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LivesInGrey posted:You shouldn't have to pay anything if it's a specific TNR program versus taking them to a vet or the local shelter. Sadly, there isn't such a program here, and the nearest vet is an hour's drive. I doubt most of the cats around here have ever even seen a vet  Ratzap posted:For example the old "She'll be happier if she just has one set of kittens" - Wrong! I was told this as well when I got Tiger (she's originally from a farm), and I called bullshit right away. I got her neutered, chipped and vaccinated the first chance I had. A friend of mine didn't neuter his cat, because ooh, he wanted cute kittens, which pissed me off so much. Luckily nothing ever came of it, as I'm guessing the introduction with the tomcat in mind didn't go well. People can be such idiots.
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Sep 21, 2016 07:28
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We have a five year old cat who developed a raw/scabby spot on the back of his neck about a year ago. We took him to the vet and they thought he might have broken his skin while scratching and gotten a little bacteria into it. We treated him with some kind of antibiotic ointment the vet provided, and it cleared up. Today my wife noticed that he's got the same problem in the same location. I don't want to be too paranoid, but I can't help but notice that this spot is, as far as I know, where his microchip was implanted. I realize chipping is very common and generally considered safe, but I have read some things over the years which call that into question a little bit. Here's a picture of poor kitty, this is located on the back of his neck directly between his shoulderblades:  and here's another picture of his usual jovial self:  does anyone have experience or advice to share? Am I loony to be thinking about the chip? Is there anything else we should be doing that we're not? We have sent the pics to the vet and are waiting to hear back.
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Sep 21, 2016 21:13
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Have you used a spot on flea treatment recently? They can sometimes develop spontaneous allergic reactions to spot ons even if they've been fine with them in the past. Mine scratches at his neck too much as well but I suspect that's a habit he's formed because I got him chipped, vaccinated and deflea'd on the same day and he ended up scratching his poor neck so much he made it scabby. Which made it itchy, which made him scratch, which made it scabby... A bit of steroid cream from the vet cleared it right up, but he still scratches that area too much sometimes, especially if he's just been deflea'd. One thing the vet did point out is that the actual chip sits lower down the back than you might think, so it might not be his chip site he's scratching especially if it's migrated a bit over the years. I'd take him to the vet if it doesn't clear up by itself, and maybe you could get them to check where the chip actually is to see if he is actually scratching at it. Also look at that belly my god.
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Sep 21, 2016 22:27
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Organza Quiz posted:Ok but that poster wasn't asking if they should neuter the cats at all, just whether doing it is likely to stop the boy cat from being such a dick and therefore it should be done asap. The answer to which is possibly but probably not, kittens are just dicks. Then I read it wrongly, my apologies to him if he was offended. If at all in doubt, ask your vet, they can tell you if your pet is old and healthy enough to be neutered or not. As a guideline we want a young cat to be at least 1kg and as old as possible before they start behaving in a sexual manner. Always err on the side of caution with females as their first season can really be traumatic for them (and you). Vets round here will do males from 10 weeks (and that's the UK cats protection policy now too), we feel that's a bit young but the vets are professionals and should know what they're doing.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:48
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I have a patio, and there is an average sized Maine coon mix female that stalks me in the morning to early afternoon. I've tried to collar her, and ask what her name is, but I think the owner doesn't want me messing with thier cat. I don't know what to do, she is so affectionate with me, and won't leave me alone. I have no more room for another cat, but she has flea bites, and doesn't seem to be well taken care of.  On another note, I've met three other cats that roam in the common area around my patio, and boy are they cuuuute. Two are roomies named Sugar (Very pretty Norwegian forest cat) and Spice (Orange tabby with no teeth due to gum disease no worry- the owner takes great care of her) the two are both quite round and soft. Captain _______ (either fluffy toes, or something along those lines) is a shy gray kitty who is quite small, but has lime green eyes. I couldn't get him close to me, but he roams about in the early afternoon as well. Edit: Maine Coon in question   
Bina fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 11:32
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I think Im really going to have to invest in a :stealthecat: smiley at some point.
