Caregiver's cats behaving badly.

LOL.... my cat doesn't mind going to the Vet... I think he enjoys having all those young pretty girls having their hands all over him. It's just when he is taken to the back room and I am not there with him, he is yelling "Mom" [yes, he actually says that word with a cat accent]. The Vet and her helping will eventually bring Charlie back, smiling and giggling. Oh dear, I wonder what else he was saying. So far he doesn't parrot any bad words.

Everyone knows that the temperature rectally may be one degree higher, just make the appropriate adjustments if you do go ff.

Since chocolate is poisonous for pets, just don't expect to come home with a chocolate treat from the vet.

I dunno though....the vet takes your temperature via your bottom!

Bruce did NOT like that one little bit.

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lol

FF I think you should go to the Vet. You will probably get better treatment and come out with some treats

I have to chuckle, my cat got a postcard in the mail from his Vet. It is time for his "Senior Wellness Exam". It came at the same time my own doctor sent me a similar post card :)

So....Bruce seems just fine and dandy. I got him a new feather fishing pole toy - the one that has a fishing lure weight to make it really seem to fly! These are the best ones. Anyway, I wish you guys could have seen him running and JUMPING on the weekend! You would NEVER have known he was ever sick!

He is better than any cat I've had about taking his medicine, too. Of course, I made them give me the liquid antibiotics, but still. Carmella would fight me every step of the way if it were her! And I'd definitely come out bleeding. But Bruce just accepts his fate, lol.

I think I might be a little under the weather now, though. Maybe I stressed myself out too much. When the vet first said licorice could kill a cat, I just about lost my s***! But yeah, it wasn't the licorice, and if I hadn't caught him with the licorice, this pancreatitis mightn't have been caught in time!

He doesn't seem TOO put out about the loss of people food. He always wants Temptations though....just giving him fewer.

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My husband was really bad about feeding my dog people food. He would make her a bologna sandwich cutting it up in small pieces while I was at work. He gave her other unhealthy things too. She became sick, vomiting, diarrhea, fever. She had mild pancreatitis. I had to feed her boiled chicken with rice and cottage cheese as well as give her meds. She recovered and is fine. Please be careful what you feed your pets.

I always tell the vet what our chi eats.. she has an egg almost every day at our house, but we have cut off her bacon connection (mom). The vet told me at the last visit she has never seen a 9 yr old chi as slim and petite as Bella.. then told me NO People food because it can cause pancreatitis Now I have read in 2 dog magizines that eggs are great for dogs, high in protein and good things? So she is still getting her scrambled egg.. But we try to remember "no part of the hog is good for the dog".. We laughed over that one but it's easy to remember! Chloe the Chug has just discovered people food,, OMG she is an awful beggar! We need to use treats for her potty training...

Dori, glad to hear Bruce is recovering! Our fur babies are special. My Tiger cat is pretty passive, but he is almost 15 now.

Dorianne,
Glad Bruce is ok!
Be sure to check under the couch for some hidden licorice stash.

Hoping you also have recovered from the worry.

CM,
One reading at 3:00 in the morning (awake since midnight) should not be laughing so much! How am I going to get to sleep now?

Fossilised excreta are much treasured for what they reveal about diet, apparently, or so I gather from enthusiastic boffins on BBC4. But yes very expensive - also, I think the scent might have faded too much to be useful. Or at least to be recognisable to a squirrel: "oh my God! A velociraptor???? Run for your lives - !"

Reminds me of a moment I'm sure the celeb in question would rather everyone had forgotten - I won't name her, I'll spare her blushes, if we can assume she ever did realise what she'd said wrong. She was asked for a comment after the gala première of Jurassic Park and said "oh amazing! Just AMAZING! You just couldn't tell where the special effects ended and the real dinosaurs began."

We cleaned and washed the porch yesterday, and the squirrel did not show or make territorial markings.
All your suggestions were great about obtaining repellant, especially the wolf poop, with prices and everything.
On our day trip over the grapevine, we pulled up to buy ice, and next door was an antique mall of strange stuff.
On the window was painted this sale: Dinosaur Poop.

