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Bollock Monkey posted:Has anyone used the puffed sweetcorn litter? We're on the hunt for a new litter after the amazing one we bought to make up a postage limit turned out to be impossible to buy at a reasonable price. But the sweetcorn one says that some cats love to eat it... We use something similar to this, from a different brand. The cat hasn't eaten any of it, and the package says eating a small amount wouldn't be a problem. It's lighter than regular litter, so it flies around a lot and turns up everywhere, but on the plus side it's soft and doesn't scratch the flooring. Overall I'm pretty happy with it.
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Nov 19, 2021 17:27
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Ollie loves to "test" the water about 100 times, splooshing it everywhere. He also LOVES popcorn, so that litter would be a no-go for him. He is even more food motivated than our dog.
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Nov 19, 2021 17:52
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Our last cat would go nuts for popcorn and run into the kitchen purring if she heard the microwave fire up and the bag starting to pop 
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Nov 19, 2021 17:53
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I use this walnut shell litter. It clumps well, it handles most of the smell. The main problem is the cats kicking it all the hell over the room. I need to move the covered litterbox downstairs. I really prefer crystal litter, but Diana announced her disapproval by taking a dump in the clean laundry. I'd only sprinkled a little on the top of the existing litter, too!
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Nov 19, 2021 18:07
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I have a litter box complaint:. They don't make litter boxes for big cats. My cat, and both my roommate's cats are large cats. Apparently in her old apartment maintenance called her at work because they thought one of her cats was a bobcat. That's the funny thing about big cats they don't look like monsters until you see someone else's cats, or the vet tech holds them. This probably doesn't sound like a problem, but my cat has always marked the wall behind the box. I'd been using a Clever Cat top entry (without the lid for obvious reasons) for 10 years, and that was pretty much perfect until recently. Now that she's 15, I think she was having a little trouble jumping in and out of the box, and peed on my bed over it. Changed the box to one she can step in and problem solved. The problem is covered boxes are too short and the "high wall" boxes aren't tall enough, so I have to put cardboard against the wall.
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Nov 19, 2021 18:38
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Sounds like it's time to stop looking for litter boxes and start picking which rubbermade roughneck bin will fit the kitties.
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Nov 19, 2021 18:41
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xzzy posted:Sounds like it's time to stop looking for litter boxes and start picking which rubbermade roughneck bin will fit the kitties. Believe it or not, in the first year or so, I did attempt to cut up a plastic storage container, but it was really hard to do and the edges were jagged, so I covered them with duct tape which got really gross fast. Also in the process I slipped with the knife and had to drive myself to the hospital to get stitches in my leg. Do not recommend.
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Nov 19, 2021 18:52
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Iron Crowned posted:Believe it or not, in the first year or so, I did attempt to cut up a plastic storage container, but it was really hard to do and the edges were jagged, so I covered them with duct tape which got really gross fast.
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Nov 19, 2021 19:53
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Yeah, I'd recommend building a ramp or something instead. She's otherwise happy with the litterbox, so maybe a small plank and support to form a ramp?
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Nov 19, 2021 20:18
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She's a stubborn old girl, I did try stacking some boxes, but nope. A year or so ago, I bought some pet stairs, because I figured it would be nice since she is getting old, but she will walk around it and jump up to the ottoman/couch/bed right next to them. It's actually kinda amusing IMHO the lengths she'll go to not use stairs or things like them.
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Nov 19, 2021 20:48
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We did the Rubbermaid tub with the hole cut in the side for years and it works okay. To cover the sharp edge get some foam tubing (like the kind they put around pipes or around kid's playground equipment.) It looks a little silly but its easy to wash if it does happen to get anything on it and doesn't absorb pee. Rubbermaid box was the only thing Sam could get in and out of when he was having urinary troubles, especially as he got older. We have a Litter Robot now with the steps for easy access but he still has some issues with turning around once he's inside of the drat thing.
