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My question dovetails with that, so might as well post now! My partner and I are moving next month into a bigger place that can accommodate pets and plan to adopt a bonded pair of cats from a shelter in January - after holiday and moving chaos has settled down a little, and once a bonded pair is available. He’s had cats before but I haven’t due to family allergies (not mine). I’d love some input on what we need to have ready for the cats to settle in as comfortably as possible. Here’s what I’ve thought of so far:
Are there any glaring misses here? They’re going to be indoor cats and we’ll have them chipped, but I’m inclined to get collars as well just in case. Eventually we’d like to build a catio for them, and if they escape it our backyard is easy to get out of. Re. litter boxes, our main issue is going to be placement. The new place is either open concept with no discreet corners to tuck one away in, or small rooms (bathrooms, den) where I’m worried about smell lingering. The ModKat top-entry litter box looks like it might work okay to stick in one of the open areas without drawing too much attention to itself, but it’s quite expensive and might not be a good fit depending on age/mobility of the cats… Is this something anyone else has run into? Edit: I guess also if anyone has a recommended guide regarding household hazards? I still need to do an assessment of our plants to make sure none of them are poisonous to cats, for example. I’m not sure if we own anything else that could be bad news. kaom fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Nov 19, 2022 |
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Nov 19, 2022 22:05
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Thanks to everyone who replied with advice. Hadn’t thought about securing cables, and it sounds like we should start slow with the cat furniture until we learn their preferences. Appreciate it!
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Nov 20, 2022 23:07
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A month ago we brought home two feral-born bonded cats, sisters. They were likely caught outside that key imprint period, about 4 months old, and are now about 8 months old (estimated). The staff at the shelter worked hard to socialize them and I think they’re adjusting well - in the past week they’ve started to attempt to groom us, are comfortable weaving between my feet when they want to play, will gladly roll onto their backs to ask for stomach rubs, etc. Not fans of being picked up but they tolerate it. We’re seeing progress every day. The shelter was literally underneath a vet so they were being looked at monthly, but I’m a giant worrywart so I’m hoping to also take them to a vet ourselves soon to get any advice we need around their health (they’re quite different weights, idk if it’s just that one adjusted better to shelter conditions or if we need to watch this). I will mention these cats are not food motivated. They spent their first 24h with us refusing to leave the carrier and we could only get them to eat by licking food off our hands. Offer them something they like, but in a scary place? Forget it. So, some questions on our minds. 1) Managing fear They have improved a lot from a month ago, especially with being around us and the sounds of the house, but their biggest remaining challenge seems to be lighting. They won’t come downstairs until after sundown. Then their fear melts away, and they’ll chill on the couch with us and chase each other around the living room and up and dow the stairs, but during the day they just want to hide. One of them is higher energy than the other and she’s definitely bored during the day, she’ll beg for my attention if I’m nearby, but she won’t come more than 10ft from the cat room. Does anyone have suggestions on how we can work with them on this, or is it just a case of patience? 2) Eating The heavier one (who is the lower energy cat also) only likes to lick her food. Unless it’s her favourite BEEF, she just laps at it and gives up after a while. I was initially worried it could be a dental issue but since she’ll chew wet food with beef in it and also eat dry food, that seems unlikely? Could it be whisker stress? Just a weird preference? 3) Litter tracking tips We’re using pine pellets for litter and they work great for keeping smell under control. We scoop every time they use the litter box and swap it out weekly. The issue is just that it gets tracked everywhere, I’m doing a deep vacuuming weekly but it’s still getting all over the carpet and from there onto their fur constantly. Do either silicone or carpet mats actually work to keep it from escaping, if anyone has experience with this litter material? 4) Scratchers We have a cat tree with sisal rope posts that they love. They don’t understand the cardboard scratcher (it’s one of those big floor scratchers, shaped like sunglasses) and haven’t used it once. Or the house with sisal siding that isn’t rope-shaped. Other things they love to scratch: the expensive wool cat cave and the carpet, particularly on the stairs. This last one is not great, although the previous owners had a dog so there was already a bunch of carpet wear and tear when we moved in so it’s not the end of the world either, it might just move up our timeline for replacement. Anyway, what I’m seeing on the carpet is they like to fully stretch out on their side and then scratch. I haven’t found a cardboard scratcher long enough to let them lay on it to do this. Any ideas for other things we could try? I guess I could bring our jute welcome mat inside and see how they react, the neighbourhood outdoor cats seem to love it.
