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Read through the OP, and am an idiot, but looking for advice on the later stages of introducing two cats together. In this case, we have an older female cat that's about 12 or so, we adopted her from a shelter when she was somewhere around a year and a half. She had kittens early, so she's very small. The other cat is a kitten that's about 3 - 4 months old. He's currently in a bit of a wrestling phase, but he's gotten a lot better! We've been slowly introducing the kitten since he was comfortable in our bedroom. We've been following the "Jackson Galaxy" method that we'd found online. So far we've done the following:
We're not sure what to do next however. The guides mostly say that we need to let them comingle now, but any time we bring the baby cat downstairs the older one starts to get hissy and growly. The other day the kitten tried to play with the older cat. She was actually pretty fine with the kitten getting quite close, but once he tried to touch her she sounded very angry about it. Loud hissing and growling, no poofing or anything but was definitely not enjoying the attempt! Any ideas on next steps? I saw another recommendation about using a cat carrier or dog crate to keep the new cat safe and in view of the older cat, so we were thinking that maybe seeing the kitten regularly in the "her" territory downstairs might help. I feel like they're so close to being able to coexist, I just don't want to let them roam free and end up with a big fight. Especially since while the adult cat is very small, she's still bigger than the kitten.
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Dec 15, 2020 18:07
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Hissing and growling is inevitable - as long as it doesn't devolve into an actual fight you're fine. It's just part of the process of getting used to the new cat and establishing boundries. I think you should keep letting them interact, with your observation, for limited periods of time. Putting one in a carrier doesn't sound like a great idea, as it'll be so focused on the fact it's confined in a carrier that it won't have positive interactions with the other cat. Hey, thanks for the encouragement here! Currently when they get to be together in the same room it's in kind of a neutral loft territory but there's not much to do there outside of the toys we've put out. I feel like they should be interacting more often than just for 30 minutes to an hour for feeding, but I'm a little worried that if something does happen it'll move under a bed or somewhere else that'd be hard to get them separated quickly. Maybe it'd be ok to let them both roam between the bedrooms as long as we're strictly observing though. Even with the loud hiss and growl yesterday the older cat was fine coming out from under the bed and getting picked up to leave the room. Any thoughts here? I guess we could bring the kitten down, but he's not very comfortable on the ground floor quite yet. InvisibleMonkey posted:Ah, that's where I am at! Our resident kitty is younger (2.5ish) but also a rescue from the mean streets of Romania so she doesn't take any poo poo. We've been feeding them in the same room for a bit over a week now, or maybe it's been a week? Time in 2020 is hard to parse. At first there was a little grumbling, but now it's basically ended as long as the kitten doesn't try to pounce on the older cat. Were you letting them free roam around your living space after feeding them? Any trouble with them getting into trouble behind/under things?
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Dec 15, 2020 19:41
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So update on the older cat and young kitten that I posted about roughly a month ago or so: They have no problems eating near each other generally. We got a very large very nice cat hutch for the kitten to hang out in over the holidays for no more than an hour or so downstairs, with all his favorite toys and food and water, which the older cat considers her territory. At first, the older cat was a real jerk and would hiss and bap at the cage, so we'd take the kitten away after just a little bit (since it doesn't really seem fair for him to be stuck getting hissed at), but after doing it every day and ending it with feeding we got to "mostly ignoring" the kitten when he was downstairs in the cage. The older cat would sometimes run up to the cage and stare him down, but she'd usually back off afterwards and just go do something else which was a marked improvement! Starting last weekend, when both my wife and I are available, we started removing the gate from the top of the stairs and letting him come down on his own terms. At first he was VERY nervous about the new space and would run at the slightest hint of movement or noise. After a few days of that he comes down basically immediately and hangs out on our cat tree/playing with toys all day, he even uses the older cat's water fountain when he feels like it. I'd say it's a huge improvement from the first day we brought him home generally. The older cat however still seems to want to chase him off. When she sees him she usually just watches for a little, but inevitably she'll run up and chase him around the downstairs until he runs back upstairs. Sometimes she won't follow him upstairs, but if we're not there she sometimes does which is weird because she seems to think that's his territory. Interestingly there's no hissing or yowling, there's the occasional loud meow when she doesn't notice him and then suddenly does but that's about it. Her tail occasionally poofs when she's chasing him around, and once she was sorta bapping him a bit with her paw till he moved and then they both bolted to opposite ends of the house in shock. I honestly can't tell if this is a good thing or not. Ears aren't going back, and the kitten basically comes right back downstairs everytime he gets chased away so obviously he doesn't really care, but I can't tell if they're seconds away from a fight or just kinda playing or something in between. If you put food down the older cat will eat pretty close to the younger kitten even downstairs, though put it too close and she's no longer interested and did hiss once.
