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Who doesn’t pee in the tub?
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Nov 8, 2020 22:49
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 18:01 |
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My cat puked today for the first time, but it was mostly water and one (1) piece of kibble. Overall a pretty easy cat. Now that the floor heating is on she likes to spend time just lying on the floor. I can see the appeal.
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Nov 8, 2020 23:19
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We once had a cat discover a hot water leak before it got bad by constantly sleeping on one weirdly specific warm spot in the hallway. She was a good cat.
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Nov 9, 2020 02:57
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https://twitter.com/invisiblemonkey/status/1325409699848728583?s=20 Still on my quest to make putting a box of turds in your living space more acceptable! The cat-flap has quite a strong magnet tho, and Katya is hesitant to open it by force because it snaps back in place so loudly. Maybe I can remove it altogether. e: this is her other one, yes she is a spoiled only child. InvisibleMonkey posted:No better time than quarantine to start and finish my abandoned projects, like this litterbox enclosure with slidey pocket-door for easy scooping! That's one less hideous plastic box in our small apartment. InvisibleMonkey fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Nov 9, 2020 |
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Nov 9, 2020 08:25
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Any recommendations for flea collars? My cats are literally crawling with fleas and the cheap collars I used do literally nothing. The best reviewed collar on Amazon claims it works via 'essential oils' and so I am absolutely not poisoning my cats with that thing. In the meantime I am regularly grooming them with a flea comb but I cannot get a vet appointment for proper topical anti flea treatment due to lockdown. I would like for my house to not be full fleas, having fleas crawl out of my slippers to start biting my ankles sucks.
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Nov 13, 2020 10:05
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Patrat posted:Any recommendations for flea collars? My cats are literally crawling with fleas and the cheap collars I used do literally nothing. The best reviewed collar on Amazon claims it works via 'essential oils' and so I am absolutely not poisoning my cats with that thing. That sounds miserable and obviously essential oils aren't going to do anything positive. https://www.amazon.com/Capstar-Fast-Acting-Oral-Treatment-Doses/dp/B07Q1TKTP9 https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/nitenpyram Also you will need to kill the fleas and eggs/larvae that are inside your house. https://www.petsathome.com/pet-talk/pet-care-cat-health-how-to-remove-cat-fleas-from-home knox_harrington fucked around with this message at 10:16 on Nov 13, 2020 |
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Nov 13, 2020 10:10
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Queen Victorian posted:Yeah their normal play fighting involves lots of bodily wrestling holds and kicking each other in the head. What I saw was definitely the beginnings of sexual behavior. I mean, it doesn’t really matter. Lots of spays involve abortion and you already have one scheduled.
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Nov 13, 2020 13:42
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Patrat posted:Any recommendations for flea collars? My cats are literally crawling with fleas and the cheap collars I used do literally nothing. The best reviewed collar on Amazon claims it works via 'essential oils' and so I am absolutely not poisoning my cats with that thing. Why are you looking at flea collars and not topical meds? Get Cherestin from your vet and your flea problem will be gone in a day or two. Get ready to do a lot of vacuuming. Flea collars are much less effective and can cause a lot of skin irritation.
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Nov 13, 2020 13:48
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Patrat posted:Any recommendations for flea collars? My cats are literally crawling with fleas and the cheap collars I used do literally nothing. The best reviewed collar on Amazon claims it works via 'essential oils' and so I am absolutely not poisoning my cats with that thing. I don't know where you live at, but in the US, you don't need to get topical treatments through a vet. My local Petsmart carries Cherestin.
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Nov 13, 2020 14:37
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I don't think flea-collars do anything at best, and could be harmful at worst. I've never heard of needing a script for topical applications unless it's the super aggressive stuff.
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Nov 13, 2020 16:04
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Yeah I can order Frontline off Amazon easy, no prescription. Amazon even has their own generic version.