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Feb 24, 2023 00:45
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We had two carriers available when we picked up our bonded pair and wound up putting them together in one, even though it was a bit cramped. Ours were very skittish so being together helped them. Either way I’d expect the shelter should be able to make a recommendation based on the exact cats you choose.
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Feb 27, 2023 19:44
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kaom posted:3) Litter tracking tips Well I’ve seen this in action now and can confirm no mat will help us. One of our cats came out of the litter box and straight to me for belly rubs, and it turns out sawdust is sticking all over the fluff on the back of their legs (long-haired cats). Sure explains how they were tracking it so far around the house… Glad I didn’t shell out, although I’m not sure where to go from here other than accepting my pine-scented fate.
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Mar 2, 2023 03:14
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Arsenic Lupin posted:You can switch brands and types of litter. I stopped using World's Best cat litter (corn-based, very dusty) and am currently testing Dr. Elsey's Ultra and Arm & Hammer Cloud Control. You might also consider crystal litter, which is dust-free. I’m totally open to switching it up, we started with pine pellets because it was what the shelter was using and we wanted to minimize the amount of change they were going to run into coming home with us. Maybe I’ll try this: VelociBacon posted:If you're that sensitive to litter dust you should avoid it completely and switch to the extruded walnut poo poo. Either way, they’re still only using one litter box and haven’t done more than dig around a little in the second one on the main floor. They both always run back up to the cat room.  Ultimately we want that to become the guest bedroom and not contain a litter box, but we haven’t dared moved it yet because we’re a little worried about what they’ll do if they can’t find it where they’re expecting it. It’s the only thing left in there. We wound up addressing the “scared to come downstairs in the day time” problem by moving all their cat furniture downstairs except the anti-anxiety cushion in the office. This has actually been working pretty well, they’ve come down all on their own for meals and company a few times and haven’t immediately bailed back upstairs, there’s been some play in the living room and one of them spent an afternoon on the cat tree in the sun. As long as the time they’re spending down here increases, even if it’s a slow process, I think we’re on track for them realizing the whole house is their home and not just the upstairs. Still no idea what to do about encouraging them to eat, though. Our licker still only likes to lick (unless it’s beef). And they both strongly prefer licking food off our fingers vs eating it out of a dish. (We have flat stainless steel food dishes for them.) This is very very cute and I assume good bonding, but we can’t let it be the only way they’ll eat without being fussy because we know we have to travel for a family wedding this summer and I’m not going to ask a cat sitter to feed them this way lol.
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Mar 4, 2023 23:43
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I posted a few weeks ago about how one of our two 9mo. kittens will only lick her food. We’ve been to a vet since then - two have seen her, actually, both at a specialized cat clinic. Her health and dental health seem A-OK. And she’s fine chewing dry food, there’s no sign of pain. My best guess is that she doesn’t understand how to get food into her mouth except by licking it. Even treats! She has a hard time getting them out of my hand. Sometimes they fall right out of her mouth before she can bite down on them and she’ll chase it around the floor and give up if she can’t get it back in. She’s very gentle, noticeably so compared to her sister.How do you teach a cat to bite? The licking makes her so slow. I feel like sometimes when she stops eating wet food I’ve put out she isn’t even full, she’s just tired of trying to get it into her mouth… With something chunky like Tiki Cat she literally just licks the moisture off and then stops. Bonus vet anecdote and proof of healthy kitten criminal activity:  “What do you have for scratching posts?” Two cat trees with sisal posts, a condo with sisal siding, a horizontal cardboard scratcher, a jute rug… “And what do they use?” The carpet on the stairs. This all isn’t an emergency, obviously. As you can see she isn’t starving, she’s eating. I just want her to have an easier time of it.