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Jan 14, 2021 22:40
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Deteriorata posted:Chasing each other around is called "playing." It's good. Glad to hear it, I definitely feel like they're doing a lot better! There was a little hiss from the older cat during a particularly intense chase, the kitten went upstairs and took a nap, then once I went to check on him decided he wanted to come down and play more with the cat tree so I guess no harm done really! And I understand even cats that have known each other forever might hiss every once and awhile when play gets crazy
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Jan 15, 2021 01:44
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Cat update, I'm starting to think that our adult cat is just not going to learn to love the kitten at this point. She's still pretty territorial about the downstairs part of our house. If she manages to see the kitten down here, it usually results in a quick chase back up stairs to put him back in the bedroom, after which she comes back down slightly poofed and everything continues as normal. We've been a little lax about feeding them together in the past week, as we've been trying to kind of swap their territories for a couple days at a time to see if that would help. The kitten's never slept by himself however, so someone has to stay downstairs with him or he gets really anxious. Last night my wife was coming to bed very late, so we thought that it'd be fine to leave him downstairs for a few hours alone.. until we heard him jumping over the pet gate in the middle of the night. Once he got upstairs, Socks saw him and hissed, then chased him into the corner. After she cornered him (and I called out to her) she turned and came back into the bedroom and the kitten didn't seem any worse for wear, but it's been 3 months and they still can't even be in the same room together for an hour unless there's food distracting the adult cat  How could anyone hate this cute little boy? 
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Jan 30, 2021 14:08
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Man, we taught our kitten to play fetch. Or rather, he really kinda taught himself since we were throwing his toys for him. Now we never get to stop playing fetch (it's very cute)
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Feb 20, 2021 01:13
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kaworu posted:I actually have a weird question concerning something my cat does... I'm no expert, but it seems to me that she smells that you're "dirty" and wants to clean you because grooming is what cats do when they're close? Then again, if I so much as touch deli meat my kitten will spend the next hour trying to lick the taste off my fingers so maybe your cat just really, really loves spliffs?
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Feb 25, 2021 14:27
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Cat introduction update time: So, last I wrote in the thread, Socks (the adult cat) would chase Sage (the kitten) back upstairs literally everytime she saw him, pretty much as soon as she saw him. At first I thought they were just playing, but I don't think he felt that way as it started to get to the point where he was afraid to come down stairs, and if he did he'd cautiously peek around every corner to make sure Socks wasn't there. If she was he'd just run back upstairs right away. It didn't seem to be working itself out, so we separated them then and there and started The Reset. At first they didn't get to see each other for about a week or two, then we started feeding them together again (with just the gate they can see through, no doors). At first, Sage wouldn't even come into the kitchen to get his food, he'd just stare longingly at it if he could see Socks eating her food until she left. Over the past 3 weeks or so, and with the help of some Feliway, we've gotten them back to eating on opposite sides of the gate. Now, he doesn't appear to be scared of her at all, at least with the gate up. In fact, he often walks over to the gate to stare at her, and seemingly wants to get to her pretty badly, hopefully to play! He's not really vocal, just the occasional little chirp or trill and every once and awhile meows when he's really excited or frustrated, but when he's looking for Socks he's MUCH more vocal and it's very cute. Not yowls or anything bad, just little chirps as he walks around trying to see her Unlike last time we were introducing them, his new favorite thing (outside of hours long fetch sessions) is to play footsies with the Adult cat under the door that separates her food area and half of the house from his when he's downstairs. He likes it so much that he constantly goes over to check and see if she's there, and when she is they both take turns sticking their paws under the door while the other one baps them. It seems WAY more promising than it was before! There's still a little bit of behavior that might be aggressive? He's 8 months old now, and so kinda testing his dominance and place in the house I think, so he likes to sort of run up to the gate when Socks is there then back up when she does it and do it again the instant she walks away once more. I'm presuming he just wants to play, and hopefully she's just playing as well. She did run up to the gate and sorta bat at the air, but it didn't look like there was claws and there was no hissing or yowling or anything so I'm pretty sure it's playful behavior. We'll see how brave he is when the gate isn't there this weekend, but so far it looks WAY more promising. It also helps that he's got a month or so more growth, he's now like 2 pounds heavier than the adult cat at least so hopefully that gives him a bit of confidence. Kitten tax for my long boring post  Here's hoping the "no gate" time this weekend goes well, and we're near the end of the process! I guess it makes sense that'd take a lot longer for an elderly cat that's never lived with other cats outside of the kittens she had when she was like a year and a half before adoption. Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Mar 10, 2021 |
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Mar 10, 2021 17:26
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In my case my problem was that the adult cat's boundaries were seemingly: the entire downstairs don't you dare come down It remains to be seen if we've solved that one though!