I found it, but did not go in, the price was likely prohibitive for use as
aversion excrement. o well.

Found It! I really found it!

Having observed at least one respected dietitian at close quarters over thirty years, I can tell you that the ability to contradict your own advice with unblinking conviction is a key requirement.

I admit to serious bias. Can't bear the woman. But it's still true - !

I imagine the age of the dietitian makes a big difference in the advice they give, advice about the "ideal" diet has changed so much over the years. And of course everyone brings their own personal biases into it too, can you imagine the kind of advice you would get from a vegan dietitian (or doctor for that matter)?

As someone who could probably eat Indian food 4 or 5 nights a week....I sympathize entirely with that cat! Lol.

My cats are indoor ones, so....yeah, I do believe the pancreatitis is entirely my fault with the people food and cat treats. It's not like I've never fed people food to cats, but Bruce must just be a little more susceptible to problems.  Plus after losing George only a year ago, I'm probably a little weaker in the parenting department.  ;-) 

Ha ha! I do think there are some good dieticians. With my mom's kidney disease, she managed to ward off dialysis for 10 years just by following the dieticians' nutrition system.

But then I think back to the 6-year old me (I look pretty normal in photos, maybe a very, very slightly bit rounded, like most of my father's side of the family)....mom took me to a dietician, who instructed me on how to count calories, and all the lovely things I must never, ever eat again. What kind of person with any ethics trains a 6-year old in obsessive diet management?  (Edit: and also, they would never have done that to a boy - by "they" I mean my mother as well as the dietician!  When I think of how "important" it was that I be small and thin.....I still smart at how long it took me to achieve normal eating habits.  Into my early 30s!)

And then there's everything wrong dieticians still keep telling diabetics over and over and over again....basically loading them up with sugar. 

Oh gosh yes. And if they didn't make so much money from their pet food sales just think what annual vaccinations would cost!

The other thought that crossed my mind just now is that in any case owners of cats, unless they're confined indoor cats, who think they know what their cats eat are living in a bit of a dream world. We had one cat who liked lamb-flavoured Whiskas, but otherwise would nip round to the bins behind our local curry house for his dinner instead. It was the overpowering garlic breath that gave him away.

Don't start me on dietitians. It's personal. I'm sure of them are brilliant 😶

Countrymouse - while I was reading different things tonight, I learned that vets basically get one class in nutrition. And then you have to consider how much they are wooed by corporate informationals after they leave vet school!

I have similar problems with dieticians....like my friend's mom is diabetic....so the dietician keeps telling her to eat all these carb-y foods like, say, she can have as much toast and Cheerios as she wants, and is told to stick to low fat products (like low fat salad dressings, yogurts, etc.).

But toast and Cheerios are refined carbs....which are basically sugar for a diabetic! And with the salad dressings and yogurts and other low fat stuff, they basically just replace the flavour you lose from fat....with sugar!

Same with the grain-heavy cat foods. It's basically giving a cat sugar, which they shouldn't even have in their diets.

Sugar is the worst.  I have been eating more of it than I should....probably why I have more pain issues than usual right now.  So yeah, Bruce and I are both gonna kick our carb-y sugar habits, lol.  

I found this earlier tonight (last night???) after I brought Bruce home. I was researching foods just to make sure I knew what I was doing.  (Yay, my brand made the cut!)  Anyway, it's a useful, qualitative cat food review/analysis.

reviews.com/cat-food/

Edit:  I STILL have to wonder why no one makes mouse-flavoured cat food!?  It can't be an animal rights issue - what's the difference between slaughtering chickens and slaughtering mice? 

The scales fell from my eyes when the very same vet who had told me at one annual check up that such-and-such prescription diet was the only one he would endorse then told me at the next annual check up, when I noticed that the practice had switched to a new brand, that so-and-so prescription diet was the only...

Cats are obligate carnivores. I'm not one for conspiracy theories but when you look at the number of things modern cats have wrong with them, and then you look at the rows and rows of cereal-packed kibble, it's hard not to get cynical really.