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Mar 31, 2023 07:09
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The equigroomer works great on our domestic longhair cats.LeninVS posted:So far I think she has hid in the ground fort for the entire 26h. I know she hasn't used the litter box and it doesn't look like she's eaten or drank anything, but I cannot be 100% Our cats did this too when we brought them home from the shelter. They didn’t even leave the carrier for around 24h. It was terrifying for us, but they were fine. They just needed time. We mixed water into wet food and put it right up against their hiding place to help them feel comfortable enough to start eating and to get their hydration up. Edit: Also thank you to everyone with advice about our weirdo licking cat. We’re still experimenting with feeding her, no real breakthrough yet but I’ll report back if we figure something out. kaom fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Apr 11, 2023 |
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Apr 11, 2023 03:54
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EoRaptor posted:I’m going to bluntly suggest moving some buried poops from the upstairs box to the downstairs, so it smells like a place for cats to poop. So update, this worked! I waited a few weeks because I just couldn’t bring myself to make my cats use a litter box with poop already buried in it.  In the end I compromised and took used litter (without poops) from the other box and mixed it into this one. Cue a couple days of digging around but not using it, then a couple days of peeing in it, and finally poops! Both litter boxes fully in use. Thanks!
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Apr 12, 2023 20:52
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Well wishes to everyone’s cats.  Today marks the first time one of my feral-born cats actually climbed onto and settled on my lap (lol this lasted about 30 seconds before her sister became a distraction). They’ve been willing to walk over us for about three weeks, and willing to curl up next to me on the couch since a week ago. There’s still lots to work on but we’ve only had them for three months, I’m proud of them adjusting so quickly to life as house cats. Got a couple updates on questions I’ve asked: VelociBacon posted:If you're that sensitive to litter dust you should avoid it completely and switch to the extruded walnut poo poo. We wanted to try this but my partner picked up the clumping walnut instead of the non-clumping. Clumping walnut review: does nothing for smell, is dark brown so it masks whether you’re looking at clumped pee or watery poop, but is actually very good for mess. Experiment with the non-clumping pellet version to come. mcmagic posted:Have you tried to mix her wet food with water? I feel like she'll figure it out or she'll just eat like a weirdo which isn't a big deal as long as she's eating. Attempted, she licks the top and gets all the moisture out then gives up when the remaining food is “dry.” We tried changing the dish - shallow metal flat bottom, deep ceramic with high sides, a flat human plate. We tried warming up the food in the microwave (on a low low setting). For about two days both cats were excited about the flat plate + warm food combo, then they went right back to “nah.” They eat their dry food pretty enthusiastically and they both use the kitty fountain, but I’d like to have wet food as a regular part of their diet. Licky girl still has trouble with the dry food, dropping it on the floor and stuff, and it takes her forever to eat. Her favourite way to eat anything is directly out of our hands, which is cute but very messy because her licking chases it around everywhere. Guess we’ll just keep trying different options.
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Apr 24, 2023 22:24
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We bought the Catit fountain that’s shaped like a cat since it was what our local pet store had in stock. It seems fine? Our cats use it, there’s a small reservoir on top if the power were to go out, there’s a window and a light indicator if it runs low. We do clean it often because our cats love to dip their fluffy manes into it. This thing: https://www.amazon.com/Catit-Drinking-Fountain-Running-Water/dp/B095PZ8ZXZ What features do people look for in fountains? I see a lot of ceramic recommendations but not sure what the advantage is.
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May 4, 2023 21:15
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Our cats are indoors and chipped. I’ve been debating trying to get them used to collars, is it likely that would increase the odds of matting for long haired cats? P.S. Melomane Mallet I’m not trying to ignore your question about “have you tried pates” btw my partner has just wanted to try sticking to a routine with the same food for a bit to rule out other factors. This is still on my radar! I hoped to have an update but not yet.
