Cat Chat 2

[BlueOrchid]

Oh no! You're poor bird! I would still love my cat to death after that too though. It's instinctual for them after all.

[Blue_Aussie]

I’m glad Buddy does good with my small animals... he’s best friends with one of my rabbits lol!

[pizzas and scream]

i'm trying to wrap my head around when to have Gary euthanized

the onoclogist says when he stops being himself.

i don't know how much suffering Gary has. he wants to eat so much, even when i feed him he begs. i could feed him at 6, and by 10 to 1 or 2 to 3 he wants food, and for the most part he is like an eat-and-poo toy. it feels like i'm cleaning his diareah from the litter pan 6 times a day.

he is boney to the touch.

but he still wants to be held and everything.

he also lays on me and yells.

[LKP12321]

Training cats to walk in leashes is actually not a recommended thing to do. It can be potentially dangerous and it is super unnatural for cats to be on harnesses and leashed up. Well unnatural for them in that they instinctively don't like being restricted. Do use caution when leash training especially since cats can hurt themselves on a leash if startled. More importantly watch your cats body language they might not want to be in a harness and if they don't take to it then it's probably not worth trying to continue with leash training. Remember do this on the cats terms not your terms. But there are other things you can do to acclimate a cat to indoor living, including making it much more enticing to be inside the house through positive interactions. A harness may actually hinder that process so be prepared to abandon leash training altogether if it stresses the cat out.

Feeding indoors and playing indoors plus giving them treats inside the house and in general encouraging them to be inside is a great way to get them want to be in the house. Litter boxes being inside also helps.

Of course leash training isn’t for every cat. It was suggested because my cat was injured and wasn’t supposed to go outside to prevent further injury or infection, but, as I said in my initial post, he was never litter box trained and didn’t understand to use the clean and easily accessible litter box that was available (he started panicking by the front door to be let out even with a litter box only a few feet away). He gets in fights with neighbor cats (the cause of the injury) and I didn’t want him to get attacked again, especially while on pain meds that made him groggy and with an open wound. Taking him outside on a leash without initial training was attempted as a safety measure for his overall well-being and only as last resort. He wouldn’t relieve himself while leashes so I did have to let him outside with his cone and the drains in his back. I let him out for 10 minutes at a time before calling him home and I’ve continued with this as much as possible to keep him in the house more often.

He likes being inside. He is always fed indoors and prefers to spend his days napping on the couch. He just insists on going out in the middle of the night, even if he has been let out before I go to bed. He has gone out every night for 14 years unless the temperature was near or below freezing and I made him stay in. If we don’t let him out, he knocks on our bedroom doors to wake us up. He did that tonight and gave me no choice but to let him out.

An hour and a half ago, I heard the yowls and growls that mean there’s a fight about to happen. I went into emergency mode and ran outside in the cold at 1:30am with no shoes on. I called. No cat. More noises. Ran back inside, put some food in his bowl, grabbed shoes, and was back outside ASAP. Called again, whistled, shook his food. I finally saw him walking over... Right from the house where the noise was coming from. If it wasn’t for my insomnia, he probably would have gotten injured again. His back is barely healed as is. And if he keeps this up I don’t think my parents will cover another surprise bill to save him again at his age. I’m trying to get him to stay in at night more often, but it’s difficult to change his routine after 14 years.

I do plan on getting our kitten used to a harness early on and gradually. I want to get him used to wearing a it inside during play time so he associates it with having fun and gradually add the leash and walk around the house, giving him treats and pets when he does well. I’ll only go outside with him once he’s comfortable with it indoors and I won’t leave the backyard with him until he’s confident outside as well.

[Lemon Tea Rain]

After a probably longer than it should have taken amount of time, my eldest cat is finally beginning to tolerate the kittens! Turns out we just had to let her smack them when they get out of line. At first we were really worried about it because they were so small, then we didn't let them interact while they were recovering from being fixed, but now she can smack them a bit when they torment her we're seeing much more calm and tolerating moments than before ;v; It could just be that time has passed, but it's nice to have all my cats in one room again :')

[POLLEN_EATER]

deda siting under the tree

[pizzas and scream]

I put Gary to sleep today (12/24/20) the vet said the mass was bigger, and he lost a pound and a half from last time. and that any nutrition possibly just was going to the tumor

[lisica,]

hello!!
I wasn’t sure if this should go into cat or dog chat but I figured since it seems to be cat problems I’ll come here first lol

At the end of december I brought home my border collie puppy. I already have a 3 year old ragdoll cat Sonny but he’s used to dogs as I used to have another border collie skye from before i had sonny until this September when she died. For the majority of those 3+ years we just kept them apart because although Skye tolerated him and she would never try to hurt him or anything she just wasn’t happy in his company and because of her age we decided it was best for her sake to be separated from him if possible.