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Mar 10, 2021 18:33
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kw0134 posted:Cats are territorial. It's not uncommon for cats to carve out spaces for themselves and woe be unto the other if that line is transgressed. Usually kittens are bolder than that, and it's probable that now the kitten is bigger he'll be braver and can push back a bit, which the adult will likely be forced to cede. Everything is negotiable, one hissing and wrasslin' match at a time. Yeah that's what I'm hoping. I don't think she really wants to fight him at all, but he needs to also be a bit more bold and challenge it a bit for sure
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Mar 10, 2021 18:54
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So we let out cats interact for the first time (again) last night, and something really funny happened. Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of it, but Socks was chasing Sage as per usual. Unlike last time he would come back downstairs right after he had run upstairs (and socks chased after him) pretty much each time it happened. However, on the last chase he managed to lose her around the back of the couch since he's much faster than her. He came back around the front and sat in wait watching for her to follow him. Unfortunately for him, Socks used her superior cat wisdom and... walked around the other side. She actually got right up behind him, like maybe an inch or two away, and just sat there watching him. Eventually he turned around and did a full on double take at his new sister being right behind him patiently waiting for him to notice her. He was so surprised that he actually hissed for the second time of his life, with his ears going a little back. Afterwards he ran away and she chased him again for a bit and we put the gate back up. We'll let them interact for longer and longer each time of course, but I think the fact that Socks patiently waited for him to turn around without pouncing or bapping or hissing is a very good sign!! I'm pretty sure his hiss was mostly just being insanely surprised as well, wish I could've gotten a picture
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Mar 12, 2021 14:01
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So it's been awhile since I posted in the thread about my progress on cat introductions! The good news, both Socks (the older 15 year old female) and Sage (the now 1 and a bit year old boy cat) are basically fine with each other right now. In fact, they often sleep in side by side beds in the dark part of the house at night no issues at all. Socks has always been tiny (she's like.. 8 lbs at her heaviest) and she's been diagnosed with cancer since I last updated it. She's been getting smaller, and it's really sad but we're trying to keep her as comfy as possible. Sage has grown to be gigantic at like 13/14 lbs. And to be clear he's not overweight, he's just a huge cat! Unfortunately, as a young boy cat I guess, Sage desperately wants to rough house with Socks. Socks wants absolutely nothing to do with this. Usually this just results in Sage sort of, slowly chasing Socks since she can't run as fast as he can, where he sorta swats at her back legs a little and jumps kinda on her but not really? Occasionally, however, he decides he really wants to wrestle and just like.. straight up tackles her, wraps his paws around her and starts nipping. She makes absolutely horrible yowl hissing noises, then Sage lets her go and chases her till she goes on top of something where the game ends. He also sometimes just sorta.. flops in front of her (I presume in hopes of her wrestling him) I think this is pretty normal cat behavior for Sage. He's young and still wants to play basically constantly, and while we had multiple cats when I was a kid at my parent's place I don't really remember how the wrestling looked other than an occasional cat tangle, then one would back off, then it would start again. Obviously Socks hates it so I try and break up the chase a little bit, and Socks generally spends most of her days snuggling in bed upstairs where Sage doesn't really go so they sorta have their own spaces too. But does that sound pretty average for cat playing? He didn't have a kitten friend growing up so I don't know if he just doesn't know how to play nice. Post holidays, my Wife and I decided that we are going to look for a third cat. Socks is.. well.. probably not going to be well for too much longer at least, and Sage really seems like he needs a cat around his own age that he can rough house with, which will hopefully give Socks a little break. Does that seem reasonable? Cat tax:    Socks is the grey one, Sage is the Tabby
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Dec 10, 2021 15:30
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 New kitty! His name is Pavarotti and he likes to chat and meow as much as it implies. He's a 2 year old boy and has all his shots and such. He also absolutely loves to play. Unfortunately he's also VERY good at slipping out of doors, so he got out into our (luckily closed gate) hallway area while I was bringing his food and water and litter up to him. I tried to pick him up to put him back in the room (since my two current cats are sitting very expectantly at the top of the stairs smelling something new) and he actually hissed at me and grabbed my face with his claws He went exploring and eventually went back to the bedroom on his own, I tried to touch him when he went by and received a very loud hiss again. He's currently up there with my wife and seems like he's totally calmed down now. Hopefully he doesn't hold a grudge, I feel awful about freaking him out like that by accident! He's very sweet though, and absolutely loves rubbing on people, he even does this cute little like.. hop rub to do it harder. Once he calms down we'll worry about doing food introductions through the door, since he's understandably pretty nervous it seems like