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May 11, 2023 21:41
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Idk what exact brand we have but our cats go similarly crazy for these “flicks” things https://boinks.com/product-category/cat-toys/
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Jun 29, 2023 08:46
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I learned a lot reading the nutrition megathread here in PI, mostly that no one agrees on the “best” diet. Our cats were being fed Hill’s at the shelter and the wet food looked better to us than the dry food, so we kept that up for a bit while we worked on finding a different dry food option that we preferred and they actually liked. The amount of research you can do is kind of overwhelming and then your cat(s) might not eat it anyway.  As an update on my own earlier food questions, our licky girl is attempting to eat Orijen wet food, trying harder than anything else we’ve offered her so far (a bunch of the slide & serve pates were fully rejected), so fingers crossed. We’d tried this before and it didn’t take, but maybe this time? I wish they weren’t so picky. kaworu posted:Any advice on finding new ways to socialize the feral cat we adopted? I did want to comment on this just to share our experience in case it’s helpful. We brought home two feral born cats in late Jan. They were probably caught and brought to the shelter about 3-4 months old, just outside that key socialization window. They didn’t trust the shelter staff, they spent their time hiding and refused to eat while anyone was around, although they would eventually settle and purr if staff pushed the issue on physical contact (mixed feelings about this tbh, I think they were scruffing them which doesn’t help build trust but their priority is to get them adoptable so I understand it). I work from home so the cats get more time with me than my partner. We’ve been careful to do some of the things you’re already doing, like making sure I’m not the only one who feeds them. It’s still normal for them to pick favourites, but what we’re looking for is no fear reaction - no hissing or hiding, no defensive body language. Sometimes we tag team this, e.g. let my partner pick you up, and I give you a treat while he’s holding you. They aren’t lap cats (yet, I actually have hope for them to get there because they love floor snuggles) but they are comfortable with us now. However the fear reaction is still a problem when we have guests over. If I think about it our approach is two-pronged: 1) make it less appealing to do the behaviour you want less of, 2) give good incentives for desired behaviour. So we don’t take away any hiding spots when we have people over, because we want them to know they have safe places to go to, but there are no toys or treats available in hiding spots. Hiding is safe but it’s boring. We encourage interaction with guests, depending on our guests’ willingness and how the cats are reacting. Sometimes maybe that’s just sitting in the same room as them so they have to hear and smell a new person (and nothing scary happens!). Or bringing out their favourite toys, but they only get to play with them if they come out of hiding. Then if they do and seem relaxed enough, maybe we hand the toy to our guest to continue play. Basically, we want them to realize the whole house is their safe place, and that people are only here who we trust also. Sometimes they’re more game than others, but we are steadily seeing progress (just last week we got them to take a tube treat from my sister and also allow her to pet them, and they didn’t even leave once they finished the treat). We have a specific goal for the behaviour we want to see: they don’t hide when company comes over. Because it’s fine to hide for an hour or two, but at some point we’d like to have family from out of town spend the night and we don’t want that to completely upend their routine and stress them out. IMO you can continue to work on this, but you might also be running into what Arsenic Lupin said - it might just be “cat being cat” rather than a result of Mini-Scratcher’s background. I’m not sure if what I describe here will resonate. You’d be better able to gauge the exact behaviour you’re seeing - does it seem like trust is a factor in it?
