Caregiver's cats behaving badly.

GA,
I think my bird ordered some millet online. If you can enlarge my avatar, (quick before I change it) you will see him on the computer.

He is a bird, not a cat, but I do affectionately call him "puppy" sometimes.

Do you have any pets GA?

Dosmos, touching story about your cat!

So Shell, your cat is named "Birdie!" Lol!

Oh the Cat tales! I still miss my 18 y/o yellow tabby who lived to that ripe old age despite being diabetic much of his life and getting daily insulin shots. He was about 8 when he was diagnosed. I was afraid when I heard I was going to have to give him insulin injections (though I was an RN, I was not used to injecting a cat who might respond with needle-like claws of his own!) Not to worry. He never even flinched! He lived a full life, indoors and out..., chasing bottle caps, unseen prey, climbing trees, sharing his trophies with me...1/2 small lizard left on my bed...thanks, Nacho! (Is lizard meat on a diabetic diet?) Then, just an indoor life because I moved to a more high traffic area.

I could tell the end was near because of his many trips to the litter box and not doing much else. The vet charged $1000.00 to keep him for a week, but it didn't help much. At home I picked him up...he was purring, I thought, But, alas, it was not a purr but the rattle of his fluid-filling lungs. There was one more trip to the vet to say goodbye and thanks for being such a loving friend. It's been awhile, but he still walks across my bed at night (I imagine) and when I'm half asleep I hear him ( I think) meowing for his breakfast. I know he's no longer here, but I still miss him more than I would ever have believed.

Golden, I know what you mean...my cat will sit at the sliding door like he wants in but when I open the door he just looks at me than walk away. It drives me nuts!!

When I was younger, we had a cat name Tigger. Who use to do these same things. However, if Tigger wanted in through the front door he would knock. How? Our front door has a mail slot that he could open with his paw then let it go and it really does sound like he knock; however, if he wanted in through the side door he would scratch at the screen, so my mother tied a big bell on it and tried to teach him to hit the bell...it never did work. Tigger could knock at the front door, but refuse to hit the bell on the side door. I guess, he wasn't interested in learning a new trick! Cats are funny little creatures...aren't they!?😸

P.S. Glad that you and your kitties are doing good!💖


Gershun...I'm like you...I love all animals...big or small...with feathers or without...with fur or no fur...I just love them.

I have 3 cats. Moses is a indoor & outdoor cat because I rescue him & he lived outdoors for 2 yrs. His family moved and left him behind. It took me 2 yrs to earn his trust and a really bad snow storm. Birdie and Shadow are indoor cats only. Birdie is also a rescue cat and unfortunately she is not very smart. She was born from a stray cat and I knew she wouldn't make it on her own, so I started to let her and her brother Toby in and out of my house so I could save them. Unfortunately Toby didn't make it. I still think of him. Birdie is a sweetheart. My not so sweet Shadow was off to the pound. She wasn't even 6 weeks old. I thank God she was slow moving at that age because it was love at first sight. I grabbed her and told the people she was going home with me. Turned out, Shadow is a Main-coon. She is big, black, and beautiful. Main-coons are snow kitties, but Shadow doesn't like the snow! LOL!!

Now that I think about it, all the cats I ever had were rescue kitties...I guess that is my lot in life!! Rescues kitties! 😸

P.S. I would run back into the house to if I heard a train and not knowing what the sound was. Poor kitties...I bet the horn of a train is loud to them.💗

Send, better watch out for those computer literate cats.  You never know what's really on their minds.   You might find an order of mice in a package on your doorstep one day.

I just love kitties! and birdies too. All the animals out there. My cats are indoor only but they love to go out on the balcony (supervised of course). But the train runs by my place and when they lean on their horn the cats dash to the door wanting back in.

send - sometimes one of the kitties will mess with my keyboard. Aaaargh!

shell - that's what I tell my kitties - I can't change the weather. They also will come to the front door when they are out and look like they want to come in - then when I open the door they look at me, and smell the dpor step and stay there or walk away. They are just checking to see if I am still their servant. lol Pumpkin gets up on her hind legs and scratches on the glass by the front door to get my attention to be let in. Yesterday she was up on the bathroom counter and started scratching her image in the large mirror!!! I told her "No" but that probably won't stop her. She has no boundaries, Rocky has good boundaries. What next??? 😼😼

Golden,

It sure is nice to know that my cat is not the only one who has to go to the front door and looks out but won't go out and than we go to the side door where I open the door and he looks at me & mewo, so off we go to the back sliding door and he will either go out or just sit there making his little noises than just to walk away to find a place to curl up and go to sleep. I think he thinks I should be able to change the weather. The darn cat doesn't know if I could change the weather--I would!