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Nov 19, 2021 23:16
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posted this pic in byob already but it's too good to confine it there this is my manx bobby fattin' out on the cat tree 
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Nov 19, 2021 23:22
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empty whippet box posted:posted this pic in byob already but it's too good to confine it there Good 'ol Fat Bobby
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Nov 20, 2021 00:45
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empty whippet box posted:posted this pic in byob already but it's too good to confine it there That boy ain't right
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Nov 20, 2021 01:02
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My cat keeps trying to bite/chew on my wires and she doesn't even have teeth >:[
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Nov 20, 2021 01:04
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^^^ Nice looking cat tree you got there, looks like mine, just 2x4s wrapped in carpet. Mine's shredded to absolute hell but it's sturdy, one of the only one's I've found that isn't that cheap cardboard tube crap all the pet stores seem to carry.Iron Crowned posted:I have to drink my milk in the kitchen while I make breakfast, because if I try to drink it with breakfast, my cat is on top of it. The problem is she puts her paw in the milk, in the classic "testing the water" thing cats do. LUV 2 sit down with a cool cup of milk, realize I forgot something in the kitchen, see no cats around anywhere, stand up and walk into the NEXT ROOM to get it and come back 10 seconds later, still see no cats, but now there is a giant long black hair floating on top of my otherwise pure white dairy 
Takes No Damage fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Nov 20, 2021 |
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Nov 20, 2021 01:51
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Can I get recommendations for a challenging puzzle feeder?
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Nov 20, 2021 02:23
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Takes No Damage posted:^^^ Nice looking cat tree you got there, looks like mine, just 2x4s wrapped in carpet. Mine's shredded to absolute hell but it's sturdy, one of the only one's I've found that isn't that cheap cardboard tube crap all the pet stores seem to carry. It was actually hand-made by my mom! it could use some new carpet and maybe a new piece of wood where they like to scratch on it because WOWZERS have they hosed it up
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Nov 20, 2021 02:43
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My poor dumb idiot Buddy Cat has chin acne. We've gotten him new dishes and a new stainless steel fountain, but he's still got blackheads on his lips. Anybody have any experience with clearing this up?
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Nov 20, 2021 04:03
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Fighting Trousers posted:My poor dumb idiot Buddy Cat has chin acne. We've gotten him new dishes and a new stainless steel fountain, but he's still got blackheads on his lips. Anybody have any experience with clearing this up? We have had good luck using dental cleaning wipes on the chin of our siamese with acne every other day or so. Don't use human topical treatments for acne - they are poisonous to cats.
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Nov 20, 2021 04:17
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Scott Lame posted:Can I get recommendations for a challenging puzzle feeder? If you want a puzzle toy thing to hand out a few treats and entertain, the cat amazing puzzle boxes are pretty great with one my cats. I don't like the big one though.. the cat like it fine, it's just too drat big. The brown small one is more managable: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009R3SFBC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 If you want more of a meal solution, we bought this one: https://www.amazon.com/Trixie-4590-Activity-Fun-Board/dp/B001O8L2UO It's solid as hell, and our cat love it. The waves in the middle are easy mode followed closely by the pegs, then the bowls are second tier and the little squares on the tunnel slows them down the most (they can't use their paws, the holes are too small. They gotta use their nails). But as always it depends on the cat. Our other kitty refuses to work for her food and these hold zero interest to her. She'll paw at them and get a few bites then give up and glare at me.
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Nov 20, 2021 04:21
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Dumb stupid idiot is obsessed with chewing on zippers. Zippered pockets, backpack zippers, crotch zippers, sweatshirt zippers, if it’s a zipper it’s going in the mouth.
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Nov 21, 2021 13:04
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Harold DOES NOT TRUST cpap machine 
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Nov 22, 2021 12:24
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Iron Crowned posted:Believe it or not, in the first year or so, I did attempt to cut up a plastic storage container, but it was really hard to do and the edges were jagged, so I covered them with duct tape which got really gross fast. The next time you decide to cut plastic there are soldering irons with chisel attachments that are made for cutting plastic
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Nov 22, 2021 18:09
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Kitfox88 posted:Harold DOES NOT TRUST cpap machine Just wait until Harold learns that biting holes in the hose Always Gets Daddy/Mommy Up And Paying Attention To Me.