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Jul 7, 2023 02:27
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We’re still working on this with our cats. I think it’s super important that carrier doesn’t automatically = vet, so ours is out in the living space 24/7 with a towel over it to make it cozy and they do sleep there sometimes. (Initially we had to lure them in there with treats/toys.) So far there’s no helping the moment they realize they’re stuck. We’re hoping to keep getting them used to that, closing it up and then letting them out right away, carrying them from one room to another etc. I’m not sure if they’ll ever reach the point of being comfortable with it (or the car, which they’ve only been in three times), but then they’re getting over being scared of the vacuum cleaner and I never thought they’d do that either, so… all we can do is keeping taking baby steps. If time is of the essence though, for the first vet visit we cleared out a room of hiding places other than the carrier so our cats would have to go there once we got everyone closed into the room. We had one of their blankets inside so it smelled okay. It still wasn’t easy but this did work. May not be possible depending on your living space, our old place wouldn’t have had room to do this. For our next visit the vet prescribed gabapentin - they had needed to see the cats once first to confirm it would be okay, although I’m not sure every vet would need that precaution. It wasn’t magic and we still had to set aside time to get them into the carrier, but it did help, and it helped them during the visit. Another bonus of making the carrier itself feel safe to them is that they actually wanted to be back inside it at the vet instead of hiding somewhere else, so at least bringing them home was easy.
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Jul 10, 2023 18:38
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His ears  Post all the pics, in YOSPOS or in the orange cat thread here in PI! Re. litter chat, our non-clumping walnut experiment seems to be… a rousing success? I’m honestly surprised. It has all the things we liked about pine pellets, plus it’s actually been much less messy. The only downside, and it’s minor, is that I don’t really like the smell of it - but it’s the walnut I’m smelling, so it’s still good on odour control.
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Jul 20, 2023 03:37
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We went away for a night this weekend and I’m a little worried how our cats reacted. My sister - who they’ve met many times and have even taken treats from once - came twice a day and put out their usual meals, but they only ate at night. This is the same thing we were told they did at the shelter the whole 3+ months they were there, they never ate in front of the staff but their food would be gone in the morning. They seem so comfortable now but it makes me think they don’t really consider our home safe, that they need us to be here with them too. My partner is also convinced they like it when he watches them eat, which is cute, but now I worry that’s a “safety” thing we could be accidentally reinforcing. In a few months we have a weeklong trip, along with my sister. Any advice on preparing our cats? Our options for care are to have our neighbour come by, who also has cats but hasn’t met ours yet, or to board them (there’s a cats only place with great reviews nearby). I thought keeping them home would be obviously less stressful but now I’m not so sure, if they’re going to be terrified and hiding anyway maybe we should aim for maximum monitoring. But there must be something we can do to help them before this.
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Jul 31, 2023 21:28
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Eating the SPRING TOYS?  I wouldn’t have guessed that was manageable.Organza Quiz posted:Keeping them at home is the least stressful option, even if they are still stressed. There's not much you can do about it, it's just a facet of cat ownership that they will be sad when you aren't there. Monitoring them will just stress them out more. Thanks. The only thing I can really think of, since familiarity with the sitter didn’t matter, is maybe for me to leave the house more. I WFH 90% of the time, maybe it will help to normalize “empty house” for them a little.
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Aug 1, 2023 21:59
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Fingers crossed for you to be reunited soon, Reaganomicon. Maybe that apartment building has someone who could post one of your flyers up inside so more people there see it?Blackhawk posted:Timtam wants you to look at his tail. Amazing also adorable cat name!
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Aug 12, 2023 19:45
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:A big part of that is it feels bad to have to have your whiskers pressed when you are trying to eat or drink yes? Cherry-picking this part of your post just to share some info - I also came into this thread months ago believing that whisker stress was a concern and was trying to be super thoughtful picking out food dishes for our cats. Turns out there was a study done pretty recently that concluded this isn’t actually a real thing. I got this from a Helpful Vancouver Vet video on YouTube, I’m assuming he’s considered a trustworthy source.