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Dec 26, 2021 20:15
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Pavarotti is feeling more relaxed now a few hours later, but still hisses at me when I walk in the room (and then makes annoyed but still kind of cute little huff noises for a bit) But he's drinking water and gets all rubby and affectionate if treats are involved. Also keeps trying to murder the heck out of a few older catnip toys that he's taken a shine too I figure it's probably a good idea to avoid pets till maybe tomorrow when he's had an evening to get used to us in bed. This is the first cat I've ever adopted where they were this overwhelmed and all hissy Our youngest cat desperately wants to play paws with him Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Dec 27, 2021 |
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Dec 27, 2021 01:11
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InvisibleMonkey posted:Just leave him alone unless he comes to you, I bet he'll get over it once he notices you're not picking him up against his will all of the time. We recently fed a friend's cats for a couple of days and the same thing happened to my partner, he grabbed the younger kitty because she was going for the other's kibble and she was like "who the gently caress even are you" and hissed. She side-eyed him for the rest of the weekend and hissed in warning a couple more times but she got over it eventually. I only did it the once But update anyway since I got woken up and can't get back to sleep. Apparently sleeping quietly in the room with him has made him completely comfortable because about a half hour ago he woke me up by standing on my chest, then aggressively rubbed himself all over my hands and face before curling up against my chest and purring up a storm  Then he got up when my wife came in the room, since she hasn't been up here as much yet. After settling down again he's come over to snuggle again and is laying on top of me purring It's funny that, for such a loud meowing and chatting boy, his purr is so quiet
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Dec 27, 2021 11:45
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At the vet with Socks for an emergency visit. She wasn't able to eat her treats this morning and I don't think she's been eating her dry food at all anymore, and barely picking through her wet food She's almost 16 and as mentioned before has cancer/bad kidney's and I'm so worried it's her time. She was purring when I took her out of the carrier and snuggled closer, she never likes being held at all
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Jan 6, 2022 21:05
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:Hey, I hope it didn't turn out to be a worst-case scenario and you and Socks are home now. Let us know how it went. Was pretty emotional, and still kind of a wreck this morning. We did bring Socks home last night, and we swapped our new cat to being downstairs so she could have the bed and all her favorite places to lay. Unfortunately new cat managed to kramer through the gate at the top of the stairs so we had a bit of a cat kerfluffle afterwards! Socks hasn't eaten anything since like 3 days ago I don't think, maybe 2? She did take some water, but that's about it. She's not even touching her favorite tuna snack. It's really hard, but unfortunately I think it's time to say goodbye to Socks. She looks so unsteady when she walks around, and can barely get up or down from the bed. She can't seem to use the litterbox either. The vet ran a full battery of tests yesterday, and her Kidney levels have crashed dramatically (apparently 5 is critical, but she's at almost 7 which is Very Bad). She was super dehydrated and everything, the whole nine yards. She seemed a little more chipper after the IV (which she hated getting), and we did take a kit home with us to give her more, but it doesn't seem like it's going to help long term. I love her so much, and at least she got to spend the night in bed curled up in her favorite place against us. I feel bad for Sage who looks up to her so much as well, she's feeling awfully rotten as you'd imagine, so she's growling and hissing everytime he tries to get close to check on her. The appointment is at 2:30 right now, and luckily we have two other great cats to snuggle and keep us company afterwards I guess. But man, is it hard
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Jan 7, 2022 15:30