Kitties, you just can't help but love them. 😸

Tweety closed his eyes for a nap while on the computer.

Uh oh, now he is ordering from Instacart!

God Bless all creatures great and small.

Our cold weather morning routine the last few days - kitties and I go to the front door - they look out but neither one goes out. We go to the back door where there is lots of sunshine but also snow. Rocky goes out, Then Pumpkin gets very vocal so we go to the side door which opens into the attached garage and I make sure the back door of the garage is open so they can go in and out of the garage. So Pumpkin goes out into the garage, but lingers by the side door sill sniffing it hoping I will leave the door to the house open. Not a chance in this weather (well below freezing)!!! Some time later one or the other or both appear at the front door to be let in. That's another story.

Shell - you asked once if the kitties had tufts between their toes - yes they do. Rocky's neck ruff is so thick now in the winter it is matting a little behind her ears so I have to keep an eye on it and keep her groomed. She loves it when I run my fingers through her hair and pull out on any small matts. I had to cut out a large one when I first noticed. Now I am checking her regularly.

My one cat likes to eat plastic too. The little bugger. I woke up to a pile of vomit today. I think sometimes they eat too fast cause the plastic eating kitty sometimes vomits right in his food bowl just after he eats. Gross! Especially considering my other cat will sometimes go and finish what Mr. plastic eater doesn't eat. I sure hope he hasn't been dining on vomit. Did I mention that it's GROSS!

ali - so glad your cat is better. They are family and we worry about them Mine don't throw many furballs - inside anyway but I got them some furball treats and Rocky obediently chucked up furballs on the basement bathroom rug. So I washed it, and, yes, you guessed, Rocky threw up another furball on the freshly washed rug. Why the rug? Most of that area is lino or laminate. Kitties!!!!

ff - mine chew on my laptop charger cord. I am not impressed. I blame myself for letting them watch cat videos showing a moving piece of string. Then I got them some fake leather cords/string to play with and they love it. How can they know the charger cord is not their toy?

AliBoBali, what a relief, for you and for him. Good heavens, makes you wonder what he ate or if it was a hairball that he couldn't bring up.

In the past, if one of my cats appear a bit sluggish, I will put out a tiny amount of butter. For them it seemed to help pass whatever is clogging.

My current feline, he doesn't care for butter, so I am trying to grow a pot of grass [the backyard kind] that he munches on like he is enjoying a salad.

Also got a plastic chewer, too, but he prefer hard plastics. Like tabs on vegetables, loafs of bread, etc. My cat is a Ginger/white. Forty years ago I had my first Ginger, and he would crew on the plastic ends of shoelaces.

Ali,

Awwww...

I am hoping that is all it was and that your cat is doing well. We love our fur babies. They are family. I miss mine so much. Now isn’t the time to get another one.

I just can’t bring myself to accept losing another animal. It hurts too much but this is the first time that I haven’t had a pet. It’s a big adjustment!

A few days have gone by and I've been watching my older cat for more signs of decline. Well... he passed a large and strange poop yesterday... and he seems mostly back to normal! I'm laughing... with relief, too, that it seems that was the big crisis for him recently, that he got something stuck in his belly and it made him not want to eat.

Both of my cats will chew on plastic bags I line the trash cans with, sometimes they swallow a little bit. I think that could be what the blockage was.

Now, he's "asking" for food again and eating. I'm still taking him to vet, both of them.

Ah, the ups and downs of cat mom life.

Freq,

It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Our animals do communicate with us. We may have to figure out their language but they are speaking to us.

