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Gaj posted:Another one-off question as a first timer. So if my cat has no bad behaviors at 1 year old, can I expect her to continue this trend barring some existential trauma? I cant name a single bad behavior, she only nips at me when I dont play with her after a day (Horizon Zero Dawn came out on PC). Possibly? Cats are weird though and can change their habits on a regular basis. My polite cat is about 8 now and is still pretty polite though!
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Aug 14, 2020 10:06
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Buff Hardback posted:I cannot imagine any shelter/humane society/vet recommending declawing. Not only is it cutting off the first digit of their fingers, it makes them less likely to survive if they get out of your house. But what if you want a new couch  The actual logic my friends Vegan/vegetarian (she goes back and forth) wife used to get the claws taken off their cats
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Aug 14, 2020 11:51
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Len posted:But what if you want a new couch Irony has a new master.
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Aug 14, 2020 11:56
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Put a quilt on your couch, they make nice ones these days. Don't cut your cat's fingers off... Molly has stopped scratching things for the most part, but her claws have made a lot of little marks in the wood floor which is... expensive. Honestly might have reconsidered getting a cat if I had known how much this would happen. But what is done is done, we'll put some more rugs down and just never move out. Next week will be our first trip to the vet, to get her checked out (the vet wants to see her before making a spay appointment) and maybe put a microchip. My cat is super chill most of the time, but she's capable of freaking out during thunderstorms and car rides, so I'm not sure what to expect.
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Aug 14, 2020 12:12
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:All else fails, have someone hold the carrier open, then burrito your baby and pop her in fully wrapped. She'll get herself untangled eventually and it will buy you some time. Yep this. I've had a cat that hated it so much I gave up on all other methods and go to surprise burrito immediately. It's the only thing that worked. Gaj posted:Another one-off question as a first timer. So if my cat has no bad behaviors at 1 year old, can I expect her to continue this trend barring some existential trauma? Yeah pretty much. Cats that are sweeties tend to stay sweeties. Their personality gets locked in around 6 months or so. One thing that could change that is introducing a new cat (or dog), so watch out for that. Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 14:16
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Thanks for the reassurances guys. I think I just worked myself up into a ball of worry reading stuff from over a decade ago when attitudes were different and that one goon dealing with that lovely vet. It was interesting reading pages from 2009 and then skipping ahead to 2020 - back then, the topic of declawing and why it’s bad came up a lot more frequently. I guess with it being much much more widely reviled now, there’s less need to talk about it. Also, knowing the foster moms, they wouldn’t consort with a shelter that pushed that poo poo. If I start worrying again I’ll inquire. I remember getting my kitten back in 1998 and taking her to the vet for her initial visit. The vet brought up declawing as an option and as he explained it I held my kitty tight, backed away and shouted no. Yeah, it sounded pretty hosed to me even when I was a little kid. Besides, she was to be indoor/outdoor so it was out of the question. Len posted:But what if you want a new couch That’s messed up. And yeah, ironic, especially while being vegan. Milking a cow is an unspeakable cruelty but chopping off your cat’s toes isn’t? If I want a new couch I’ll get the new couch and train the cats to scratch other more appropriate things. And if they wreck the couch, I’ll fix the couch. Or just have a wrecked couch. At the end of the day it’s just some stupid upholstery that can be replaced. You can’t replace your kitty’s claws.
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Aug 14, 2020 15:21
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 Would you like a business card?
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Aug 14, 2020 15:40
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If it makes you feel better, I've never once had declawing recommended to me. Hell, our old vet back in Montana had anti-declawing pamphlets at the front desk.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:34
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My local humane society has a page on their website detailing how horrible it is and why you shouldn't do it. And I've never had a vet even mention it.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:52
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Gaj posted:I use a top opening carrier. I generally scoop said cat up like a baby on her back and then lower her into the carrier. If shes rowdy I scruff her for the last bit, and then hold onto her as I zipper up the carrier (its a soft carrier) and then use my hand to block her escape.You can maybe to the same thing with a hard carrier by standing it up on its back end so she is basically in a pit. I got a top-opening carrier (hard though) because I thought it'd be easier but last time she managed to flip round and make herself W-I-D-E so that didn't work for us. Today was our second vet trip and I put the carrier against something so the front was facing up and it was at an angle, then basically picked her up and shoved her in. Took two goes because I didn't quite shut the door properly the first time. Got a good scratch but no blood. I feel like a monster but it's for her own good and whyyy can't she just understand that, damnit! Poor thing is having a calicivirus flare-up and has really sore eyes. She got an NSAID injection and it's eye drops twice a day for a week now... We got the vet to do the first set so we can start tomorrow once she's had time to love us again. It sucks when your precious little friend is not well!