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Sep 22, 2016 14:57
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Dear Tuna, I promise I will play with you more during the day in the future. I am very sorry that I was preoccupied with other things yesterday. Please, please, please, please, please do not let last night's game of "Hunt Hats Under the Covers as He Tries to Sleep and Don't Stop Until He Closes You Out of the Bedroom and Sets the Hamper Down Outside the Door to Keep You From Destroying the Carpet as Loudly As Possible" be a regular thing. I beg you. Sincerely, Hats
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Sep 22, 2016 18:51
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OK, so you guys are familiar with the situation I have with Jackie and Sardine? Jackie is my 10-year-old female whom I adopted 6 years ago from my parents, and I am very closely bonded to her - she was my favorite from when she was a kitten, and I adopted her at very low points in both of our lives, and it was a big improvement for both of us. I've lived basically alone with Jackie for those entire 6 years, as well, besides the occasional boyfriend (whom she tolerated just fine). And things were great - she NEVER bit me or scratched me for 6 years, nor did she growl at me or hiss at me regardless of WHAT happened. We has *absolute* trust. Now, cue Sardine, a 4-year-old female I adopted - she's a bit smaller than Jackie and shy, but very sweet. As I said it was rough at first with Sardine trying to be Jackie's friend, but now they seem to be mostly co-existing pretty well between each other. But here's the big problem... Jackie is getting insanely jealous when she sees me giving attention to Sardine. It had happened once before a couple weeks ago - I had been petting and loving on Sardine while Jackie had watched, and when I went over to Jackie to pet and love on her a bit too, she lashed her tail around, started giving repeated angry meows, and I left her alone for a while and that was it. But not so the night before last... She saw me petting Sardine for like.. literally 2 minutes of watching at the most, then I went into the other room to pay attention to Jackie, and again she was lying there and thumping her tail loudly on the floor - I went to pet her, and whenever I tried to talk to her she would cut me off with an angry meow, her tail still thumping. Then she started to emit a low rumbling growl Now, you would think I would be SMART enough to leave a cat alone who is lashing and thumping her tail, angrily meowing, and growling. But this is Jackie - in *six years* she has never once scratched or bitten me no matter WHAT, so I thought it'd be fine ultimately. Yeah, well, obviously it wasn't fine. I stupidly had my face close to hers and was petting her, and she actually lashed out at me with her claws and gave me a couple of *serious* cat scratches on my right hand. I guess there is a first time for everything She did not sleep in my bed that night or come to see me at all for the first time in ages, and when I tried to give her pets I was given more angry meows and tail lashes, and backed off.Then yesterday she really scared the poo poo out of me by vanishing. You see, I let Jackie out into this very private and protected backyard - I often let her out when I go do an errand or two or whatever - every single I time when I roll into the driveway she is ALWAYS right there on the steps level with my open window meowing hello at me. I have NEVER seen her stray from my backyard, my driveway, and the neighbors driveway, and shes always come when called. So yesterday I get home from a 30 minute errand and she ain't there. I call her, nobody comes. I keep calling her, and calling her, and calling her, and there is nobody. I am starting to freak out, and I am checking everywhere in the immediate vicinity and she is nowhere. She likes to hide under cars, and I'm looking under every single car on the street and she is just nowhere... I live in a small city (Portland, ME) and while my street is VERY quiet for Portland, it is about a half-block downhill from a busy street where people go 30mph and do not pay much attention. So I am terrified and in tears circling the block in every direction while doubling back to check on my own house and backyard all the time to see if she is back and calling "JACKIEEEEE! JACKIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" and feeling totally idiotic and foolish. Worse is that I am an IDIOT and haven't gotten a collar with tags for her yet as she was an indoor only cat for a long while by necessity. I am feeling really awful and about to stop after about a half hour of this, with my voice even hoarse and hurting already, and of course when I come back the last time... There is Jackie, sitting right on the grass in front of the steps, cool as you like. I brought her in, and the worst thing was that I had to resist the urge to cuddle her or pet her, because I do NOT want to positively reinforce this behavior. This is, again, something she has NEVER done in 6 years. Anyway... Today Jackie seems to be acting far normal again, but I have been pointedly NEVER petting Sardine in Jackie's presence and barely paying much attention to her at all as a result, which isn't cool as she deserves better, though this has actually made things a bit more harmonious in the short term. So, again, sorry about all the text I really am I don't know how else to post! But the issue is that I have a REALLY jealous cat who is behaving in pretty bad ways. One thing I have not tried is using treats to reward Jackie when she is good, and patiently trying that. Food is love, as far as Jackie is concerned. But is this situation hopeless? I care... well, very very deeply about Jackie, and if she acts this way when I pay attention to Sardine, I will have to put Sardine in a shelter. I would *never* give up Jackie and she'd likely just revert back to being happy as an only cat....I mean, it's a solution I *know* will work. So I am a bit at my wit's end
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Sep 22, 2016 19:39
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gently caress everybody who visits an animal shelter and just ignores the cats while focusing on the kittens. That is all. 
