close his inner eyelid) but over the past few weeks it's really accelerated to the point where he has no blink reflex at all in his left eye, and you can clearly see that he can't move his whiskers around on that side of his face either. We took him to the vet last week, and the doc didn't feel any obvious growths or anything, so we're hoping this isn't a matter of cancer affecting him neurologically, but he has developed a bit of a wobble in his gait. He's also having issues with his eye due to the fact he can't blink it anymore. I'm hoping this doesn't result in an infection and yet more surgery, but as the boy gets older it's not going to get any easier for him. I just want him to be happy and healthy for the rest of his days, but I have to think that the end might be nearer to us than we'd like to admit.  It's also getting very near the one-year anniversary to when I had to say goodbye to Tony, another beautiful ginger boy, so it hasn't been easy for me this past week. 
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Sep 25, 2018 04:20
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Unbelievably handsome boys S-Rank cattes, and long may one-eared kitty beat the odds.
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Sep 25, 2018 06:56
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Good luck one earred boy, be healthy and happy
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Sep 25, 2018 12:06
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My 2-year-old cat Henry is at the emergency vet for the 2nd time with a bladder blockage. He's doing okay but the doc raised the possibility of doing a Perineal Urethrostomy. I'm researching it to get more info. If anyone has had a cat who got this surgery, can you tell me how your cat did? How old was he when he had the surgery, how well did he tolerate the recovery, does/did he have good quality of life after? And if you also have/had other cats at the same time, did they get along afterwards or did they treat him differently? Thank you!
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Sep 25, 2018 12:13
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My dumbass idiot dad left a door open, and now our 3 feral kittens have escaped from the room we were temporarily keeping them in into the much larger adjacent room. This is a problem because that adjacent room is big and has a toooooooooon of good hiding places for scared kittens, which makes the task of scooping them up to take them to a shelter much more difficult (the room we were keeping them in has almost no hiding places for exactly this reason). Please tell me how to lure scared feral kittens out of hiding so we can catch them. Somebody earlier said “food and time,” but I don’t know if that’s gonna work in this case because this is a seldom-used room that we’re not likely to be in when the kittens come out to eat. Plus, y’know, it’s big and full of hiding places.
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Sep 25, 2018 21:30
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Dr. Gitmo Moneyson posted:Please tell me how to lure scared feral kittens out of hiding so we can catch them. Somebody earlier said “food and time,” but I don’t know if that’s gonna work in this case because this is a seldom-used room that we’re not likely to be in when the kittens come out to eat. Plus, y’know, it’s big and full of hiding places. Welp, they live there now. Congratulations on your new cats. Also, this would probably make a hilarious comic. Try calling rescues and see if you can find one that will come trap them. They probably wrangle kittens out of much worse places on a regular basis.
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Sep 25, 2018 21:47
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drat Bananas posted:**Trigger warning? Details of euthanasia** The way that they did it was interesting - I've put a few pets down and it was always a couple of injections. I had one cat start convulsing, and the shot in the muscle made my dog scream out. But not here, I really appreciated this vet. They put a clear box over top of her (letting me stick my fingers in to hold her paw) with a hose attached to let the gas in. She just slowly drifted to sleep, and then they were able to put the gas-mask on her face without upsetting her. Once she was fully out they took her pawprint in clay and then gave her the pink shot. It was the least awful way to do the most awful thing. I'm glad she had me there. My wife and I's first cat passed away too soon for us (her name was Cocoa and she was around 11, probably a little older - she had the worst case of pancreatitis our emergency vet had ever seen because her pancreas swelled up to the point where it caused a fistula in her colon, spreading sepsis throughout her entire body), and our experience was similar, but not quite. The veterinarian gave her a single injection that caused her to pass away, and she shuddered for about a moment. However, she had been laying in her favorite place in the world - in my wife's lap, on her favorite blanket - for the prior 30-60 minutes and throughout the injection process. So despite the brief shudder, she passed away gracefully, purring until the end. We still have the blanket around. Her erstwhile friend, BB (BB liked Cocoa a lot more than Cocoa liked BB) likes to sleep on it at night, and we'd like to think she does it to remember Cocoa. We do know that BB searched the house up and down for Cocoa for at least a solid week afterwards, which broke our hearts enough to march on down to the shelter and pick up a new friend for her later that month.
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Sep 25, 2018 22:53
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I made a new friend just now. There's a couple of grey tabbies roaming the neighborhood. IDK if they're stray/feral or just some neighbor's outdoor cats but one of them eventually let me pet 'em. I miss my kitty (yellow tabby, went with my ex when he moved out bc my job is not that great for having pets.)