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Aug 14, 2020 21:38
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Milly and Butters will both squirm when trying to get them in the carrier. My solution was to put the carrier in the bathroom. I pick them up from a dead sleep haul rear end to the bathroom before they know whats going on and close the door, this is when the crying starts. They see that there's nowhere to run or hide and resign to go into the carrier with no fuss from there. If I try to do it in a big open room there's a always a huge struggle.
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Aug 14, 2020 21:52
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Cinnamon will just go and sit in a carrier if we put it out, she doesn't give a poo poo and doesn't seem to connect the carrier with going for a drive, which she hates(she doesn't much like the vet either but I think it's the drive there that she likes least). Loki on the other hand will disappear if you so much as touch a carrier. One time when we were moving house I tried shoving him hurriedly into the carrier and he turned into liquid and claws and gave me a really impressive scar all the way down one of my fingers that's still there five years later. The surprise burrito method is the only thing that works reliably with him.
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Aug 15, 2020 14:16
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I leave the carriers out for the express purpose of dissociating them from unpleasant experiences, and my female will use it as an occasional bed/safe place. My big tom is too chill to care and my small tom is too stupid, so it all works out! pictured: one cat happy to have a place of her own kw0134 fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Aug 15, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 14:43
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rear end in a top hat if you try and put him in a carrier *claws, fangs, howling* rear end in a top hat 10 seconds after you drop the same carrier open on the ground "What is this mystical cave? I must go inside to explore!" He has yet to learn it's a trap
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Aug 15, 2020 15:14
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Step 1: Spray Feliway on your carrier and the blankets/pads inside. Step 2: Repeat step 1 for the rest of your cat's life if step 1 works (apparently some cats don't care for it; all three of mine do and most of my parents' have). Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Aug 16, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 15:17
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I used to have a hard plastic carrier, which my cat hated. I switched to a soft top-loading carrier about a year ago. There's snoring coming from it right now.
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Aug 15, 2020 20:00
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Do any of you have any tips for installing cat shelves on the wall? I feel like DIYing it with my own parts would be a lot more cost effective than buying a pre-made kit.
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Aug 16, 2020 05:26
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Need a food recommendation. Kitty dropped weight but we still haven’t determined the cause, I think it’s possible she just stopped liking her food. She was eating Instinct (she only eats chicken and turkey) and it was great for her digestive system. I switched to Wellness Core chicken it became diarrhea central. Still is, but she eats it and is gaining weight back. She can’t keep eating this but she is SO picky and has such a sensitive stomach. Need a rec for a wet food that has some stank to it because I think that’s partially why she got over the Instinct, it barely had a smell. I tend to buy the fancier brands because I know they have less filler. I also try the method of mixing 2 foods to try to ease her into something new but usually when I do that she straight up won’t eat it. Cats are hard. vaginadeathgrip fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Aug 16, 2020 |
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Aug 16, 2020 07:29
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Bioshuffle posted:Do any of you have any tips for installing cat shelves on the wall? I feel like DIYing it with my own parts would be a lot more cost effective than buying a pre-made kit. One of the dudes in TFF chat posted about one here. Maybe you can get some inspiration from that.
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Aug 16, 2020 13:50
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kw0134 posted:I leave the carriers out for the express purpose of dissociating them from unpleasant experiences, and my female will use it as an occasional bed/safe place. My big tom is too chill to care and my small tom is too stupid, so it all works out! We leave the carrier out but she roundly ignores it. When we put her in this time, she was rattling it and desperately trying to dig her way out, which was really heartbreaking. When we got home, I left the carrier in the living room and she emerged from under the sofa, stared it down, and backed away under the sofa again. Poor thing.
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Aug 16, 2020 16:02
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vaginadeathgrip posted:Need a food recommendation. Kitty dropped weight but we still haven’t determined the cause, I think it’s possible she just stopped liking her food. She was eating Instinct (she only eats chicken and turkey) and it was great for her digestive system. I switched to Wellness Core chicken it became diarrhea central. Still is, but she eats it and is gaining weight back. Try Nutro Max. I started feeding Mel the wet stuff about a year ago, and she goes insane over it. She used to leave food in the bowl but now just devours the entire meal in under five minutes.