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Nov 13, 2020 16:11
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I have already been using Frontline for two months and these fleas seem resistant to it given the lack of immediate flea die off compared to whatever was used by the vet last time. I am in the UK rather than the US and am not sure if I can get whatever it is that the vet used to successfully perform flea genocide online, though I can apparently get the oral medication that knox_harrington recommended and have ordered some.
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Nov 13, 2020 16:18
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Patrat posted:I have already been using Frontline for two months and these fleas seem resistant to it given the lack of immediate flea die off compared to whatever was used by the vet last time. I am in the UK rather than the US and am not sure if I can get whatever it is that the vet used to successfully perform flea genocide online, though I can apparently get the oral medication that knox_harrington recommended and have ordered some. yeah Frontline isn't very effective anymore because fleas and ticks have slowly become more resistant. I found that out the hard way years ago, had to smoke bomb my house because of fleas. I've since switched to Stronghold which has worked perfectly so far, at least until we successfully breed the next generation of super-resistant parasites e : problem with Stronghold is that it requires a prescription here in Italy, but it's worth it since Frontline is becoming more and more useless
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Nov 13, 2020 18:15
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Seresto is the only flea collar recommended by vets. In the Southern US the fleas are highly resistant and none of the monthly spot-ons I tried were effective but the Seresto collar worked and aside from some hair loss under where the collar sits I haven't had any problems with them on my 3 cats. e: Also amazon has a bad problem with people selling fake versions of otc pet medication. Make sure you buy from a reputable source. hypoallergenic cat breed fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Nov 13, 2020 |
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Nov 13, 2020 19:15
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The cat I adopted from a shelter in July came with fleas. I got it under control using a combination of:
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Nov 13, 2020 19:28
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Cherestin is apparently not very safe, there's a lot of reviews of it causing major harm to cats, and I ended up throwing the box I'd bought out and going with Frontline Plus (which is not the same as Frontline, so be aware of that). It's effective at killing fleas but it seems like it also kills cats at a rate that I was not comfortable with. What really threw me off it was that it's already been rebranded once because the original brand killed too many pets. If your fleas are absolutely not responding to anything else, it'll work, but I feel like it's a last resort given the horror stories I read.
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Nov 14, 2020 07:49
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Can anyone with a Litter Robot recommend a bag that fits well? The official Litter Robot ones are like 50c each, I'm sure there's gotta be cheaper plastic bags I can get. Little Carrot has been fitting in really well over the last few weeks!  He's a really sweet cuddly little guy, always wants to be picked up, always wants to nuzzle right up against my face purring and kneading. Honestly seems like the happiest cat I've ever seen. I got him a bunch of toys and cat towers and he just bounces from one to another all day until it's time for cuddles and naptime. Acclimated really well to the Litter Robot too, I brought him there every couple hours for the first few days he was here, and now he just goes there on his own.
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Nov 14, 2020 16:59
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Phenotype posted:Can anyone with a Litter Robot recommend a bag that fits well? The official Litter Robot ones are like 50c each, I'm sure there's gotta be cheaper plastic bags I can get. Any "tall kitchen" garbage bag works, so whatever generic brand you can find at your local grocery store/Costco/etc. will work.
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Nov 14, 2020 17:04
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So our kitties are back from their surgeries and recovering well. We initially had them set up in different rooms (with cat trees and stuff put away to prevent jumping) but they were absolutely miserable (and destructive) being separated and the solution was to put them in the same room but use their carriers to crate them like dogs whenever we can’t be around to supervise and break up wrestling matches. Crating has been working out shockingly well, much to our surprise. It has the side effect of forcing them to rest and let the incisions heal without getting compromised by excessive movement- even after taking away the cat trees, they were still jumping four feet up the wall to attack bumps in the plaster and stuff. And they have zero carrier anxiety now because the carriers are their beds and are otherwise always present. Still, can’t wait until they are fully recovered and we don’t have to deal with this anymore - having two kittens recovering from surgery at the same time is an order of magnitude more involved than just having one.
