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BaronVonVaderham posted:Never seen a vet do that, that's a pretty big red flag to me. Are you really married to staying with them? I'm open to changing but my wife is less so. I need to get something ordered sometime this week and at this point I'm sort of pissed enough to refuse to buy from them, but also I can't let my cats starve.
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Oct 16, 2022 17:05
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Rescue Toaster posted:I'm open to changing but my wife is less so. I need to get something ordered sometime this week and at this point I'm sort of pissed enough to refuse to buy from them, but also I can't let my cats starve. As an interim fix I'd talk to Chewy or whoever and see if they'll accept a copy of the chart as proof of the Rx. Then request a copy of your records from the vet to send over if they'll take it. I'm pretty sure that's how we've set things up with Chewy for Rexie's special food.
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Oct 16, 2022 17:07
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I heard the squeaks of kittens in the greenhouse last night when I was looking for something. Are they going to be ok with the temperature getting to near freezing at night? I was going to leave some food out there but haven't found where exactly they're hiding yet.
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Oct 16, 2022 18:26
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This depends on their age, whether their mother is still present, and whether your greenhouse has any spaces that might retain heat. Under a month old it could be life-threatening for orphaned/abandoned kittens, older kittens with their mother still will be fine. If they're in an enclosed space that can retain heat, then it will act like an oven from body temp and will probably be okay. It's impossible to say without more info, which you probably don't have.
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Oct 16, 2022 18:57
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They sounded very young, just squeaks. I know I startled the mother last night but didn't see her. I didn't hear anything today but will keep an eye out, there's a lot of places around here that they can hide.
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Oct 16, 2022 19:18
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If they're very young then mom probably has a den setup and assuming she doesn't move/abandon them, it'll be okay. If you can get food for her (the kittens won't eat it, they'll still be nursing) then hopefully you can lure the family out eventually and get them adopted or at least TNR'ed.
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Oct 16, 2022 19:42
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LorneReams posted:Finally got my new kitten home, and was able to get the whole litter adopted, so yay!
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Oct 17, 2022 02:41
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Rescue Toaster posted:Hey I could use any suggestions here. My cat is on c/d (probably forever) and has been to two different vets. At this point basically both vets are refusing to confirm the prescription with petco/chewy/whatever because they want me to buy the food from them or the Hills-to-Home service, which won't ship the big 17 pound bags, and is significantly more expensive. Get the prescription in writing and email chewy support. They'll likely accept a photo/scan of it. Its how the system worked before they had the fully electronic one set up.
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Oct 17, 2022 02:47
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Arsenic Lupin posted:That kitten has the BEST markings. Are you sure it isn't a tiger? I hope not, but can’t 100% rule it out. Most of the documents went up in the fire and the owner ghosted after the fire and can’t be found. All the kittens survived, but most had injuries.
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Oct 17, 2022 03:15
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Rescue Toaster posted:I'm open to changing but my wife is less so. I need to get something ordered sometime this week and at this point I'm sort of pissed enough to refuse to buy from them, but also I can't let my cats starve. Is there another vet at that office who is willing to write the script for it even if the primary vet won't?
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Oct 17, 2022 16:43
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Didn't see any new posts here, so thought I'd post another kitten pic.
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Oct 19, 2022 23:21
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LorneReams posted:Didn't see any new posts here, so thought I'd post another kitten pic.
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Oct 20, 2022 01:42
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gloom posted:That is a top tier kitten, have you picked out a name yet? And is it very vocal? I've heard that bengal-looking cats are up there with Siamese for making weird noises. Each of our cats probably had a Siamese ancestor and Merlin is especially loud, he trills and warbles and murmurs every morning when it's time for the humans to get up, even if the humans have other ideas. Huh that's interesting. Quill is extremely vocal, I actually was once worried that she'd stop talking when she wasn't a kitten anymore but she trills and meows and otherwise makes sounds pretty much any time she wants me to look at her or draw my attention to something (ladybug/stinkbug on the loving WINDOW DAD).
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Oct 20, 2022 02:01
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gloom posted:That is a top tier kitten, have you picked out a name yet? And is it very vocal? I've heard that bengal-looking cats are up there with Siamese for making weird noises. Each of our cats probably had a Siamese ancestor and Merlin is especially loud, he trills and warbles and murmurs every morning when it's time for the humans to get up, even if the humans have other ideas. Checks out, our bengal is loud as gently caress.
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Oct 20, 2022 02:18
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Neat looking cat there. My former strays are loud as can be until they switch to murder mode. So needy.