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Aug 16, 2020 16:05
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Sydin posted:Try Nutro Max. I started feeding Mel the wet stuff about a year ago, and she goes insane over it. She used to leave food in the bowl but now just devours the entire meal in under five minutes. Are you still able to get that anywhere? Sweetheart loves their Seafood and Tomato flavor but I was told by Chewy and Petco both that Nutro discontinued the entire Max Cat line and haven't been able to find it for nearly a year.
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Aug 16, 2020 19:52
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I think TimTam is making a recovery, for the last day he's eaten all of his meals from a spoon or bowl without needing the syringe and he looks to be sleeping much better now that his nose is partially un-blocked. Last night he even came out for a patting session and was purring and rubbing all over us, we brushed him too which he was in desperate need of after spending the better part of a week sick in a box. He's still sneezing and it still takes a little encouragement to get him to eat, he won't eat from a bowl of food just left in the room, but definitely getting more active.
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Aug 16, 2020 20:30
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We've been thinking about getting a dog but I'm worried that the cat won't take well to having another animal in the house- even after the better part of a decade of care and love, she's very shy and skittish, even around me to some degree, and has never been pleased to see new animals or humans, generally preferring to hide from them. Does anyone have experience with introducing a shy cat to a new animal? We're thinking a very young puppy might give her a little more time to get used to having someone else around before the dog is big enough to be a problem for her. Or is this whole thing a bad idea? Advance payment for replies in the form of photos:   
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Aug 17, 2020 00:55
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Give her places to be high and hide where the dog can't get to her and it should be fine?
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Aug 17, 2020 01:00
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aniviron posted:Does anyone have experience with introducing a shy cat to a new animal? Generally: don't do it. What I've found is that every cat relates to every species (humans, other cats, and dogs, in this case) totally differently. A cat that is super friendly with people might be hostile to other cats, for instance. And most cats tend to be terrified of dogs. If you really want to test it, find a friend who has a very chill, friendly dog, that you know can't be a threat to cats - even better if it's the same size or smaller than your cat - and have a visit. Don't force the two into the same room, but make sure the cat knows of the dog's presence, and see how it reacts. If its scared but inquisitive after a while, you might be ok. If its "I'm terrified for my existence and I will kill anyone that tries to get me near that thing," you're probably not changing that. That said, it MIGHT be possible that it wouldn't be threatened by a puppy, like with kittens? I don't know for sure. It still depends on the individual cat. Len posted:Give her places to be high and hide where the dog can't get to her and it should be fine? Yeah, if you do end up doing it, make sure the cat has a lot of dog-proof areas where it can observe and hide entirely when it wants to. But I don't agree it should be fine. There are some cats that will NEVER warm up to dogs. Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Aug 17, 2020 |
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Aug 17, 2020 01:19
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Kyrosiris posted:Are you still able to get that anywhere? Sweetheart loves their Seafood and Tomato flavor but I was told by Chewy and Petco both that Nutro discontinued the entire Max Cat line and haven't been able to find it for nearly a year. Yes and no. They discontinued all of their canned wet food, and replaced it with these dumb double pouch things. You can buy it on Amazon at an insane markup, but my suggestion would be to poke around local pet stores. There's a place near me called Pet Club that sells the wet stuff for a very nice 69 cents per pouch.
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Aug 17, 2020 17:32
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I am keeping a litterbox in the living room, so I want to reduce the smell as much as possible when I scoop. Are those litter genies worth the price? Or would a trash can with a lid do the job just fine?
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Aug 18, 2020 15:31
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Bioshuffle posted:I am keeping a litterbox in the living room, so I want to reduce the smell as much as possible when I scoop. Are those litter genies worth the price? Or would a trash can with a lid do the job just fine? Litter genies are pretty solid.
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Aug 18, 2020 16:58
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Sydin posted:Yes and no. They discontinued all of their canned wet food, and replaced it with these dumb double pouch things. You can buy it on Amazon at an insane markup, but my suggestion would be to poke around local pet stores. There's a place near me called Pet Club that sells the wet stuff for a very nice 69 cents per pouch. Ah, okay. We actually tried the pouch stuff and she doesn't care for it. She's lucky she's so cute because gently caress she's a picky little diva.
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Aug 18, 2020 17:37
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The rescue group I work with just lost a kitten during her spay... Apparently her heart stopped during the surgery. It's really upsetting. Is this something that happens?
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Aug 18, 2020 17:48
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Surgery of any kind always runs that risk. It's usually related to the anesthesia. Poor thing. 