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Nov 22, 2021 21:28
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Kitfox88 posted:Harold DOES NOT TRUST cpap machine At least that's stationary, the first time my torty saw my sister's Roomba her tail inflated to the same size as the rest of her body 
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Nov 22, 2021 23:00
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poolside toaster posted:Just wait until Harold learns that biting holes in the hose Always Gets Daddy/Mommy Up And Paying Attention To Me. Kittens love that so much. You can get a zippered tubing wrap that both protects from tiny pricks and helps prevent rainout. It adds an extra step to taking the whole thing apart for cleaning, but it was worth it for me. I got this one: https://www.canadacpapsupply.com/resmed-zippered-tubing-wrap.html
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Nov 22, 2021 23:11
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poolside toaster posted:Just wait until Harold learns that biting holes in the hose Always Gets Daddy/Mommy Up And Paying Attention To Me. He’s luckily not at all a biter or such, he’s well aware all he needs to do to get me to wake up or yell is do his pathetic long loud yowling 
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Nov 23, 2021 02:20
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in my cat’s ongoing saga, he got a glucose sensor placed today. he was fine with it all afternoon but is now freaking out about it? anyone ever deal with this? vet made it seem common.
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Nov 23, 2021 02:35
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loving hell I am at my wit's end with Bug. About this time last year, she had some kind of behavioral stressout. She ended up confined in my room so she could not squabble with the other cats (and they were not allowed in my room either). She, despite vet visits saying she was fine, began to poo poo all over the floor, despite multiple litter boxes that were cleaned twice a day. I ended up putting shower curtain liners down everywhere because it was that, or rip out all the carpet. And then about March, she stopped. Everything was fine. I waited until May and then pulled up the liners. And until today, everything has been fine. Nothing changed that I am aware of, but she poo poo in five places today, despite the litter box being clean. And she knew it was a bad thing, because as soon as she saw me look in, she bolted and hid. The other cats are not allowed in my room still. She does sometimes sneak out into the rest of the house but always beelines back. To give her some more space, I babygated the hallway, so she can be in my room and the spare room/mouse room where I keep our breeding mice. She doesn't give a gently caress about the mice. I just don't think I can handle all this again.
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Nov 24, 2021 04:56
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Serious question, has your vet suggested anti-anxiety medication? She's stressed about something, and it's hard to figure out what triggers it with cats. OTOH, if she's bugging out like this, then rehoming her for both your sakes may be proper.
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Nov 24, 2021 14:37
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Kitten question: we are adopting a kitten to pair with our existing 2-year-old cat. I've been fostering him since Tuesday and he's doing well, zooming all over the place and being very insistent about eating only the hardest-to-get wet food varieties. My question is about the thinness of his coat; I took this picture to show it and you can see in some spots (in this photo on his elbows in particular) that his coat is quite thin. It's also evident on his back legs, around his tail, and his abdomen. Is this normal for kittens, or could it be a signifier of health issues? He also has a kind of scabby spot behind his left ear (somewhat visible in the photo) that he gets into scratching sometimes. I've migrated him onto higher-quality food than what he was getting at the rescue and so it might clear up over time anyway, but if he might have health issues now or in the future, I'd like to do what I can to address them now. The reason I'm concerned about health issues is this little guy is a surviver of feline parvo. I had actually started foster-to-adopt with his brother a couple weeks ago, but unknown to anyone parvo was spreading at the rescue and it ended up killing his brother and 3 other kittens. This kitten also got it but bounced back pretty quickly after a day of fluids and antibiotics at the vet, and a week later he is blasting all over the place, eating and pooping well. We're adopting him regardless, but if he's likely to have health issues down the line, it would be good to know now so I can get him the appropriate treatment/care. 
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Nov 27, 2021 19:17
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How do cat brains interpret wiggling toes under a blanket? Do they know it’s my toes under there and play along for fun, do they actually think it’s a small prey animal, or do they not even understand the concept of “under the blanket” and the moving bump itself is what they are attacking?
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Nov 27, 2021 19:24
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chutwig posted:Kitten question: we are adopting a kitten to pair with our existing 2-year-old cat. I've been fostering him since Tuesday and he's doing well, zooming all over the place and being very insistent about eating only the hardest-to-get wet food varieties. My question is about the thinness of his coat; I took this picture to show it and you can see in some spots (in this photo on his elbows in particular) that his coat is quite thin. It's also evident on his back legs, around his tail, and his abdomen. Is this normal for kittens, or could it be a signifier of health issues? He also has a kind of scabby spot behind his left ear (somewhat visible in the photo) that he gets into scratching sometimes. I've migrated him onto higher-quality food than what he was getting at the rescue and so it might clear up over time anyway, but if he might have health issues now or in the future, I'd like to do what I can to address them now. The thin-looking fur on the elbows is pretty normal for black kittens. There's likely nothing wrong, just a combination of the fur and the skin being very contrasting colors and the fur still growing in since he's a kitten. The scab on the ear could be from over-grooming or rough play, or could be something like a fungal or parasite infection. It's really tough to say, and only a vet could say for sure.