I also had an enlightening conversation with a nice man, new cat owner, in Waitrose. I suppose he looked at my trolley's contents, and then was surprised that I was buying Hi-Life pouches. Didn't I worry about non-px cat food? "I don't get our menu plan from my GP, either," I heard myself saying.

On the other hand. I can tell you that Eukanuba puppy food is brilliant for body-conscious cats. Todd (Sweeney's brother) exercised a kind of droit de seigneur over our new puppy's dish and it turned him into a feline Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Lol - I was just thinking....they ALMOST weren't going to let Bruce come home yet, because he refused to eat. But they were giving him Science Diet! Luckily the vet said maybe he'd feel more comfortable eating in his own home and I jumped on that. And true enough - Bruce was begging for food 5 minutes in the door, and cleaned his plate in 3 minutes!

Anyway. Bruce is home. He is very happy. I am exhausted.

He has to take antibiotics for a week. The vet did try to sell me their prescription Science Diet for Bruce's "sensitive stomach" that he thinks caused the pancreatitis, but I know that stuff is.....I won't say it's garbage, but it's pretty middle-of-the-road, "Iams"-level quality.  It costs 3x what it's worth, especially when you consider wheat, corn, and rendered fat are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ingredients, respectively.  I buy grain-free, made in Canada food ("Now Fresh") from the pet store.  I wish the vets would sell better food, but none of them ever seem to have anything but yucky Science Diet. 

Anyway, I KNOW (mainly from my reading about pancreatitis) the problem was likely caused by People Food, and too many Temptations.  And that's totally on me, because I am a sucker for those big golden eyes and I have been giving in A LOT.

NO MORE PEOPLE FOOD. And much fewer Temptations.

We're all going on a diet!

mally I don't think you are who I am speaking of.

I worked in property maintenance for rental housing till an injury put me on disability. I saw many pets - cats, dogs, rats, mice, snakes, rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, birds - just abandoned or even "let loose" when people moved. I have seen cats and dogs left shut up in empty apartments with no food, and only water from the toilet - spent money out of our own pockets to feed them until we could find them placements. I saw many pets pregnant over and over - people becoming animal hoarders because they would not ("could not") spay or neuter or at least keep them inside.  In one unit the tenants used the only bathtub as the litter box for their 3 generations of 11 cats - I can't imagine how they bathed themselves. 

There are 3 cats that literally live at my vet's office because they were brought in for spaying and abandoned. 

This is in a town where the SPCA opened a special spay/neuter clinic on the low income side of town - $50 (CAD) for those who can't afford the vet bills.

People seem to be able to spend $12 on a single package of cigarettes (that's what they cost here) every day, or scrounge up $60 for a quarter ounce of weed, or take their kids to McDonald's 3x a week, but it's most often those same people who "can't" find $50 to get their animals fixed.  I am a liberal person, but animal neglect, like child neglect, p***es me off, royally. 

I am happy you are doing good work, but I was talking about people who make a choice to acquire pets they clearly can't afford to maintain, not those who rescue animals.

We do cat, dog, and horse rescue; our budget is necessarily limited, so no cancer or diabetes treatment, or major surgery, but the babies we have/had were all rescued from dangerous situations, and most would have been dead soon. We do rabies shots, worm the horses, and pay for the farrier, but no extras; I wonder if they would rather have died badly? They're well loved, fed, warm, and safe (indoor pets; horses are well prayed for), and they have each other. We have two couples, not related, of cats, who play, sometimes fight (like married couples), and sleep tight together. The dog has 2 cat buddies, and the deaf, crosseyed, white, 12 y/o has her and me! We've tried to get homes for several of these (some more than once), but it never worked out, so we keep them - the other side of the story.

Bruce!
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Sending good wishes to you and Bruce!! Such a worry
when our furry friends are ill. One of my cats
developed cancer at a vaccination site in a rear leg.
Surgery, 3grand, tumor returned and poor Finn is no more.
I can barely use the word euthenasia. He was a lovely
Smokey gray living boy. I'd do it again but I surely pray
these four kitties stay healthy. Hope Bruce bounced back
and is home asap!! Miow!

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Love it ff!!!