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Oct 20, 2022 03:44
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His name is Kirin. Not too loud, but I'll be honest in saying this is the first cat that looks and acts this way. His hair is so smooth, it's almost like a hairless cat. He runs, jumps, and meows with things in his mouth, something none of any other cat I've owned has done. I volunteered to take this cat, but I didn't realize he would be so extra.
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Oct 20, 2022 05:40
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Affie had colonised our bed for the last couple of months: she would always end up on it when sleeping/resting and nowhere else. Now she seems to not want to go on the bed, and found completely different spots on the floor of our bedroom. We were worried that something was wrong but her usual behaviour hasn't changed (apart from this), so I assume that she just got bored of the bed? Cats are weird.
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Oct 20, 2022 11:24
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Yeah cats just like to change up where they sleep sometimes.
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Oct 20, 2022 11:29
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Anyone else have a cat that just has a bottomless pit for a stomach? I got my girl an automatic feeder, I complained about her in here when I bought it because she wouldn't use it but she did end up figuring it out and does use it occasionally but it doesn't stop her from crying for wet food when she is hungry and sometimes it genuinely feels like it's every hour that she comes around to mess with me. Meowing, really jamming her head into stuff (like my computer monitor), climbing on poo poo, looking for things to knock over, etc until I acquiesce and feed her. It's 10:22AM and I've fed her twice and she wants it to be three right now. I know this is basically 100% on me for giving in and feeding her when she is annoying me instead of sticking to a feeding schedule but when I have a load of work to do or I'm trying to relax it's easier to say 'fine gently caress it here's some food' to get an hour of peace before she's coming back to bug me again. It's become borderline anxiety inducing of late tbh, I hear her coming around the corner to my office and know she's coming in because she wants food and before long she's doing figure 8's around my legs, rubbing on me or slamming her head into my expensive monitor while meowing very annoyingly the whole time. I just don't see a way out of this without enduring many more months of re-conditioning so I've more or less given in and now sit at my desk anxiously looking behind me whenever I hear a pitter-patter of paws coming in the room because I know I'm about to be annoyed. I love my girl, I really do. I just wish she was less of a prick about food sometimes. It's a good thing I don't have or plan to have kids 
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Oct 20, 2022 15:29
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My cat is also very food-motivated but we have managed to keep to a schedule in the months we have had her, and apart from her wanting to have her dinner early, she doesn't really bug us for food because we have a very set feeding schedule that we don't really stray from. The only thing we give her outside of those times are treats. She does love to get my attention though when I'm working in the office, though, and it's behaviours similar to the ones of your cat: she'll come in, meow to make her presence known, or put her paws on top of the desk and stretch out to me, run figure eights between my legs and sometimes just outright jump on my desk (although the latter is usually only around dinner time). I've treated these as signs that she wants attention, and just gave her a few scritches or just interacted with her: eventually she moves away since I only occasionally give her a treat, so she seems happy with the interaction. If your cat is more forceful about bothering you, I don't think there is any way to drive out that behaviour apart from just not rewarding her for doing it, which is not gonna be easy from the sound of it.
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Oct 20, 2022 16:13
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Yeah, you've basically trained your cat that "being annoying as gently caress == food" and that's gonna be a long row to hoe insofar as undoing it. You fundamentally can't change if a cat is or is not heavily food motivated or has the wrong satiation triggers, but you can stand firm if at all possible, stick to a feeding schedule, and do your best to not give in. Uh, good luck.
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Oct 20, 2022 16:18
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We have a bottomless pit and a strict schedule is the only thing that has worked. Eventually they seem to pick up on the fact that bawling for food outside of meal times doesn't work and give up. It'll probably be a painful adjustment period though. The only issue is that kitties don't come with wrist watches, I think they tell time based on the sun because as the days get shorter she keeps asking for dinner earlier. Then once dinner time is after dark she adjusts and only begs for dinner once it's dark out. And this reverses in the spring. End result is we get an hour window ahead of meal time where we get the "why do you hate me" looks of death.