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Sep 23, 2016 00:12
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kaworu straight up as a favor to some terrible goon, keep Jackie inside until she's settled down with Sardine at least. Setting the inside vs outside thing aside for a second Jackie is such a good cat and I would be upset (obviously not as much as you) if anything happened to her due to a fit of gently caress YOU I'M A CAT.
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Sep 23, 2016 02:39
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kaworu posted:But the issue is that I have a REALLY jealous cat who is behaving in pretty bad ways. One thing I have not tried is using treats to reward Jackie when she is good, and patiently trying that. Food is love, as far as Jackie is concerned. But is this situation hopeless? I care... well, very very deeply about Jackie, and if she acts this way when I pay attention to Sardine, I will have to put Sardine in a shelter. I would *never* give up Jackie and she'd likely just revert back to being happy as an only cat....I mean, it's a solution I *know* will work. Jackie is being a jerk to see if she can get you to change your behaviour. So don't change it. Outstubborn that cat.
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Sep 23, 2016 03:27
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Feliway maybe? Meanwhile James has finally discovered the Joys of Box, so he's a proper cat now. His brother Wolfgang continues to be just the sweetest, most affectionate kitty I've ever known. He's irresistible. I've started calling him a saboteur, because he is sabotaging my attempts to get to work on time in the mornings by being so goddamn cute and loving that I just have to cuddle him.
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Sep 23, 2016 09:06
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I'm getting a cat and one of her kittens in a few weeks time. The mother cat has a genetic illness which leads to blindness. She can see a little bit at the moment, but it's going to get worse over time. Does someone have experinece with a blind cat and how to make their life easier? At the moment I'm kitten proofing the apartment. I'm doing all the regular stuff like closing gaps behind furniture, baby-proofing outlets and cabinet doors. Is there something I didn't think of, or could do for the mother cat? Minister of Chance fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Sep 23, 2016 |
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Sep 23, 2016 17:17
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It's been a while now, but I think I remember with my cat who went blind that he would mostly follow a wall to get around, but I think he also navigated by following rugs. Put food, litter, and water next to pathways she can identify. I lived in a little coach house at the time, so there weren't vast expanses for him to get lost in, once I stopped letting him in the basement. A few times he got lost down there, and he'd make these sad little miaows and I'd go rescue him. Talk to her a lot.
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Sep 23, 2016 20:07
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Gorgar posted:It's been a while now, but I think I remember with my cat who went blind that he would mostly follow a wall to get around, but I think he also navigated by following rugs. Put food, litter, and water next to pathways she can identify. I lived in a little coach house at the time, so there weren't vast expanses for him to get lost in, once I stopped letting him in the basement. A few times he got lost down there, and he'd make these sad little miaows and I'd go rescue him. My grandparents had a blind cat for a while, and they said he was understandably not interested in climbing or windows. You might want to keep more things on the ground level than normal for cats, and give easy ways to get up to spaces you might want her on like a couch or chair.
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Sep 23, 2016 20:26
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Mine still liked windows, because he was a sun fiend. I had a chair right under a window that never moved in the last few years I lived there, because it was a big overstuffed thing he could sit on the back of and get his sun, and it was easy for him to find the chair once his sight deteroriated.
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Sep 23, 2016 20:32
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My brother has a blind cat and she loves windows (they can still hear what's going on) sunlight (it's still warm), and jumping on counters (there's still good stuff up there). Just take anything super breakable away from lower spaces, like glasses or vases and poo poo. Don't be too worried if she starts banging off the walls when she gets excited. Get yourself some toys that make a little noise, like bells or crinkles. I bought Sonar (bro's cat's name) a toy that's a little bird and chirps and she loooves it. Basically cats are still cats. Since she's going blind slowly, it sounds like, she should be able to adjust.
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Sep 23, 2016 21:31
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Just don't move furniture and poo poo around, so her memory can help her navigate. Noisy toys are great as well, and keep an ear out for meows for help.