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So, we put socks to rest yesterday at the vet. We got to hold her in our lap and give her all the love at the end, and I like to think that really helped her in that moment be more comfortable and, hopefully, feel all the love. I know there's a memorial thread so I won't make a big ole post, but I did want to share pictures        They're all from the last few years, but they're some of my favorite pictures of her. I need to dig up the really old pictures from when she was young explosivo posted:So do those microchip dry food feeders actually work well or will more assholish cats figure out how to get in? Been thinking about getting one to supplement my always hungry cat with dry food when she wants it by leaving it out but I don't want them eating each other's stuff and Finn will certainly eat hers if left out. This seems like a good solution but I've heard mixed things about them. They work for our cats at least, and they constantly would try to get at each other's foods. If a cat was really persistent though they could I guess eat while the other cat does and the cover is open so ymmv
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Jan 8, 2022 17:57
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explosivo posted:I got the microchip feeder in today and I'm too nervous to even get her to try to program it today because I don't want to freak her out about it. I read the stuff in the booklet about introducing a skittish cat to it by starting with just the bowl outside of the feeder entirely and I might have to do that. Really trying to not give her a negative association with this thing off the bat. We got really lucky with them, once we showed our cats how to open them, socks took to it right away, and sage learned to use his from watching her Pavarotti continues to be a handful. He hunts down treat bags with a prejudice and carry them off to savagely destroy them. He doesn't eat all the treats mind you, he just eats a few then leaves the bag there, torn apart
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Jan 12, 2022 02:12
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Ughh.. our youngest cat Sage apparently has worms.. AGAIN He doesn't go outside, and the new cat Pavarotti tested negative in his stool sample, so I have no idea where he'd have gotten it. Or maybe Pav does have them and it just didn't show up (that actually happened with Sage the first time, and he ended up so wormy he actually threw one up the poor guy). Edit: they haven't shared litterboxes or anything until yesterday, at least to my knowledge, when we got the all clear for Pavarotti Starting treatment on both today, but man I really need to figure out how to stop the reinfections. Gonna pop open all the litter boxes and give them a big ole scrubbing I guess, hopefully that helps. The introductions between them are going pretty well at least! Sage still hisses a little at his new big brother when Pavarotti decides he wants to chase Sage around which is pretty understandable. Sage has never had a cat that would play back, since Socks was always too old to really be interested in rough housing, so it's a bit of a new experience for him Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Jan 24, 2022 |
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Jan 24, 2022 15:26
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gloom posted:In a situation like this, is there any reason not to just treat both cats / all the cats in the house, just in case? Assuming the meds aren't exorbitant and the potential side effects aren't too serious. They're both definitely going to be treated yeah, otherwise there almost certainly going to end up passing it back and forth again. Both will be undergoing the treatment at the same time I just can't figure out how it keeps happening. I gotta imagine it came from the new cat
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Jan 24, 2022 20:03
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VelociBacon posted:Who is applying the dewormer? Assuming you've been getting the topical stuff, is it being applied directly to the skin? My wife's been applying it the previous times (she's honestly the only one the cats respect enough to let her do medicine for them). And yeah, it's the topical on the skin stuff The vet seems to think that it's possible that he just never actually had gotten rid of the worms in the first place. Really hoping this time is the one that works Also on cat sleeping: yeah, one of my cats would always move the INSTANT you moved at all and just leave the room till morning. The other cats just progressively take more and more space. I dunno how a little 10-13 lb creature can physically take up half a bed, but they sure can
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Jan 25, 2022 17:26
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explosivo posted:Christ, my cat will not put her head in this microchip reader far enough for it to read before she runs away because it's not doing anything. The training mode it has doesn't really work with other cats since I can't really leave it unattended because the other cat really wants to eat what's in there and the training mode just seems like manually pushing a button to open it in stages. Too bad he's not the one I need to feed from this thing Wish I had some good advice here, every cat I've had has just sorta.. started using it no issue once I showed them how to open it Unfortunately Pavarotti has such a good understanding of it, and Sage is still afraid of him, so he immediately will try and run over if he hears Sage eating and will stick his head in from the side to snag food. I might need to make a back plate or something to prevent him from getting in as easily
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Jan 27, 2022 23:16