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Oct 20, 2022 16:18
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xzzy posted:We have a bottomless pit and a strict schedule is the only thing that has worked. Eventually they seem to pick up on the fact that bawling for food outside of meal times doesn't work and give up. It'll probably be a painful adjustment period though. Mine has never been particularly food motivated, but I keep her on a schedule based on my schedule. After my shower in the morning (or 6:30 on weekends) she gets her breakfast, after I get home (or 4:00) during the week. Sometimes she pesters me earlier, but not a whole lot, most of the time it becomes an active observing for me saying the magic word: "kitty food"
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Oct 20, 2022 17:59
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Questions. How much wet food does she get at a time? Maybe giving her “too much” so she can free feed on it an hour or two later will help? Does going through the food ritual with kibble or with the remnants of her wet food work? Like go to the kitchen, pretend to prepare food, serve. This works on my cats during time changes lol. Can you shut the door to your office? Pushy cats also stress me out so I got mine used to being forcibly exited when they’re being butts. As long as you do not have them trained to scratch at closed doors/carpet… This is more time and labor intensive but I was quickly able to retrain my cats around food by being very careful to only get up and serve breakfast/dinner right after seeing a preferred behavior. In my black cat’s case I managed to train him to use the litterbox in order to request food (!) which was super helpful since he’s had some minor urinary tract issues and it’s nice to be able to monitor his litterbox use fairly regularly.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:12
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I see a lot of websites discussing feeding cats once or twice per day (like the first google hit at Cornell's Feline Health Center), which seems like madness. The only times my cats will eat just twice per day is if I'm out of the house most of the day (I leave dry food but they don't usually eat much of it and presumably just sleep). Is there any research at all that cats prefer to eat large meals infrequently, or that it does them any good? Most sources I've seen that bother to cite research (like this one) say the exact opposite, and that most wild cats eats frequent, small meals. e: as I mentioned before, my formerly stray food-vacuuming cat used to eat anything, anytime, anywhere, and gradually transitioned to being finicky as he aged from ?2? years to 5-ish. YMMV, of course. Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Oct 20, 2022 |
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Oct 20, 2022 18:14
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Set meals serve no purpose but to limit calorie intake and make life a little easier for us humans. If you keep their bowl full of kibble there's no way to regulate how much they eat (unless you get into auto feeders). Cats adjust to a set routine well so that's why we do it. An average cat will regulate eating on their own and leaving food out is fine.. but if you get a bottomless pit that's a recipe for a major chonker.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:18
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She usually gets a half of a can of food when I feed her, but she almost never finishes it and I think this is partially due to her nosy brother who can't properly digest food and needs special food so he's always trying to sneak a bite of hers. Because of this leaving it out isn't really an option for us. I tried leaving wet food in her auto-feeder because there's a split bowl it comes with and keeps her brother out but she really only wants "fresh" food (or food that I go through great lengths to convince her is fresh) so normally if I try to give her stuff later on that she didn't finish she'll paw at the floor around it to "bury" it and walk away most times. I do usually do the ritual thing where I make a show out of spooning the food around in her bowl loudly before serving it to her again. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've tried closing the doors before but she's persistent and will meow incessantly or usually just start body slamming the door obnoxiously so it's kind of a net loss. I appreciate the words, all, I think it's clear that to stop the learned behavior I need to not reinforce it but drat it's hard. Thanks for letting me rant about my fuzzballs 
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Oct 20, 2022 18:19
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xzzy posted:Set meals serve no purpose but to limit calorie intake and make life a little easier for us humans. If you keep their bowl full of kibble there's no way to regulate how much they eat (unless you get into auto feeders). Cats adjust to a set routine well so that's why we do it. Yeah, as mentioned my cat has never really been food motivated. When I got her I would just put out a cup of kibble when I got home from work. Then she had to have 9 bladder stones removed and switched to prescription food, and I correctly assumed she would take to wet food better, since she was pretty finicky. I started giving her half a can twice a day so it wouldn't get all crusty and/or bad. Then I tasked my mom with watching her for a few days, and my mom insisted on giving her dry food with her wet food (thankfully my mom did buy the correct prescription food, instead of just grabbing some Friskies), so now she gets a quater can and a quarter cup of kibble, twice a day.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:28
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xzzy posted:Set meals serve no purpose but to limit calorie intake and make life a little easier for us humans. If you keep their bowl full of kibble there's no way to regulate how much they eat (unless you get into auto feeders). Cats adjust to a set routine well so that's why we do it. That's not really what I meant - I was talking about feeding, say 4-6 times per day (mostly wet food) vs just twice. It might be harder to establish a schedule with more frequent feeding and some cats just might not want to eat that often but I don't see why it shouldn't be encouraged if you can. explosivo posted:...she really only wants "fresh" food (or food that I go through great lengths to convince her is fresh) so normally if I try to give her stuff later on that she didn't finish she'll paw at the floor around it to "bury" it and walk away most times. Do you just leave food out or put it in the fridge? Wet food shouldn't stay out at room temperature more than a few hours (some sources say 2, others up to 4). Some cats don't mind eating refrigerated food cold, but others prefer it microwaved or at least left out long enough to return to room temperature.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:29