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Sep 24, 2016 10:21
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Thanks for all the great suggestions. I'll try to make the ground as comfortable and spacious as possible, clear the counters and windows and buy toys with sound.
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Sep 24, 2016 13:30
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Minister of Chance posted:Thanks for all the great suggestions. in case no one mentioned it as well you are a big cat hero by the way. "defective" cats rarely get the level of consideration that a cute kitten does. You are both cool and good.
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Sep 24, 2016 13:34
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SneakyFrog posted:in case no one mentioned it as well you are a big cat hero by the way. "defective" cats rarely get the level of consideration that a cute kitten does. You are both cool and good. Thanks. I feel a little bit bad about the cat being from a breeder, but the she has good intentions. For the mother cat I'm only paying the fee of her castration. The kitten costs the normal price, but I think the mother cat will be happier having a second cat she knows around. The breeder told me upfront about the genetic illness and made sure that the father of the kittens did not carry the gen defect(it's recessive). The kitten will have all the necessary vaccinations and is at least 13 weeks old before I get them. Mother cat is vaccinated for this year, chipped and will be castrated. I already visited and chose a boy kitten as companion.
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Sep 24, 2016 14:15
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Also maybe make it a habit to say, "hi there," before you pet the blind kitty so you don't startle her with unexpected touch. A little phrase that just means, I'm close by and about to pet you." Even my cat will sometimes start if I pet him before he notices I'm there and he's not blind.
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Sep 24, 2016 14:17
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Tiny Deer posted:kaworu straight up as a favor to some terrible goon, keep Jackie inside until she's settled down with Sardine at least. Setting the inside vs outside thing aside for a second Jackie is such a good cat and I would be upset (obviously not as much as you) if anything happened to her due to a fit of gently caress YOU I'M A CAT. Thank you, and thanks to everyone else who had nice things to say. Although I try to think I am not a *terrible* goon, per se... *looks at manga collecdtion* check that I'm pretty terrible. Anyway, It was a very rough day - I'd never experienced the reality of thinking I was about to find Jackie in a bloody mess, and it had me in tears. Needless to say, her outdoor privileges have been severely restricted to only 100% supervised time in the backyard - because I'm a softie and can't keep her totally locked up all the time. But she has not repeated the behavior of attacking me, and I have gone back to paying attention to Sardine - which by necessity is almost always in front of Jackie, since she follows me around. But Jack seems to have realized that I'm not going to budge and I *think* she's getting better. Her and sardine still meow and hiss a bit when confronted with each other unexpectedly in the house, but things could be a LOT more acrimonious, so I am more or less happy. And Jackie is back to behaving like my usual beloved Jackie, and that's hugely important to me. I am still in bed this morning enjoying the weekend, and Jackie is ensconced under the covers cuddled up against my side, where she would normally be at such a time, and that is reassuring.
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Sep 24, 2016 15:21
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Led here by a goon in the butterscotch thread. So I've been having troubles with one of my boys, it started way back in October of 2015 no less, I couldn't help but notice he'd kept hissing and yowling when eating sometimes, they didn't find anything on the first visit but on the second they discovered 2 teeth that where bent and cutting into his gums, the teeth where removed, he was fine for a period then starting around May it was back to the yowling, multiple trips later the cause was discovered to be extremely swollen gum line, I was given Prednisone to help, it did nothing but strangely enough Omega 3 fish oil did, it reduced the swelling considerably, he was doing fine for a period but now he's back to the same old poo poo, except its presenting different, its like a specific part of his mouth is what's bothering me and it seems to be whenever anything touches it, his own tongue, when he's grooming himself, the oil we're giving him, medicine like clyndamicin, with great care we got a small peak into his mouth and my mother spotted what looked like a black spot on one of his teeth, any ideas what it could be? Something is definitely up because he's hiding to much and he hasn't eaten a thing all day, I would have taken him to the vet during the week but we had an island wide power outage and things just starting to go back to normal. I'm close to the end of my rope here, I want my cat to be ok and acting like himself again and eating what he loves and this is stressing me out, every time he seems fine and we find a solution, it goes back to the same old poo poo after awhile. Will be taking him on monday but is there anything I can do? Anyone have any suggestions? The cause of his swelling was due to him apparently chewing on bones or something hard, not here as I do not feed him anything like that, he's fishing them out of trash cans despite all the good food given him to here, I've been limiting his outdoor time or flat out not letting him go out anymore but it seems that even if I let him out for an hour he still hurts himself somehow. Another thing I've noticed is, how do I put it? You know when a human clears their mouth of excess saliva? The noise it makes? We kind of dart our tongue out? I've seen him do that a LOT lately, enough for me to notice and I',t not sure what it could be because he's not drooling or anything.