My friend and I were standing in her backyard. She has a stray cat that she started feeding. He stays outside.

The cat was rubbing on my leg and I thought that he was friendly and that I could pet him.

My friend said, “Don’t pet him. He is a stray that I feed and he isn’t trusting of people.

Well, being the cat lover that I am I decided to take my chances since he was rubbing himself on my legs. I should have listened to my friend. He hissed loudly at me and attempted to scratch me. Haha, my friend said, “I tried to tell you not to pet him.” I told her that I was wrong to try and pet him and that I should have listened to her warning.

I never figured that out. Why would he come by and rub all over my legs but not let me pet him? I get that he is afraid of humans but why did he weave in and out of my legs?

Ali, if only cats could talk to us to let us know what is going on with them. When you go to the Vet, have x-rays taken before doing any blood work.

When we took our Rosie [15] in because she stopped eating, the Vet did blood work first and everything came back normal for her age. But something was really wrong with her. Got a second opinion couple days later with another Vet from the practice, had x-rays done and that told us the true story.

We also had 2 very elderly cats that had dementia. They would always get lost "in the hallway" and start crying. That, or either the antique library table in the hall was haunted. One cat would forget where her litter boxes were, so the house had a lot of blue sheets on the floor... interesting that cat only peed on the east side of the inside of the house.

My current cat, a Ginger, has a very strong sense of smell. He will avoid me right after I brush my teeth, or wash my hands. Even doesn't like the smell of Tums. Forget perfume or body lotion. Guess if I roll in the dirt, he'd be ok with that :P

Hope your kitty improves, Ali. It breaks our hearts when they are having a problem.

My cat died about 30 years ago but we never forget them. She lived to be 16 years old.

I don’t think I could ever be a vet. I would be crying all of the time when they became sick or had an issue.

My cat was an indoor and outdoor cat. She always slept inside though.

She had some sort of accident and she could no longer swing her tail around her body.

In fact, she couldn’t even pick up her tail. It was stretched out and she had to drag it along behind her.

So I took her to the vet. He said possibly a car ran over her tail.

He said that she was not in pain and unless she started trying to chew her tail off that we should let it be.

If she started to chew on it he would amputate it. She never tried to chew on it.

She didn’t seem bothered by her tail dragging behind her at all. Look at the dogs with three legs. They get around pretty well.

My greyhound at age 13 struggled getting up and down. My mom used to say, “Poor baby has as much trouble as I do getting up and down with my Parkinson’s disease.” She loved him and he loved her.

ali (((((hugs)))) it's heartbreaking to see these changes. My last dog went downhill very slowly, He got weaker and weaker. I did what I could to build him up but it didn't work, At 16 1/2, he was old for a springer spaniel.so he did well to last that long. My cat previous to the two oranges, seemed healthy had a beautiful coat and normal habits but one day I noticed his breathing was a bit laboured. Other than that he behaved normally. I watched him then one morning he didn't eat so I took him to the vet. He was not an old cat - just 13 and had never been sick. She checked him over and said that he likely had cancer and did not have long. - like hours due to fluid on the lungs so I made that difficult decision. He had a great quality of life until that day. We do what we can for them. Thinking of you and your kitty family. Diabetes would not be unusual in a cat that age. My spring had hypothyroidism the last few years of his life. Please keep us updated.

Sorry Ali, it's difficult when you know something is wrong but can't pinpoint what. I would take him to the vet if it were me. I've had my share of nursing sick kitties. It may be something minor but if I were you I would want to know either way. It may be something straightforward that you can deal with easily.

I've had cats with hyperthyroid disease, kidney disease, my two kitties I have now both have had mast cell tumors the last couple of years. My hubs and I have spent a ton of money that we couldn't really afford but did anyway. I know that's not possible for a lot of people but I would probably cut off my arm if it meant helping my cats. But I understand perfectly if not everyone can or is willing to do this so I'm not trying to make you feel bad.

Good luck to you and your kitty!

Ali,
The vet can tell you if the cat has diabetes.
My friend who cared for all the cats went so far as to inject insulin for years to keep her cat well.
Only you and your vet can decide how far and for how long cat care goes on. These choices are so difficult for the pet owner.