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Sep 26, 2018 01:26
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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So, I'm trying to figure out what kind of cat the kitten we got from my grandmother is, and if her size is due to her breed or otherwise normal or if there's something weird. I have some current pics of her I just took, and some older ones as well, though I'll explain the situation too. Basically, she's a rather fluffy, long-haired cat, though recently (at least, I think recently, though maybe it's been there a while) she's developed a sort of vertical stripe of smoother fur up her front legs and shoulders; I don't know what's up with that.. She doesn't quite look like any particular breed I recognize, but I'm admittedly not particularly knowledgeable there. She's pretty friendly, kind of bouncy when she moves sometimes, and not the most graceful when trying to climb or jump around. She's also been growing fairly slowly; she was pretty small when we got her back in early-mid July, when she was supposedly eight weeks old (though I've been wondering if she might have been younger), and has been small since. She has been growing, but whereas the other kitten we got a week or two before her has grown fast, she's been taking her time to get bigger. (Having him around for comparison doesn't help, mind; sometimes I'll see her on her own and think, "oh hey, she has gotten bigger", but when she's next to him she seems particularly small.) I'm not sure what normal is either, mind, so maybe he's the strange one there since he's supposedly just a couple weeks older than her but almost looks like an adult. Despite us having had her for around two months, she still something starts kneading and nursing at my blanket though, which seems strange and is one of the things making me wonder if she was given to us younger than she should have been. She seems fine and healthy and all, it's just something I've been wondering about, so I figured I'd ask, and post some pictures of course. Speaking of, in (mostly) reverse chronological order: Princess (her name; my grandparents, despite not being huge animal people, were smitten with her when they got her) being ridiculously photogenic when I happened to walk into my mom's room to see if she was in there:   Picture I took earlier to get something for this post before the above happened:  Her enjoying the (admittedly big) lid for the box of a board game I had open last Friday:  Her and Salem sleeping on my bed a week ago:  Her after I finally found one of her favorite hiding places two-three weeks ago:  A couple pictures I just took after realizing that none of the above show off her weird "stripe" of smoother, less-fluffy fur:   Unrelated, Salem is getting fixed later this week, while Princess is scheduled for two weeks after that (the soonest we could get an appointment for a female cat when I made these; originally the plan was to get them fixed closer together so that their recoveries would be fairly close and they wouldn't have to spend so much time separated so they don't hurt themselves or each other, but waiting that long for him seemed like a bad idea given some of his behavior recently). Any tips for how to take care of a five-ish month old male cat after that's done? Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Sep 26, 2018 |
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Sep 26, 2018 04:32
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She seems very Maine Coon to me with the friendly personality, not terribly graceful, very fluffy, and tabby coloring. Maine Coons end up pretty big, but I'm not sure how fast they grow into it. Could also be a mixed breed that keeps her small but otherwise is very Coon-ish.
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Sep 26, 2018 06:44
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I know there’s been a recent trend of labeling every shelter cat as some breed to make them seem ‘exotic’, but most cats are mutts, or Domestic Short/Medium/Long hairs if you want to be fancy. Your cat is beautiful but she doesn’t have the bone structure, ‘mane’ of hair, or any other distinguishing features of a Maine Coon. Most long-haired friendly cats just aren’t Maine Coons, and most grey cats aren’t Russian Blues. There’s not as much breed distinction in cats as compared to dogs, and as a result the prevalence of breeding programs is much lower. Enjoy your Domestic Long Hair! Part of the fun in adopting homeless kitties is that you can’t be sure exactly what you’re going to wind up with. And if you want to call her a Maine Coon to flatter her ego there’s nothing wrong with that; I’ve been known to do that for my kitty as well. in_cahoots fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Sep 26, 2018 |
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Sep 26, 2018 07:44
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Cythereal posted:She seems very Maine Coon to me with the friendly personality, not terribly graceful, very fluffy, and tabby coloring. Maine Coons end up pretty big, but I'm not sure how fast they grow into it. Could also be a mixed breed that keeps her small but otherwise is very Coon-ish. My mom actually thought that she could be a Maine Coon as well. I figured that couldn't be the case because she's so small though; previously everything I had heard before suggested that Maine Coons are pretty big even as kittens, though they don't necessarily get massive until a year or more at the least. It would explain some things, however, like how much fur there is between her toe beans (though her paws themselves aren't noticeably larger than normal, yet at least). And looking further into it now, apparently the smallest female kittens can be pretty small for a while, so while