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Aug 18, 2020 17:51
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aniviron posted:Does anyone have experience with introducing a shy cat to a new animal? We're thinking a very young puppy might give her a little more time to get used to having someone else around before the dog is big enough to be a problem for her. Or is this whole thing a bad idea? I personally think the whole thing is a bad idea because I doubt the cat will ever really be comfortable with a dog if it's still shy around people and other animals after 10 years. Plus I'm not sure if a puppy would be the way to go either since they have absolutely no boundries or restraint. I feel like a puppy would see actual agressive behavior from the cat as just more play and would continue to bother the cat. If you are going to do it, I would probably suggest looking for a 2-3 year old dog that already has calm temperament and is good with cats.
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Aug 18, 2020 18:26
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I went to the vet today for the first time, and it was quite an experience. I decided to take the taxi there to reduce stress, but the cat cried the whole way, so I figured I might as well take the bus back. I don't know if she was just dazed from the vet treament, but she liked the bus much better. If it wasn't for the corona threat, I'd definitely take the bus over the taxi in the future. The examination was only intended to clear the cat for neutering. The vet diagnosed my cat with severe gingivitis, which is apparently something some cats just have, but also a symptom of the deadly cat diseases FIV and feline leukemia (and cat herpes?). I don't think it's any of those, because she's vaccinated, is from a certified breeder and has never been outside. But I guess she might just be a really unlucky kitty? We got some expensive pills described as "cat ibuprofen" and we're supposed to give it to her for ten days. We gave her the first tablet today (by holding her down and dropping it deep into her mouth) and she didn't seem to mind. Let's see if it helps.
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Aug 18, 2020 19:47
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pidan posted:I went to the vet today for the first time, and it was quite an experience. I decided to take the taxi there to reduce stress, but the cat cried the whole way, so I figured I might as well take the bus back. I don't know if she was just dazed from the vet treament, but she liked the bus much better. If it wasn't for the corona threat, I'd definitely take the bus over the taxi in the future. Our dumb boy had to have a bunch of teeth pulled because of his stupid gingivitis, it's just a weird luck of the draw
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Aug 18, 2020 21:10
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mcmagic posted:The rescue group I work with just lost a kitten during her spay... Apparently her heart stopped during the surgery. It's really upsetting. Is this something that happens? Very rarely I think, if everything is done properly. Spaying is a lot more of a surgery than neutering though, and yeah I think no matter what in cats or humans anesthesia carries a risk. As it happens I just got 2 kittens that are going to need to be neutered here soon. One of the places here offers laser surgery and I'm wondering if any of y'all have opinions or experiences with it. I think the boy kitten would have a similar experience/recovery either way but I think the girl might benefit from spaying via laser if the benefits are as advertised. quote:
I am also accepting name suggestions. ETA: Wow, the laser place costs $550 for a spay, vs $125 at the other vet I'm looking at, that's...well its not nuts but it is crazy.ii1111111111111111111111111111 <---she agrees    
Wastid fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 22:33
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I see you've already started a Cats Don't Go There album
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Aug 18, 2020 22:40
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So another goon let me know that others here have had lost pet adventures this summer. I figured I’d share our tale. On June 28th, this 2 year old idiot, Tuesday, slipped out the back door sometime in the afternoon while we were moving the last few boxes out of our old home. We were finally concluding a move to a new house six hours away; the house was supposed to go on the market July 1. Tuesday had never shown particular interest in going outside since she was rescued at six weeks old. She just wasn’t into it. After Tuesday vanished, we saw her once more when she triggered the motion detecting floodlight in the evening. That scared her and she vanished beyond some brush between our backyard and our neighbor’s. We went around our yard and the block calling her. No dice. We did the standard moves: food, water, some dirty laundry, her cat boxes by the front and back doors. My partner had to immediately start his new job, so I stayed behind for that first week in my empty-rear end house and searched for Tuesday every day. I posted on NextDoor, the city subreddit, Twitter, Insta, and used PawBoost and a local lost pets site to post on Facebook pages. The local nonprofit animal rescue’s website advised calling the cops (useless as you might expect), animal control (“just post on lost pet Facebook pages”), the nearest humane society (a town over; they couldn’t help), and the vet. We had always kept to ourselves in the neighborhood, but people tend to like others better when they can help them. That plus quarantine madness had several neighbors generously offering their support: helping me get across town to make posters (I didn’t have a car 😭), bringing me some supplies so I didn’t eat only takeout all week, and even putting up posters. My posts on the two Facebook pages actually bore the most fruit. I was contacted by a local rescue, PawsWatch, that I hadn’t heard of. A volunteer brought me traps, motion detectors, and cat food, and we set it all up together. Days later, she even came out with a different type of trap, similar to a drop trap, and we tried that one too. The director of the organization also connected me with a city employee. Two nights before I had to leave, my neighbor two doors up actually saw Tuesday on her deck, eating her outdoor cat’s food and sleeping in her cat bed.  