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Aug 16, 2023 21:40
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One of ours doesn’t mind at all as long as she’s comfy so we usually trim hers during nap time on the couch. She actually needs it done, she doesn’t scratch enough and has trouble shedding the outer part of the claw so if we’ve waited too long some of them can be really thick. The other HATES being restrained. We’ve got her pretty used to us touching her paws but holding her leg is a hard no. We tried to towel her once but she panicked, so I want to wait a long time before we try that again. Luckily she takes good care of her claws herself so they aren’t bothering her other than being very spiky for us. They both still seem to be getting along okay, they still wrestle and groom and cuddle despite the unfairness of the claws.Separate topic, but I bought a training clicker this weekend. Our cats blew me away and weren’t scared of it at all, which means we’re skipping right to the part where I teach them it means “you did good.” I realize training cats is less common because, well, their attention span, but that said does anyone have recommendations? I’m currently understanding maybe 30 seconds of focus is a good session, and that target training is kind of the default beginner trick (foam ball on a stick I guess?). I have no goals other than another way of communicating/engaging with them. Based on how they reacted to puzzles like “there is a treat in this toilet paper roll” I think at least one of them will enjoy it.
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Aug 29, 2023 06:30
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I’m really sorry khy I read your personal thread, too, I’m so sorry things turned out that way. It was my first introduction to FISS and I think we did a better job researching and asking our vet about risks because of that. I wish I had something more helpful to say, it’s awful you’re having to respond to another health issue so soonShogi posted:Albert and Mia is a good channel. I did 'follow the finger' first (equivalent of target training), then sit, come when called - this is actually really useful, especially if they're indoor-outdoor so you can yell their name into the dark and feel like a cool ranger when their eyes appear in the distance - stay, jump into carrier, then silly stuff like high five and lie down just for fun. Thanks! I’ll check this channel out. These tricks sound very fun and your cats are amazing for picking them up, I’m blown away by your training success. Mine have kind of figured out “come when called” at least for bedtime snuggles. It would be great to reinforce that and make it an actual thing. Maybe also make the cue something less embarrassing than standing at the top of the stairs singing my own made up cat song at them. 
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Sep 1, 2023 21:09
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He is a cutie. The YOSPOS cat thread is weirdly the most active one I know of, moreso than the PI threads. I just read all of them.
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Oct 2, 2023 22:46
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Our week-long trip ended up okay. We had a neighbour come and cat sit, checking on them twice a day. They hid from him every time. But they were happy when we came home, at least, and seem to have settled back to normal quickly. Anyway, an actual question… I’d like to get more stuff for our cats, cute edition. What brands out there have a good mix of ~*~aesthetic~*~ for humans and quality for cats? We have a cat tree from Agile Designs for example where most of the cushions are removable so we can wash them and the screw ends are well hidden (our other tree settles for a plastic cap over the only exposed screw and our cats just make a game of removing it and chewing on it every day, it’s not great). I looked at Happy & Polly which have the look nailed but otherwise it seems kind of weird, like they’re US-based but half the descriptions look like a machine-translated Amazon listing. Less effort to make cushions removable, and it’s a much higher price point than Agile (since we’re in Canada and there’s currency conversion involved). Are they legit?  I’m mainly interested right now in a second cat fountain, more food dishes in different designs to see if our licky girl has a preference, and some kind of bed or hammock large enough for both cats to use it. BUT CUTE. At the shelter they spent a lot of time snuggled up in a giant cactus hide, I wish I could find something like that. I’m happy to shell out for quality, but idk what’s actually good and what’s a scam online. Or just insulting - I was looking at a cat wheel on Amazon that helpfully informed me “even girls can build it!” thanks. Hoping some good word of mouth here can help!
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Oct 15, 2023 22:33
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Our cats turned out to have worms as well, which we also discovered when some got puked up. Apparently pretty common, they can even pick them up as nursing kittens from their mom. We sent a photo to our vet and got a broad spectrum dewormer which we administered to both our cats. They come either as pills or as creams you can rub in. It wasn’t a huge deal in our case, since IIRC it was roundworm, so we just had to do the treatment twice across a specific time window (the first dose won’t kill worms that are still in egg form, they have to hatch and develop mouths to die in the second round) and wash/disinfect stuff around the house. Some types of worms are more serious than others so IMO you’ll want someone who knows what they’re talking about (not me) to identify what you’re dealing with to at least rule out the nasty stuff. (But it looks a lot like what we had to me, too.)