Now anyway so we brought Beau home in December and from the day we took him home we’ve been doing gradual leashed introductions along with scent swapping and honestly it seemed to be going really well. They’re both very curious of each other and Beau hasn’t growled or showed his teeth or anything, and Sonny is very confident and sociable so he’s been good with approaching beau on his own. He would sometimes scratch beau but everyone’s been telling me that the cat will put the dog in its place and so this is fine. Beau didn’t seem to notice too much but he did back off for a while and go back to sonny if he moved or something

It’s taking a while for them to feel comfortable in the same room though. To be fair that’s probably my fault because when things seem to be getting too exciting I’ll separate them again shortly after, but today when I had them seeing each other sonny somehow ended up with beau in a grip and scratched his nose. Beau let out a wee yelp and at first I thought that this was a good thing, that this was finally “sonny putting beau in his place” and it would be fine. But later on I had them together again to see how they would get on and the same thing happened except it was completely unprovoked and beau’s been on edge since. This whole time I’ve been focusing on correcting beau’s behavior with the cat but I didn’t consider the fact that sonny might be acting up?? I should maybe mention that Sonny is an indoor cat so I feel like we kinda need them to at least be accepting of one another

Am I just looking too far into it and I should continue doing what I’m doing or am I doing something wrong here? I knew that introducing a puppy to a cat was going to be very different to introducing a kitten to a dog but for some reason I assumed it would be easier lol

I dunno if this makes sense but tl;dr I’m afraid I’m setting my cat and puppy up for disaster

Beau is 12 weeks old if that means anything. He’s a dream behavior wise but so is Sonny. Sonny has never been very territorial and he doesn’t seem nervous, in fact after the first time he made beau Yelp he was at my feet purring lol

[Thalassic]

hello!!
I wasn’t sure if this should go into cat or dog chat but I figured since it seems to be cat problems I’ll come here first lol

At the end of december I brought home my border collie puppy. I already have a 3 year old ragdoll cat Sonny but he’s used to dogs as I used to have another border collie skye from before i had sonny until this September when she died. For the majority of those 3+ years we just kept them apart because although Skye tolerated him and she would never try to hurt him or anything she just wasn’t happy in his company and because of her age we decided it was best for her sake to be separated from him if possible.

Now anyway so we brought Beau home in December and from the day we took him home we’ve been doing gradual leashed introductions along with scent swapping and honestly it seemed to be going really well. They’re both very curious of each other and Beau hasn’t growled or showed his teeth or anything, and Sonny is very confident and sociable so he’s been good with approaching beau on his own. He would sometimes scratch beau but everyone’s been telling me that the cat will put the dog in its place and so this is fine. Beau didn’t seem to notice too much but he did back off for a while and go back to sonny if he moved or something

It’s taking a while for them to feel comfortable in the same room though. To be fair that’s probably my fault because when things seem to be getting too exciting I’ll separate them again shortly after, but today when I had them seeing each other sonny somehow ended up with beau in a grip and scratched his nose. Beau let out a wee yelp and at first I thought that this was a good thing, that this was finally “sonny putting beau in his place” and it would be fine. But later on I had them together again to see how they would get on and the same thing happened except it was completely unprovoked and beau’s been on edge since. This whole time I’ve been focusing on correcting beau’s behavior with the cat but I didn’t consider the fact that sonny might be acting up?? I should maybe mention that Sonny is an indoor cat so I feel like we kinda need them to at least be accepting of one another

Am I just looking too far into it and I should continue doing what I’m doing or am I doing something wrong here? I knew that introducing a puppy to a cat was going to be very different to introducing a kitten to a dog but for some reason I assumed it would be easier lol

I dunno if this makes sense but tl;dr I’m afraid I’m setting my cat and puppy up for disaster

Beau is 12 weeks old if that means anything. He’s a dream behavior wise but so is Sonny. Sonny has never been very territorial and he doesn’t seem nervous, in fact after the first time he made beau Yelp he was at my feet purring lol

I don't think you're doing anything wrong here. Even with a gradual introduction, they will have to build up their own bond and figure out their relationship dynamic. It's likely that they want to play together, but the puppy ends up getting too excited with no real way of stopping or recognizing when the cat has had enough, so he has no other way to get this across than to scratch at Beau.

I'd say keep letting them share the same space and interacting, but if you notice that one is getting excited and playful, try to direct their playfulness away to something else, like a toy or yourself. It can be dangerous for both of them if a dog grows up to see a cat as a plaything. I don't think either of them should be punished if they simply play together, or chase eachother (as long as nobody is running away scared or angry), but if you suspect things are close to getting out of hand, distract them with a toy or some treats. I don't have dogs myself, but I assume puppies grow out of their hyper stage eventually, so that will probably make it easier for the two of them to get along and respect eachothers body language.

And obviously try to prevent any situation that would result in hissing or barking or any non-playful scared/angry behavior, as that can make the other pet think they need to protect themselves with force. If it seems to be going down that road, or if one of them has gotten hurt, then just separating them for a while should be best. Even then I don't think any sort of corrective measures are necessary, as the behavior likely came from one of them feeling scared or overwhelmed by the other, and that's not something that should be punished. Eventually they should learn when the other begins to display a language of "I'm not having fun anymore", but it can be hard to "teach" it to them without them learning it on their own.

I have two cats myself, with a roughly 3 year gap between them. And while they play together, there's definitely times when that snowballs into a fight. Typically a "stop!" or "psh" noise is enough to separate them to make them understand that the game is over, and if one of them keeps bothering the other, we throw some roller up paper balls for them to chase so the other can get a moment to rest.

[Lemon Tea Rain]

Does anyone know what counts as a "bland diet" for a cat? While we're medicating her we're meant to keep her on a 'bland diet' of chicken, which she doesn't like, so the other option given to us was white fish. But uh, she keeps taking a few mouthfuls and turning her nose up at it. I was wondering if that was just because it's medicated and she knows, or if it's it the meat - does anyone know if there's anything else that classes as a bland diet?