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Nov 27, 2021 19:37
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drunken officeparty posted:How do cat brains interpret wiggling toes under a blanket? Do they know it’s my toes under there and play along for fun, do they actually think it’s a small prey animal, or do they not even understand the concept of “under the blanket” and the moving bump itself is what they are attacking? I’m no cat scientist but I think it’s pure instinct, no thought process behind it. A prey animal hiding under leaves or in grass would move similarly so it’s just “this is how I’m programmed to react.” The blanket also is going to have your scent, the cats scent, other familiar home scents etc; real prey would have its own scent and make different noises, so maybe that keeps the cat more in “play” mode.
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Nov 27, 2021 19:50
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drunken officeparty posted:How do cat brains interpret wiggling toes under a blanket? Do they know it’s my toes under there and play along for fun, do they actually think it’s a small prey animal, or do they not even understand the concept of “under the blanket” and the moving bump itself is what they are attacking? disclosure: I've studied evolutionary behavior but I'm not an evolutionary biologist. I think what you're finding is an example of innate behavior in response to a stimulus. In this situation, the action is coded for genetically but the entire pattern of response to the stimulus isn't pre-programmed. This makes it different from something like Fixed Action Patterns (yeah they're FAPs) which are basically an evolutionary thing where a shortcut between a stimulus and an action exists. It's essentially the biological version of an If, Then statement. For example, the red dot on the end of a seagull's beak:  This triggers a fixed action pattern in gull chicks where they open their mouths to feed, make themselves seem vigorous and healthy, cry loudly, etc. You can replicate this response by putting a red dot on basically anything and lowering it above an occupied nest. Other examples of this in birds includes placing an egg-shaped rock near the nest of certain species: they'll come out and roll the rock back into the nest as if it was an egg. You could place a rock or egg there and remove it as soon as the mother bird leaves the nest to 'get it' and they'll still do the same action of pulling a non-existant egg back to the nest with their beak as if it was there. The cost of doing this is pretty low in terms of leaving the nest briefly and the associated risks, and the benefits are very high if an egg did manage to get out of the nest somehow. The reason all this exists is that it's relatively expensive (in terms of needing larger brain areas, consuming more glucose, oxygen, etc) for bird brains to do hard processing on a range of sensory inputs to make determinations about things. So long as the reaction to the stimulus is relatively harmless, it's a benefit to the animal. On the flip side, if a fixed action pattern came about (via genetic mutation as all do) that made animals come out of safety all the time in response to a common stimulus, you wouldn't expect that expression to help in the survival or reproductive success of the animal and it wouldn't be passed on. In the case of the cat attacking a foot under the sheets, it feels like too much ongoing processing is required for it to be a fixed action pattern so it's just the cat doing cat poo poo basically, coded for because it's advantageous for cats to expend energy on behavior which should have a high chance of securing food.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:37
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Cats can outgrow the behavior. Our current pair would savagely attack wiggling feet when they were young, but once they were about three years old they started to lose interest. Now they won't even look over when trying to bait them.
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Nov 27, 2021 20:42
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With my cats I've often felt like it's a thing where they're not exactly "playing along" in the sense of intentionally pretending they think there's an animal under there, but the whole activity takes on a quality of play that they get used to. Like, they get super hyped, and show many of the signs of being in "hunting mode," but it also turns off the moment the game stops and they're ready to instantly calm down and hang out again, just like when they're chasing a ribbon toy or whatever.
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Nov 27, 2021 21:27
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Thing move, cat attack. It's as simple as that. They know it's not really prey but play is very instinctual for them, just as much as real hunting.
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Nov 28, 2021 00:08
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Anyone have any personal recommendations for a particularly stinky brand of wet food, preferably one with some liquid, so that I could hide liquid medication in it? The liquid is easier than the pills for sure but Leela is extremely aware of when I try to mix medicine in with her food and figured it'd be easier with something like a wet food with gravy. I've tried the fish paste tube things and since it's basically dropping right on top she knows something is up immediately. Also I can't exactly give them one of those every day. Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this as it's gotten pretty frustrating trying to give her this medicine every day without inevitably wasting cans of food because I've tainted it.
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Nov 29, 2021 16:25
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