perhaps not what one typically expects, her size actually doesn't conclusively rule it out. She also hasn't been shedding like a monster all over the place though, despite that thick coat, which is kind of surprising really. She does look like some pictures I just found though. I'm going to have to apologize to my mom in the morning for insisting that Princess couldn't be a Maine Coon, then, even if it is still relatively unlikely, as stated. Should probably ask my aunt where the heck they got her, too; I only know why they wound up giving her to my grandparents, and then how she came to live over here most of the time (we're like a minute or two away so taking the cats over to visit isn't particularly hard) after that. The idea of her being bigger than Salem eventually amuses me quite a bit, though, given their interactions up to now and how he can pretty much shrug her off and ignore her jumping on him if he doesn't feel like playing. in_cahoots posted:I know there’s been a recent trend of labeling every shelter cat as some breed to make them seem ‘exotic’, but most cats are mutts, or Domestic Short/Medium/Long hairs if you want to be fancy. Your cat is beautiful but she doesn’t have the bone structure, ‘mane’ of hair, or any other distinguishing features of a Maine Coon. Most long-haired friendly cats just aren’t Maine Coons, and most grey cats aren’t Russian Blues. There’s not as much breed distinction in cats as compared to dogs, and as a result the prevalence of breeding programs is much lower. That is probably the "safer" thing to refer to her as, yeah, though as above I actually have no idea where she's originally from; a week or two after Salem was given to my grandmother and then pretty much immediately adopted by myself and my mom instead, my aunt and uncle got my little cousin a kitten, since she really, really wanted one after seeing him. Which led to the fairly swift (that night or the next day I think) revelation that said cousin is at least somewhat allergic to cats, so that put a quick end to that plan and they wound up taking the kitten to my grandparents instead. Whereupon the two fell in love with the cat pretty much immediately, despite neither of them being animal people normally, so they were going to keep her, but given their not-always-great health we wound up taking care of Princess for a while, until she pretty much wound up living here instead. Which she certainly enjoys, since she has another cat to play with and stuff. Either way, I'll try to provide pictures of her, and Salem (who is currently standing on my bed meowing at me despite not seeming to actually need anything in particular at the moment) as well, to this thread every now and then, whether or not the former eventually grows into an enormous furmonster. Edit: Though, she actually has recently developed what myself and a few others have called a "mane", though it might be more a side-effect of what's going on with her fur. Just tried taking some pictures that show it better than the above. Not the best, but they at least have it/her weird band of shorter fur more prominent:   Bonus picture of Salem where I finally managed to get him both looking kind of in my general direction and not very blurry:  Also got a pic of the two of them cuddling in the middle of a bout of playing/play-fighting/whatever. Might actually be the one that shows Princess's "mane", whatever is causing it, the best despite not being why I took it. 
Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Sep 26, 2018 |
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Sep 26, 2018 07:52
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A friend of mine has a mixed cat-half Norweigan forest cat and half Maine coon--and he has some weird obvious fur differences too. His underside fur is entirely different from his back and ruff, which makes keeping him tangle free a chore apparently. In either case, no matter what Princess is, dont worry--plenty of cats end up with mishmash coats.
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Sep 26, 2018 10:04
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Cat genes are weird. A cat can come from a regular old stray dsh mother and still wind up with siamese-looking point coloration. I had a cat growing up with the maine coon fur and ear fluff and giant long tail but both her parents were just rando farm cats. Unless your cat was bought from a breeder I strongly doubt she's a pure bred anything because it's very unlikely (not impossible but unlikely) that someone turned over a $1k cat to a shelter. Unless you got papers, just assume she's a very pretty moggy.
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Sep 26, 2018 14:17
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 I have a very fluffy tabby as well. My friends keep telling me it could be Maine Coon, but I just think he's just a poofy cat. His coat definitely needs constant brushing and I'll get a decent chunk of hair every couple days when I finish. He has seemingly grown a lot faster than my other kitten who I got at the same time and around the same age.
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Sep 26, 2018 15:18
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Has anyone had a cat that never had hairballs? I'm 2/2 so far (*knock on wood*) for cats that thus far have never coughed up a hairball. As a first time catman I'm very okay with this.
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Sep 26, 2018 15:50
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My ragdoll doesn't either. We do brush him fairly regularly though. My DSH does though occasionally (also brushed regularly) - you'd think it would be the other way round.
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Sep 26, 2018 20:59
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