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eXXon posted:Do you just leave food out or put it in the fridge? Wet food shouldn't stay out at room temperature more than a few hours (some sources say 2, others up to 4). Some cats don't mind eating refrigerated food cold, but others prefer it microwaved or at least left out long enough to return to room temperature. It depends but usually never more than a couple hours because of how frequently I get bugged by her for it. Definitely no more than 4 but I probably should be better at putting leftovers of hers in the fridge. This may surprise you but she also does not like refrigerated food and I never had any luck microwaving it before serving it to her.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:41
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Have you tried mixing with with water? Our cats eat a lot more of their wet food when we basically make it into a soup. Doing that might make the refrigerated food more palatable.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:54
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explosivo posted:It depends but usually never more than a couple hours because of how frequently I get bugged by her for it. Definitely no more than 4 but I probably should be better at putting leftovers of hers in the fridge. This may surprise you but she also does not like refrigerated food and I never had any luck microwaving it before serving it to her. If she's hungry, she'll eat it. Sounds like she may have some food anxiety - she just wants to know the food is there, even if she doesn't want it. We free feed dry food, and our cats get very wound up if they can see the bottom of the bowl. When I refill it, they just eat a couple kibbles to reassure themselves that it's full and wander off. We give them canned food at 9 PM each night and they start gathering starting around 7 in anticipation.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:56
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I could not live without a timed feeder dropping food in the morning to keep them from waking me up at 5am every day. I feed them soft food at 5pm on the dot every day and I've been doing this with my previous cats for years to the point that I'm the one who's conditioned to feed at that time, and my new cats just figured it out and went with it. They do get annoying starting at 345 or so, but I understand it's not like they have watches or something. For a ten pound cat, I feed twice a day hard food 1/4 cup and 2.75 oz of soft food once a day. This has kept all my cats in healthy weight (9-11 lbs). Funny story, when my GF moved in with me years ago, she would refill the hard food whenever it got empty (this was before the autofeeder, and was when I would drop a set amount myself). She didn't know and just assumed the food needed to be refilled when empty. My cat went from 10lbs to 12lbs between vet visits and when I tried to explain how I fed the cat, my GF said, oh, I just add food whenever and I was like  Fixing that got them back to trim by the next visit. I learned some cats just can't be free fed, it's all up to the individual cat.
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Oct 20, 2022 19:14
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Is it possible to get prescription wet food through Chewy or PetSmart/Petco by the can instead of by the case? My 17-year-old darling has started turning up her nose at the food she has been happily eating for the past 2 years, and my vet can only order the hills prescription diet stuff. I don't want to drop 50 to 70 bucks on something she won't eat, in the local rescue still isn't accepting food donations for some reason.
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Oct 20, 2022 20:13
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xzzy posted:Set meals serve no purpose but to limit calorie intake and make life a little easier for us humans. If you keep their bowl full of kibble there's no way to regulate how much they eat (unless you get into auto feeders). Cats adjust to a set routine well so that's why we do it. To be fair, "bottomless pit" comes out to 33-50% of all pet cats, depending on the study or vet that you ask.
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Oct 21, 2022 02:36
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I leave a big bowl of kibble out and just let them whine if it's not wet food time. They know wet food time because it's right after the dog gets his dinner, he's the bottomless pit/lab.
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Oct 21, 2022 03:42
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My cats get wet food at 10pm but when DST ends they will get it at 9pm instead. I don't make them deal with time changes.
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Oct 21, 2022 18:23
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I have a horrible suspicion that my cat might be making a second trip to the vet this month. He's just thrown up on my bed, which is usually the first sign he's ill/injured. It's the first time I've actually been in the bed when he's done it, mind.
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Oct 23, 2022 03:19
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My cat seems to ever so slightly be squinting with one eye. Just doesn't quite open it all the way sometimes, and ever so slightly blinks it a little tighter. No sign of any infection or goop, no swelling/puffyness, no redness, not runny/watery, doesn't seem to be bothering her, she's not rubbing it or scratching it. Been about 24 hours or so since I first noticed it. I guess give it a week or so if there's no other signs of infection, and maybe talk to the vet then? I keep picturing all the horrible things that cause that in humans like stroke or cancer or horrible degenerative neurological things, but yeah she probably just got poked in the eye or something...
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Oct 24, 2022 18:57
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Rescue Toaster posted:My cat seems to ever so slightly be squinting with one eye. Just doesn't quite open it all the way sometimes, and ever so slightly blinks it a little tighter. I've seen Quill do this before when she decides it's a good idea to play around in the litter and gets the stuff on her paw before rubbing it across her face. I've had a little bit of luck very gently using a damp q-tip to help her clear the inside corner of her eyes.
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Oct 24, 2022 19:50
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