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Exciting news for our cat introductions on Friday Sage wrestled Pavarotti back a little bit, and even chased him around once a little bit afterwards. Sage only really had Socks when he was growing up since we got him at 8 weeks, and socks was much too old to really want to play with him. He's still a little wary of Pavarotti though. Once we bring Pav downstairs he'll generally go sit under the table on a chair, or go up to a high cat bed or back to sitting in front of a heating vent under a desk. Occasionally there's a chase that results in cornering and he ends up getting really hissy and yowls Of course, as soon as we're about to feed them they'll happily sit side by side and take turns begging at the counter, and they'll eat side by side right up against each other. Cats I guess
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Feb 7, 2022 17:37
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Rotten Red Rod posted:If your question is "should I take my cat to the vet" you shouldn't be asking this thread, you should be calling your vet. Yeah I'd agree with this. Maybe I'm paranoid, but if I think something's wrong with one of my cats I call and talk to the vet and see what they think. Our vets have always been square with us on whether we should make an appointment or just keep an eye on them for a few days
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Feb 10, 2022 22:40
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Vitruvian Manic posted:I got my cat shortly after Kerry won his primary. She was a trash kitten, a cat that had been abandoned but seemed to know her way around and was adopted by the new family living at the house where she had (presumably) been abandoned. She was nursed back to health and then some. She was a hairy cat and had to be passed on to a recently-divorced relative due to allergies. Those allergies meant she had to pass them off to some schmuck in her apartment complex: me. She was 2-3 years old at this time and very adept at using her head to open pizza boxes (a good survival skill for a declawed cat left to fend for themselves outside). When she was first rescued she was all skin and bones. When I adopted her, the divorcee had named her "fatty" and at her first vet appointment she was a humongous 22 pounds. Good for her, she deserved it. I'm so sorry for your loss, we just went through the same thing a few weeks back and it hurt so much Just know that you did everything you could for her, even at the end. And she got to know she was loved till the very end
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Feb 17, 2022 21:56
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Exciting news in cat introductions Today Sage and Pavarotti played chase for like an hour or two and fully took turns chasing each other around. Sage isn't just running away and hiding anymore, he even tried to start wrestling Pavarotti. Unfortunately, since we got him when he was 8 weeks old without another kitten he doesn't really like.. understand wrestling. So his version of trying to start it was running over and kinda.. putting his arm around Pavarotti, then sticking his face into Pavarotti's chest and kinda like.. nipping a tiny little bit. Pavarotti just gave me this withering look and used his paw to kinda push Sage away, it was really funny. I know Pavarotti wants to wrestle though since he periodically will try to tackle Sage when they're playing, hopefully he'll be able to teach Sage how to do it properly. Occasionally there's still a big chase where Sage will try and get somewhere high away from Pavarotti, then Pav will chase him up there and we'll get some yowls, growls and hisses, but outside of that they're fine being left alone overnight and everything and it's pretty uncommon now. Maybe one or two hisses a day and anything more might be every few days at absolute most
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Feb 18, 2022 21:19
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Man I'm starting to feel a little bad for Pavarotti. Sage has started wrestling back which is great, and sometimes he just runs over and sorta tackles Pav to start playing Then Pavarotti inevitably wins the wrestle because Sage has literally never had to since he's been in a shelter or with us since he was born. At which point Sage starts growling and hissing, runs away, then when Pavarotti catches up Sage puts his ears fully back and yowls and hisses up a storm It's like c'mon buddy, if you pick the fight and lose you don't get to throw a fit! I don't think either of them is getting hurt, he just gets spooked I guess
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Feb 22, 2022 14:41
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kw0134 posted:As long as Pavarotti backs off then it's fine, and it's a good step to setting boundaries. "If I play too rough and the object of my play stops playing, I don't get to play any more" is the sort of training we as humans have to impose on cats that use claws/teeth on our hands while interacting, and if that's something usually learned with littermates. Hopefully they'll come to an understanding soon. Yeah that makes sense. Sage keeps coming back for more (though it doesn't always turn into a wrestle) so obviously he's not against it. I think they just need to figure out how much rough play is too rough for the other like you're saying
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Feb 22, 2022 15:15
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D34THROW posted:I loving love cats. 