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Nov 14, 2020 18:27
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Two kitties, 8 months old. Sisters, always got on well. Peanut has just spent 2 night in hospital with severe anaemia (haemolytic I think) - needed a transfusion, they're still trying to work out what's causing it, but she's home now. Maple (her sister) was fine when she got home this afternoon, sniffed her, they ate together, play-fought a bit, the usual. Now it's bedtime and they're real-fighting, hissing, growling, can't be in their bedroom together. Maple is the more aggressive. Is Maple angry because she got 2 days of only-cat fuss, and now Peanut's back? Hates the vet smell? Or is she pushing Peanut away because she smells like she's dying (which she still is until we actually fix it)? Poor babies 
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Nov 14, 2020 23:12
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Bobstar posted:Two kitties, 8 months old. Sisters, always got on well. Peanut has just spent 2 night in hospital with severe anaemia (haemolytic I think) - needed a transfusion, they're still trying to work out what's causing it, but she's home now. Maple (her sister) was fine when she got home this afternoon, sniffed her, they ate together, play-fought a bit, the usual. Maybe Maple doesn't understand why Peanut is suddenly being more assertive/less passive than she used to be and is overreacting to the new behavior, perceiving it as a threat?
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Nov 14, 2020 23:19
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Deteriorata posted:Maybe Maple doesn't understand why Peanut is suddenly being more assertive/less passive than she used to be and is overreacting to the new behavior, perceiving it as a threat? Yeah that might be it, she perked up after dinner and some more Prednisone, and she's much perkier than when she left, since she'd had a slow and hard-to-spot decline up to that point. We'll monitor them together tomorrow during the day and see how it goes.
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Nov 14, 2020 23:39
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Our chunk has some real dry skin on her back half between her tail and mid back. What's a good way to get some moisture back into it?
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Nov 14, 2020 23:43
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Fish oil in her food, maybe?
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Nov 16, 2020 05:30
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Since I started reading this thread I found out that pet water fountains were a thing and thought it sounded like a good idea, so I bought one. Some time after this my cats aren't really interested in their usual wet food anymore and prefer the dry stuff. Could it be that they're just no longer thirsty, or is it a thing that two adult cats both simultaneously start to disregard a food source they have previously liked for some other reason?
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Nov 16, 2020 17:11
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That's an interesting theory because we used to add water to Katya's weekly packet of wet food and she suddenly turns her nose up at it but drinks from her fancy fountain religiously. Could be the brand because we tried another and she ate 3/4th of it and the rest later. This is a total garbage-cat that will eat anything you put in front of her so it struck me as odd. She did have a stomach upset a few weeks ago so I was thinking maybe a bad association that she's getting over with the new brand, I guess time will tell. I hope I can at least donate the box of unwanted food. 
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Nov 16, 2020 18:13
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Len posted:Our chunk has some real dry skin on her back half between her tail and mid back. What's a good way to get some moisture back into it? If it's just dry skin fish oil did the trick for us, she was a little dry and flaky when we adopted her and that's almost completely gone now. Do check if it could be parasitic or over-grooming or something, that's a whole different issue.
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Nov 16, 2020 18:16
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Any tips/tricks for GI upset caused by antibiotics? We're 5 days in to a 7-day course for a UTI of clavumox 125mg bid. The nausea and diarrhea have caught up to our 15 year old cat and she is miserable. She has chronic pancreatitis and in consultation with our normal vet have her on the cerenia (anti-nausea) and cyproheptadine (appetite stimulant) we keep on hand for those flare-ups. She's eating maybe 10% of her normal food with those. Fortiflora doesn't seem to be helping her very much this go-around. We took her to the emergency vet last night since she ate & then vomited up a clothing tag and we were worried she might have at least a partial obstruction. Many tests and some imaging later, the diagnosis is: unhappy cat not feeling well due to the antibiotics. She got some subq fluids and perked up, but they didn't have much else for us since she has been on the meds they would have given her anyway. Our normal vet is getting back to us sometime today with more suggestions, but I thought I'd see if the goon hive mind had any thoughts.