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Sep 25, 2016 01:19
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My cat has feline acne on her chin, one pimple of which is now pretty gnarly. And she likes chin scratches so much Some cursory searching seems to indicate a daily benzoyl peroxide cream would do the trick, or clorhexadine, both of which I can grab pretty quickly. Should I be taking steps beyond this? Should I be looking at freakin' acne pads? e; vvvvv Already avoided them, for that exact reason. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Sep 25, 2016 |
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Sep 25, 2016 03:02
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If you use plastic bowls, ditch them and get metal or ceramic ones, and make sure you keep them clean.
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Sep 25, 2016 04:41
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Apparently clearasil acne pads are decent on cats.
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Sep 25, 2016 05:24
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Sep 25, 2016 10:47
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I'm having a problem getting my cats to interact. I fear it may never work out, but I want to make sure I've tried everything. tl;dr - my childhood 14 y.o. lady cat is a sick, grumpy old lady and isn't meshing with my 4 y.o. boy cat. Jump to the stars if you don't want backstory. I've followed the advice in the OP (quoting for reference): quote:When you bring a new cat into your household, both it and your other cats will probably be upset. You would be too if someone thrust a roommate on you. You can minimize the stress by making the introduction gradually. The principal actors and some background:  Cali, an imaginatively-named fatty calico that my family found with her brother as stray kittens while we were on vacation, back in 2002. She is 14 now, and honestly didn't have the best life once I moved away for college not long after. She and her brother spent their entire lives in an outbuilding because I was allergic to cats and they shed entirely too much, but they had space to explore and climb and each other. Her brother died somewhere around 2008, and she'd been on her own since then and mostly just ate and slept. She's incredibly people oriented and purrs like a motor boat. She also sheds like a demon, I don't know where it all comes from. I have brushed her for hours and never stopped pulling up brushfuls of hair.  Gus, an approximately four year old brown tiger male. My spouse and I got him after the cat she adopted in college, Jack, died from a rare infection. He died right around the time we graduated and were moving around a lot, so we waited a while before getting a pet. I would have got Cali, but she still shed entirely too much and I discovered Jack didn't trigger my allergies like she did. We picked Gus up from a cat welfare society she had volunteered at (and where she got Jack) when he leapt into her lap just as we were getting ready to leave. He was the first pet we got, and we've been able to train him to stand up, spin, wave, shake hands, sit, and (sort of) come when you call him, and to let us cut his claws periodically. He has a wonderful, sweet temperament and has grown more snuggly as time has gone on. He's accommodated the addition of our two dogs (details here) incredibly well, and he's been a perfect little gentleman. The situation: In July of this year my parents told me that Cali had been limping lately and that her paws looked "bad". When I came to check (about an hour drive or so) I found out that her claws had grown all the way around and were growing into her pads  The cuts were oozing and also packed with clay litter and she was just in horrible shape. I immediately took her to the vet my parents use for her, where luckily I learned there would be no permanent damage, but that she also had some infected molars. At that point there was no question, she had to come live with us. I set up a small cat room in our computer room and let her convalesce. Gus was very interested in this new creature, Cali was just an incredibly grumpy old lady (as you would expect) and just wanted to sleep and be left alone. We gave her Gus's (better) food and cellulosic litter and she seemed to do a lot better.A week or two later we took her to our vet who said her feet were healing nicely, but that her teeth were still infected and that her bloodwork showed high lymphocytes, meaning either that she might have cancer or possibly an Irritable Bowel Disease. He said to bring her back in three months to see if her numbers had changed. This was about three months ago now. It was around this time we started working on introducing the two. They'd already been exposed to each other through the doors, and we swapped their locations on occasion. We kept them supervised, and things seemed ok. Cali would growl and yowl and hiss, but would eventually settle down if nothing happened. Gus for his part wouldn't do anything overtly aggressive while we were watching, other that see how close he could get, then flop down and look at her fairly intensely. Cali, old and sick as she is, isn't