So we set up a trap in her yard. The city employee emailed me throughout the first week, just checking in after offering traps (which I already had by then) and kinda acting like a crazy cat person. I had no idea who she was, since her title wasn’t indicated in her email address and her emails never mentioned it and didn’t have a signature block. I was pretty overwhelmed by the combination of plague, move, frequent calls and messages from strangers, and running around during a Hot Apocalypse Girl summer. I was also checking three traps every two hours all day and night. I was worn out. Throughout this, all I caught was a neighbor’s orange cat (twice on the same night) and two raccoons (almost every night; they ate the cat food and patiently waited for freedom). I emailed the city employee when I finally had to leave without Tuesday. She seemed genuinely upset and laid out a master plan: a monitored feeding station in my backyard, complete with smartphone-app wildlife camera. I learned that she was actually the director of the city’s animal control department.  The folks who’d told me to post on Facebook.Well, a couple weeks passed and I didn’t hear from her. My neighbors kept me up to date about the trap and I continued getting calls and texts about possible Tuesday sightings. They tried putting another monitored trap in the backyard of another neighbor, but no dice. The real breakthrough came when the neighbor two doors up once again saw Tuesday. One of my other neighbors and I convinced her to let animal control set up another monitored trap in her yard. Later one of the animal control officers monitoring this trap said that raccoons would show up five minutes after she left. She saw possums, skunks, raccoons, and other critters on the camera, checking out the traps and eating the bait. Eventually they stopped baiting the trap with food because it was only attracting the wildlife. By then it was late July and the east coast heat wave was just obliterating my old town, broken briefly by a storm. My neighbor two doors up observed Tuesday coming to her yard to drink water, and noticed that her own dog was getting really interested in the backyard fence. Maybe Tuesday was hanging out there during the day. Animal control wanted their traps and monitoring setups back; it had already been a whole month of effort without success.    So my neighbor baited the trap with water around four that morning. Around 7, I got a breathless call: she’d trapped Tuesday! I could hear the little idiot screaming because of the offense to her dignity. We drove down the very next day.  It was a 14 hour round trip and we did it on Saturday. Animal Control collected Tuesday from my neighbor and took her into the shelter. An animal control officer opened up for us after hours to reclaim her. After getting her home Saturday, we realized Tuesday wasn’t well, but we had her set up for a vet appointment Monday. It turned out she had hepatic lipidosis from starving while she was out. She lost around 30% of her body weight, though fortunately she didn’t seem to have parasites or wounds. Her first vet checkup included a full chem 24 blood panel and tests for feline leukemia and feline AIDS. It cost around $800. The very next day, we were hit by Isaias, and she also started cyclically vomiting. It was a hell of a day for my county—four tornadoes touched down in under an hour and everything shut down and lost power. The day after that, the vet called us in—because Tuesday still wasn’t able to eat enough and her nausea wasn’t controlled by Remerin, we needed to get her an e-tube.  The e-tube was about $1200. That plus travel and rewards and donations mean she was an extremely expensive kitty this summer.  Catching Tuesday was an intense community effort. I was not a well-connected person. I’d lived in that house for seven years and only ever greeted the neighbors in passing. Even so, people really poured their hearts into finding Tuesday and into making me feel less alone that first week of searching. Local businesses also helped with social media posts, word of mouth, and looking out for her in our neighborhood. It was really awesome. POOL IS CLOSED fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Aug 19, 2020 |
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Aug 19, 2020 15:59
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Tuesday!! 
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Aug 19, 2020 16:27
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She’s a bad cat, bud! That was a really long post so I’ll summarize: my cat was missing for 31 days. The conventional cat finding advice did not return her. Talking to my neighbors and getting really lucky with Facebook lost pet page posts getting me connected to the local director of animal control worked. If you have a timid cat who runs away and hasn’t had to survive outside before, you have to talk to your neighbors and probably invest in a little technology.
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Aug 19, 2020 16:53
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