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Oct 19, 2023 07:14
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VelociBacon posted:Make sure you're using ceramic or metal feeding bowls also so kitten doesn't get an infection from the bacteria that plastic bowls retain. Not specifically a question for you, VelociBacon, but I’ve heard this advice a few times and I’m kind of confused about it. If you’re buying food-grade plastic or melamine, why wouldn’t that be food safe? Is this more about low quality stuff on Amazon or is there something I’m missing?
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Oct 26, 2023 20:56
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Arsenic Lupin posted:One of our cats has a hard time licking up food in a deep bowl, so we use these ramekins for wet food. They're a bit less than an inch high. This is a great reminder I need to track down our ramekins still, they’re in a box somewhere. Also these look like something we should try for licky girl. hypoallergenic cat breed posted:The material is porous allowing gunk and bacteria to build up and most people don't wash their cat's dishes that frequently. Ah, okay, so we are being the weird ones giving our cats 6x clean dishes daily (we have a small dishwasher so we fill it up and run it every day which makes this very little effort for us). I asked this question because I’ve been wanting to try one of the tall, tilted dishes but everything seems to be plastic in that design. Maybe it’s worth a shot and we’ll keep an eye out for any acne issues… I swear this cat cannot figure out how to eat normally and it’s so weird because her sister is fine so why doesn’t she just copy her? I’m just going to keep trying to crack the code I guess, at least she manages her dry food A-OK as long as she can chase it into a slope.How she was successfully living in the woods, I’ll never know.
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Oct 27, 2023 00:26
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Even our feral-born girls turned out to love belly rubs, once they trusted us enough. Definitely unexpected. That kind of general advice is useful for cats you don’t know very well but ultimately they’re all individual.
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Nov 15, 2023 22:04
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Fabulousity posted:Anyways all four kitties are happy now. Really glad to hear this! We just took our cats in for a routine vaccination update and the vet gave them another dewormer treatment, just as a precaution. No signs of worms so looks like we stamped them out. In other news one of our cats (LICKY GIRL) started eating the ends of our corn broom, so we bought cat grass which she’s chomping on daily now. I still haven’t returned the confiscated broom to its previous home though. She hasn’t been vomiting anything up either way, idk what her deal is. No signs of an impending hairball yet…
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Nov 18, 2023 20:58
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Can you stack two baby gates?
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Nov 20, 2023 06:22
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McKracken posted:Any suggestions for encouraging cats stubborn/indifferent to water to drink a bit more? You could try adding water to his food as well, I know some people do this even with wet food. But yeah, running water is probably the best bet. cash crab posted:all hail carol and tandy. cash crab posted:oh, they will never know the sweet taste of greek yogurt if i can help it. Betrayal.
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Nov 21, 2023 22:59
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boneration posted:I am currently a loving wreck and I want to tell you all please get pet insurance. We're twelve thousand in and while we can cover it we wish we didn't have to. Our little girl might not even come out of this but I will not let her go without doing every single thing I can. Dua Bast I’m so sorry, I’m hoping for the best for you. Countblanc posted:She also isn't eating much, if anything. I did see she has both pooped and peed which is good, so I assume she's had at least some water, but she didn't touch the wet food I put out and only just barely ate some of the dry kibble. Our shelter cats ate and drank nothing for the first 24 hours. It was long enough we were starting to panic, but things got better from there. This seems pretty normal so far. Also she’s a real cutie.
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Dec 22, 2023 06:58
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Have you tried hand feeding her? If she’s crying for attention maybe you can combine that motivation with food.
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Dec 24, 2023 07:28
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HamburgerTownUSA posted:Either way, you are doing your best to make sure she is taken care of and it's commendable. Agreeing with this and I’m very glad to hear she got professional care and stabilized enough to go home! Awful, awful timing. I’d love to know what your regular vet says about her eye Countblanc.