super mobile but could still get around enough to hop on a day bed, get to the food and litter, and waddle over to rub on us while we were at our computers. About a month ago we started leaving the computer room door open while were in there, meaning they could be together only semi-supervised. However, Cali would react badly if she was surprised by Gus, and would swipe at him and clearly try to hurt him. Gus, for his part, started trying to sneak up on her and swatting her, which just got her more suspicious and upset. I suspect that, had Cali not been so hostile to start with, things could have worked out fine. Now, though, I think Gus just wants to antagonize her and does things to assert himself, like sneaking up on her, gorging himself on her food, getting as close as possible and staring at her, then rushing her and swatting her. This just makes Cali more nervous and anxious and prone to striking out at him for the least provocation. It was around Labor Day weekend we realized that Cali had not been eating all her food, a lot of it had been Gus, and that she hadn't been pooping. It had been hard to tell because she would often miss the litter box. She was incredibly thin and lethargic and then started throwing up water, so we took her to the emergency vet and told them about the lymphocyte blood count. They said it could either be lymphoma or possibly constipation, so they gave her an enema and prescribed her wet food. Since then she has perked back up, and as a bonus we've had Gus locked out of the room for a few weeks to reset their introductions. ********************************************************* So, how do I go about introducing a geriatic, possibly terminal grumpy lady cat that was never properly socialized with other cats that only wants to lie on her pillow and sleep all day to my younger house cat who wants to play and bother her? We worked on introducing them over the course of weeks to months, and it didn't seem like that was enough. Separately they're both wonderful cats, affectionate and love attention and get along well enough with the dogs and people, but we just haven't been able to get them to interact positively or even neutrally. At this point I would love it if I could just leave the door open, Cali could sleep on her pillow, and Gus just left her the gently caress alone. I know how to train cats, but Cali is just not that motivated by anything that I can tell Can it be done? Do we just have to keep her locked in the computer room? Is there any chance that some old lady would like a warm, fat, elderly lap cat? Less important issues: I hate keeping the computer room locked up because our dogs want to hang out with us, and it's a pain keeping the two separated. It also makes the room a mess and a pain to clean because all her shedding and stinky litter is confined to a small room with sensitive electronics and books, and it concentrates all the allergens into the one room. My allergies have started flaring up again, and I've taken to just avoiding the computer room because of it
DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Sep 25, 2016 |
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Sep 25, 2016 20:52
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Swiping at each other, stealing each others' food, and hissing and growling is all completely normal cat behavior. It's part of how they interact socially. I'm not seeing anything in your description that sounds like a problem between the two. You'll have to be more specific.
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Sep 25, 2016 21:03
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Sorry. At times we've tried to leave them unsupervised with the door open while we're on the first floor. Things will be quiet, and then suddenly there will be sounds of bloody murder: shrieking, crashing, just godawful noise. I don't think it's come to blood yet, but we haven't wanted to leave it because we weren't sure how well she could defend herself. It's also happened a few times while we're sitting there, but we obviously break up bad fights faster because we're there. We even tried letting it go a little, but the commotion just got worse the longer we left it, and given how sick she was getting we were worried it was the cause of it, or Gus was picking on her because she was sick. Now that she's doing better we want to try again, but I'm being very careful about it. The only thing I've done so far is feed her her normal wet food and let Gus have some (as a treat) about five feet away, in sight but not striking distance. She ate for a while, but eventually stopped and just started growling so we separated them again. Edit: VVV I did, literally immediately after that picture was taken. That's also the half she loves to use, assuming she hits the box (and she's missed a clean box before). I'm really not making a good impression, I know, but it's right next to my chair and it typically never gets that way.
DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Sep 25, 2016 |
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Sep 25, 2016 21:29
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The litterbox in the pic is sickeningly disgusting, please clean it.