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Nov 16, 2020 22:13
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Vet says syringe feed and water her- which worked well enough that she started fighting back finally. Hopefully she starts eating more on her own soon. Cat tax: 
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Nov 17, 2020 15:40
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Help, I have conditioned my cat to be scared of treats! The cat knows where the treats are kept and used to run over as soon as you stood near that cupboard. Well over a month ago I lured her out from under the sofa with treats so we could get to a vet appointment. As soon as I tried to grab her to put her in the carrier, she hid under the sofa and we had to rearrange the appointment as she was NO WAY coming out. She has also had treats after something unpleasant e.g. when she had to have eye drops, as well as just for fun - certainly it has never been the case that she only ever gets treats when something scary is happening. I've kept doling out treats now and then as any good cat owner does, definitely without threat of further carrier capturing/other unpleasantness. But somehow she has learned to fear treats! As soon as she hears the treat bag being held/opened she runs under the sofa. I've been leaving treats out for her to eat at her leisure but it's both poo poo and inconvenient that she has managed to associate treats with unpleasant things, rather than the other way round. Any tips or insights!?
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Nov 17, 2020 16:07
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Bollock Monkey posted:Help, I have conditioned my cat to be scared of treats! Treats after an unpleasant experience are far, far less likely to contribute to fear conditioning than treats before an unpleasant experience. Backwards Pavlovian conditioning is rarely effective. The only thing that will reverse the conditioning is 'unpairing' stimuli - give out treats on a fairly random basis without anything scary happening. If its the sound of the bag rather than the treats themselves, you can try transferring them to a jar or other container that doesn't make the sound and just give her some time without the scary sound. Time can also weaken Pavlovian conditioning - not nearly as quickly and easily as 'unpairing' would, but its less unpleasant for the cat. Edit: The trickier part is the operant conditioning. Its possible that the cat has learned Treat bag sound -> Hide -> Delay/avoid the vet. If you give the treats/open the bag a lot, each time the cat hides and nothing bad happens, it can potentially strengthen that association, because the cat isn't going to understand that they weren't actually going to the vet anyway - to the cat, it worked yet again. If it were my cat, I might bring her in a room where she can't dive under the sofa, dim the lights and make everything as calm and quiet as possible, and just open bag - treat -open bag - treat for a while, but I understand if some folks wouldn't be comfortable doing that. Dienes fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Nov 17, 2020 |
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Nov 17, 2020 16:49
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just want to post to lament how much it sucks to have a sick cat when you are a single anxious person! thankfully my cat finally got a diagnosis from an internal medicine specialist yesterday, needs a pancreatic cyst to be drained and/or removed. my poor little guy. i have to pill him every day now too which is just nerve wracking for both of us. but thankful he got his diagnosis and we can move forward
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Nov 18, 2020 00:29
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Yeah honestly it was horrible having to treat my cats - I also suffer from anxiety. We got 2 kittens and at first one of them had a slightly weepy eye. Didn't seem like anything major so just kept a watch on it. Few days later he started having yellow discharge so I booked him in with the vets. By the time the appointment came around a couple of days later he was sneezing and wheezing... Basically ended up with both kittens having eye and upper respiratory infections, for 3-4 weeks in total. Had to give them 2 different kinds of eye drops, half an hour apart, 4 times a day... then that didn't fully work so had to take them back to the vet, then had nose drops to give them, also 4x/day, then oral antibiotics once a day, plus they were wearing cones... So all in all it was 8 different instances of eye drops, 4 lots of nasal drops (though I could give those at the same time as one of the eye drops), 1 lot of oral antibiotics, times 2 cats, every day. Plus each time I gave them eye drops I had to wipe the discharge from their eyes with damp cotton balls, then dry them off with dry cotton balls,, all while either scruffing them or wrapping them up in a towel burrito. It was.. a lot. One of the cats started out absolutely hating it and the other one was relatively chill... and then the one who initially hated it chilled out and became very relaxed and super easy to work with, and the one who was initially chill became VERY anxious about it and squirmed and scratched every time. I was really worried that they were both going to end up hating me, but thankfully they've both fully recovered now and it's like they don't even remember. That said one of them used to be pretty chill about being picked up but he doesn't seem to like it too much anymore - I don't know if this is due to all of the medical stuff or if he would have just decided he didn't like being picked up anyway. In any case, he's still very affectionate when he wants to be. Anyway, your cat will probably be fine and as much as he hates being pilled he'll probably forgive you.