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Dec 26, 2023 23:35
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We tried a few litter options and attempted to stick to the advice that says to put a bit of the new litter in with the old litter so I want to give you a word of caution DO NOT do this if you’re switching between clumping <> non-clumping, it sucked hard to scoop and clean. Putting the new litter in a separate box, while giving them access to their old litter until you see uptake, seems like a much better plan. If you run into them not even trying it, we also successfully took advice from this thread to stink up the new box with an existing kitty deposit / used litter to give them a clear signal what it’s for. Pollyanna posted:An update on Jet’s health! I’m glad Jet has you to care for him. I love seeing him pop up in the black cats thread. 
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Jan 4, 2024 07:01
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GlyphGryph posted:I've got several objects (a hat, some pieces of fabric, some small plastic bits from one of my son's toys) that my cats are absolutely obsessed with, to the point that they will do anything to get at them. Another deterrent can be scent. I’ve seen this recommended for Christmas trees, to make little ornament sachets with something your cats hate (citrus is a common one, so like dried orange peels). It can be an option for things where you can’t easily shut them out physically.
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Jan 4, 2024 21:09
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Rescue Toaster posted:It's only been two weeks so far. If he chases her more than a few seconds then the hissing/growling sort of transitions to screeching. There's no real sign of serious brawling/biting, just batting at each other which I totally get is normal. I think you need to get them in the same space together while focused on something else. Have you tried bringing out a toy while they’re doing this, like a feather wand (or whatever toy they like where you have control over the session and when it ends)? Actually, how did you start your introductions? Did you do the thing where you feed them both on either side of a door? Do you still feed them separately? There’s going to be some boundary setting they just need to work out for themselves, but a foundation of neutral, controlled situations will help them understand the space is shared. (Note I haven’t personally done a cat intro so I’m relying on what experts have told me, but it’s the same approach as how you introduce the cat to yourself e.g. start with food and play in circumstances you control.)
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Jan 4, 2024 21:22
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Same I am so sorry Pollyanna. You bought Jet a lot of extra, quality time with how far you went to care for him.
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Jan 7, 2024 02:54
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mawarannahr posted:All the stuff online, and people like Jason Galaxy and TikTok animal behaviorist lady is like "you should never do anything except disengage and go to another room," but I cannot do that in such a situation. I’m pretty confused by this, because that’s not at all what I took away from these kinds of sources. If I summed it up, I think they’re saying: 1.Cats don’t understand the concept of punishment (you can still intervene and distract / redirect them) 2. Avoid accidentally rewarding undesired behaviour 3. If you say “no” also give them a “yes” (show them what you want them to do instead, and this might be a compromise) For our cat who’s curious about what we’re doing in the kitchen, we’ve steered her to sitting in a specific location (a bar stool) by physically placing her there whenever she goes somewhere we don’t want. Then we dote on her and bring her the cooking ingredients to smell (so she isn’t tempted to come onto the counter). She gets to satisfy her curiosity but in a way we’re okay with, and over time she’s learned to go to the stool first and skip the step where we move her around. For the kitchen table, which we also don’t want our cats on, it’s similar to the above but without any kind of reward after being removed because we want it to be as boring as possible - they don’t get a fun reaction out of us that could inadvertently teach them climbing onto the table is a good way to initiate play time. I also took away that it’s totally okay for “saying no” to mean a strong disincentive to do something, but ideally it doesn’t get associated to you. That’s where tools like the ssscat or citrus scents or sticky tape or whatever can come into play. “I don’t like what happens when I do this” is a good lesson, but when you’re the one doing it (spray bottle) they don’t really understand why. The line of “action” to “consequence” isn’t clear for them. I wouldn’t say we have perfect behaviour from our cats right now, trying to follow this advice. But we have 100% noticed improvements and some issues have resolved completely. We might just need to work on our consistency.
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Jan 10, 2024 19:28
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 20:39 |
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rofl no that’s incredible. Ours will suddenly decide it’s time for a scratch-off and sprint over to the tree together, but they don’t act like they’re trying to impress us at the same time.
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Jan 13, 2024 06:44
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