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Sep 25, 2016 22:16
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Yeah, Darkhorse, as someone who has been trying to socialize a grumpy overweight curmudgeonly 10-year-old lady-cat who likes being an only cat with a friendly 4-year-old female cat who had grown up as kittens with a friend her own age and had never been separated until recently from that cat. So yeah, things have been rough, but at nearly 2 months in they are not so bad! They will likely never REALLY get along, and their "play" may very much look like crazy violent fighting. For example, last night Jackie chased Sardine through the apartment making several laps around and up into the second floor and they would stop to have what looked like a slap fight with their claws every now and then before chasing and yowling some more. They had done this a lot in the beginning (though differently) and so I tried to stop it which was very easily done by just picking up Jackie as she ran by. But I noticed something - back in the first couple weeks when they would have encounters and fight, Jackie's tail would go bushy and her hackles would be raised as she hissed and whatnot. But this time she felt totally normal - no bushy tail, no raised hackles. And I realized it had been like a month since I had seen that, and I realized that they were basically just roughhousing and probably enjoying racing through my apartment like a whirlwind and knocking rocks and things astray and hopping over and onto various furniture at top speed. Sounds like fun to me. It only gets semi-serious when food is involved. Sardine has her own supply of kibble on top of the fridge (Jackie is too fat to jump up there) but she strongly prefers wet food so I feed them both wet food out of the same bowl. They seem cool with it and it seems to have helped them bond and also they both rarely eat ALL of it no matter how much I try to make the last bits appealing so I don't want twice the wasted food, and frankly one cat food dish is enough to clean repeatedly... I have found a way to give Jackie rewards for good behavior without giving her fattening treats - I just give her a little of Sardine's Purina kibble (which she never eats) and Jackie scarfs it out of the palm of my hand like it's super-special tasty stuff. And it's probably good on her teeth to eat a *little* kibble.
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Sep 25, 2016 23:45
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That's good to hear. So far though it's been a lot of bushy-tail on Gus's part, and Cali would occasionally end up barfing. We might try just letting the doors open for a while, I just worry because of her mobility that she won't be able to get away, especially from Gus. EDIT: VVV Well that's good, that's more or less what we've been doing. Gus will break off his attack if we give him a warning, and he's at least been responding to treats. Without us or that motivation there he still likes to get a sneak attack in, and I fear it will make it so Cali can never relax. Thanks for the advice 
DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Sep 26, 2016 |
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Sep 25, 2016 23:48
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One good thing to keep in mind is that you really only have so much control over these things. The biggest chip you have is positive reinforcement. The reason why people say "cats are untrainable" (which we know isn't true) is that because unlike dogs, cats will *not* respond to negative reinforcement in any way, shape, or form. Seriously - it is an absolute waste of time yelling "NO!" at a cat, or getting angry at them, or tossing them out of a place you don't want them to be. Just doesn't work. All you'll succeed in doing is hurting them and *maybe* making them afraid. The only way to really 'train' a cat is to reward them repeatedly for positive behavior. So you want to have kitty treats ready to reward Gus for leaving Cali alone when he does that, because you literally have no other way to communicate to him the desired behavior you want him to follow.
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Sep 26, 2016 00:00
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If you want Cali to be happy, Gus will need A LOT of exercise away from Cali so that he will not seek her out for playtime. Shutting him out of her room (or putting him in a room) for part of the day will give her some Gus-free nap time. One thing to watch out for besides the food stealing is him ambushing her in the litter box... Try some Allerpet on your cats to help your allergies, that's worked for me. Alternatively, wipe Cali down with a damp washcloth everyday to reduce the dander.
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Sep 26, 2016 00:49
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Just got a cat. My first ever. She is one year old and loves to be petted. She seems to be adjusting fine. Much better than I expected. I planned on leaving her in one room all day as advised, but she immediately wandered around instead of hiding and wanted to be let out soon after. I watched her explore the rest of the house, then she mostly sat on a pillow on the floor and took naps. Tomorrow I go to work and I am wondering if I could leave her in the bathroom during that time. While I think she would be mostly fine on her own, I am afraid of her possibly chewing on electronic wires or eating something weird I haven't seen yet when I am gone. The bathroom has less things she can get into.
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Sep 26, 2016 03:28
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Yeah just leave a litter tray, food, water that isnt the toilet and a light source if its got no window.
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Sep 26, 2016 04:25
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Hahaha nah kaworu, I'm the terrible goon! You seem all right to me. I'm glad Jackie is under supervision outdoors. Have you ever tried a harness with her?
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Sep 26, 2016 17:53
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Last night I was able to get Tuna to stop biting me while I try to sleep! He played with my feet for a bit before curling up to sleep next to me.  Of course, a couple of hours later he's hungry and wakes me up by biting me, but I'll take my progress where I can find it.
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Sep 26, 2016 20:07
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