I'm wondering if I missed a couple signs, but hard to tell.

There were two puddles a month ago that showed up in the middle sitting room a few nights apart. They didn't smell like urine but there's also no way -- no ceiling drips, no rain or anything -- for it to be anything but cat urine, and the oldest would be the culprit. He drinks a lot of water and outputs a lot of urine, always been like this since I've had him, but peeing outside the box is very unusual for him. And he peed on the litter-trapper rug outside his box twice, too. All in the past 45 days, and previously never.

And he is acting extra "senile" lately. Yesterday when I came home, he avoided me and was peeking at me around the trunk that serves as my coffee table. I've never seen him do this shy behavior. And still no eating.

So something is going on with him, and I will monitor him closely for the next few days.

Thanks for giving me a place to talk this out. I think he's declining but as you all know, could be fast, could be very slow pace.

Ali,
You are very wise. As long as he is in decent spirits you will monitor him.
I hope he is okay.

I have seen some really elderly cats (18) and (16) go around the house meowing, like sundowners, and as if they were lost. When I was visiting, I would pick them up and put them on their favorite places, which was where they would normally go in the evenings. They would immediately be comforted and quiet. They may have had cat-heimers or something old.
They too had that greasy-look to their hair, and they were just left that way.
Still, they lived a long time like that. I would sit and throw a kibble treat their way, and they would retrieve it. I don't think anyone in the home was monitoring if the cats (many) ate or not. All the pets were well cared for, vet-wise and food, and the home was so filled with elderly rescues, it seemed like an assisted living home for cats and dogs.

You are a good cat mommy, and will know when the time comes.

One cat now has thyroid problems and must take a pill twice a day, in a pill pocket.

One of the other cats is very jealous of this, so I bought him a tub of dental treats so that he can have a "treat" as well.

He jumped up on the kitchen counter and grabbed the tub of treats; fortunately, he didn't figure out how to open them.

Hope he is OK, ali. He is a very old cat. Keep us updated.

It's Day 2 of my 20yo cat not eating. He's usually VERY enthusiastic about his wet food I give him at least 2x a day, but is not eating any of it the past two days.

Otherwise, he seems ok, not in pain but acting more quiet and timid, which is unusual for him.

I think it may be the start of his decline. And as long as he's ok and in decent spirits, I'll just monitor the situation.

I use baby wipes on the 20yo but it hardly makes a dent in all that greasy, greasy fur. I wish I thought a home bath would go decently.

I just scheduled a mobile grooming bath for both cats next Wednesday. The bill is outrageous but what's a cat-mom to do..?

I wonder if I can do some kind of bath at home for him every other month. Just plop him in a basin of soapy water and massage it in..? I can try, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Ali it must be bath day!! ( for the pets, not the parents,, LOL) My Chug is now 3, and sometimes she gets that "doggie smell",, so as she is getting older I am having to wash her more ( I swear her first year I never had to bathe her once,, she just never smelled. Now she gets a bit "greasy" feeling after a few weeks, I think its summer sweat? So I plopped her into the tub.. mixed her non scented shampoo with a big hit of hubs apple stuff ( LOL) and went at her with a washcloth,, a first! Normally I just sort of wipe her down with my hands and shampoo, but I got her ears, and her "undercarriage" and her face wrinkles.. she was so happy after, running around like a nutball and she smells great. I don't normally use any people shampoo on her, but I did make an exception this spring when she decided to have a goose poop mud bath, Oh yeah, she had a Paul Mitchell spa bath! I did not think I would ever get that smell out,, I literally picked her up and right to the bathroon, used the first shampoo that I could grab. Live and learn

FreqFlyer, you have one very smart cat!   I'm still pondering whether you trained her or she trained you (and you know I mean this only in jest!).   Cats do know how to train their owners - mine certainly did!

AliBoBali, a few years ago I had an older over-weight cat who had a stroke which made it difficult for her to wash her private parts. I used baby-wipes, non-scented, and she didn't complain.

Once she recovered from the stroke, which was pretty quick, she was able to walk into the bathroom to get a wipe down. I thought that was pretty smart of her :)