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Nov 18, 2020 07:21
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Most pets are on the forgive and forget side of things. Extreme or repeated, reinforced trauma leaves behavioral scars much more reliably than any short term medical care, especially if that care is interspersed with love, affection, and reassurances.
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Nov 18, 2020 20:37
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We got a 7 week old kitten, to go with our two 2 year old cats (we got them when they were around 6 months). Nala (the female) keeps hissing at the kitten from across the room, but Dash will walk up to him and then hiss once the kitten acknowledges him. It's been about 24 hours. It only took like 2 days for Nala to get used to Dash, but he was around her size and able to stand up to her. I'm more worried about the kitten. He gets real scared when he's hissed at and will hiss back if someone's right up in his face. I think Dash is going to make progress, but how can I get Nala to stop hissing without chasing her away and risking a grudge being formed?
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Nov 19, 2020 01:47
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My cat snorts audibly when he's annoyed. I know he's not happy but it's so cute I sometimes encourage it.
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Nov 19, 2020 01:53
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:My cat snorts audibly when he's annoyed. I know he's not happy but it's so cute I sometimes encourage it. This is a succinct summary of life with Rexie.
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Nov 19, 2020 01:54
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Ott_ posted:We got a 7 week old kitten, to go with our two 2 year old cats (we got them when they were around 6 months). Nala (the female) keeps hissing at the kitten from across the room, but Dash will walk up to him and then hiss once the kitten acknowledges him. It's been about 24 hours. It only took like 2 days for Nala to get used to Dash, but he was around her size and able to stand up to her. I'm more worried about the kitten. He gets real scared when he's hissed at and will hiss back if someone's right up in his face. I think Dash is going to make progress, but how can I get Nala to stop hissing without chasing her away and risking a grudge being formed? Just give it time, 24 hours is nothing. Kittens are annoying to adult cats anyway so he's probably going to get hissed at and paw whapped a whole bunch by both of them before he's grown. Seven weeks is really small so you should keep an eye on them until either he's big enough that they aren't going to cause him any real harm, or they've proven themselves to be gentle enough when dealing with him. Also please post pics omg
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Nov 19, 2020 15:08
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Hissing is normal and fine, it's the equivalent of 'yo back off kid'. Kitten hissing back is actually a good sign since they're saying 'I'm scary too!!' which is a better response than 'oh gently caress oh gently caress oh gently caress' hides under the furniture forever. Give them a week or two to figure out the pecking order, it sounds like everything's going as planned for now.
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Nov 19, 2020 16:43
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 18:01 |
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Yeah sounds like you have a completely normal cat/kitten situation. You only need to be worried if one of the cats actually attacks the kitten, which I've literally never seen happen with well-adjusted housecats. Hissing is totally normal and isn't going to build a grudge - it's a normal reaction for a cat and a normal teaching tool for a kitten. What you need to watch out for is the "yowl" that builds into screeching - that means a fight. Separate them immediately if you hear this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNkGZdxOdbs By the way, don't play that video where your cats can hear it, it visibly upset one of my cats just now when he heard it, haha. He's the same one that starts trying to groom the computer speakers when we play kitten videos.
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Nov 19, 2020 17:52
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