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Feb 24, 2022 15:40
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Rescue Toaster posted:Man I got a litter robot, and the design is great and it works really well, and the cats used it initially. But ever since plugging it in and they've seen it move... nope. No loving chance they'll go in it again. So $600 paperweight now. Mine is basically cat TV, both cats come running to watch it move Maybe try unplugging it and see if they'll use it when it hasn't run for awhile? You could just run it manually for a few days with a closed door blocking them off so they only hear the noise at first and see if they get used to it?
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Feb 24, 2022 21:45
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VelociBacon posted:No I'm actually 100% sure she's never made thos noises ever, and she spends a lot of time looking at birds out the window. Pavarotti used to cry and meow as loud as he could constantly, hence the name he picked up in the foster program. Ironically though, since he now has a permanent home and is able to roam the house with Sage he doesn't really talk much at all anymore. Just occasional little meows when he sees you or is looking for Sage or something He does, when he's seemingly really happy and content, shut his eyes and like.. snore purr? It's the weirdest noise I've ever heard a cat make, but he only really does it when he's happy as far as I can tell. He's got a quiet and breathy purr, so I think it only happens when he's trying to purr really hard or something Sage basically doesn't talk, but when he does he has cute little like.. trill meows. He only does it when he's going to get his wet food for the day basically. Only other noise he makes is dramatic yowling when play has happened for too long and a crazy loud and deep purr when he's snuggled up. Cats! Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Feb 28, 2022 |
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Feb 28, 2022 23:33
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Oyster posted:In my partner's reading she came up with "gurgling", and I can't say I disagree, she's gained a lot of weight since the steroids. We'll be calling the vet again shortly, the steroids are keeping her eating but her energy lasts for a shorter and shorter amount of time after each dose. There is also added stress in that I can't help with the steroids; I was concussed a few months ago and my motor control is not great, I'm not even able to hold her without shaking, leaving the dosing completely to my partner and our Luna has been less and less cooperative. Really sorry to hear about your cat. It's so incredibly hard and your resolve is definitely the right thing For what it's worth, when it was Socks' time it was really abrupt. Like on the Thursday we took her to the vet because she wasn't eating and they gave her some IV fluids. She perked up afterwards and she was snuggling in our laps and purring up a storm and jumping around the vet's office just like normal. Even before the fluids she was still acting like herself. Literally 12 hours later she wouldn't even touch wet food, and by the next day she just.. wasn't Socks anymore. Her brother was being very sweet and snuggling beside her and not bothering her because I think both she and he knew that it was time at that point. She would basically only get up to try and use the restroom, be unable to, then slowly pad back to lay on top of someone. I think cats are just like that a little bit, they hide what's going on really well until they can't and they let you know that it's time. Crossing my fingers for you guys Edit: sad first post on a new page for cat thread, have a picture of our two cats hanging out together: 
Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Mar 3, 2022 |
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Mar 3, 2022 14:31
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Duckman2008 posted:Two things: This: https://www.amazon.com/SHRRL-Running-Closure-Cat-Resistant/dp/B09FGL4KMM?ref_=ast_sto_dp Worked brilliantly for us when we got our new cat who, upon getting home and realizing there was another cat on the side of the gate, immediately started climbing over the previous one we were using. Be warned you absolutely have to put up the tacks though, the stickiness won't last.
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Mar 3, 2022 20:03
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dervinosdoom posted:Update on the dastardly couch peeing villain: She seemed to stop a day after I posted, but still had the vet appt so I took her in. All healthy no UTI. The first cat we had never weighed more than I think 7.5 lbs at her heaviest. She had kittens when she was like a year old and so she was just super stunted. The friendliest girl I'd ever seen though! Glad to hear she's stopped going on the couch My wife and I were talking about this over the weekend, but in the 2 months we've had our newest cat it's incredible how much he's changed. He went from super loud crying all the time if he didn't see us or couldn't get to us for more than a few minutes to being totally content with snoozing in another room all day. Went from being pretty hyper and constantly jumping at the cat gates if he could see another cat to grooming his cat bro when he runs over before they have a fun play wrestle. He now tolerates a ton of petting, though he'll still get a little nippy if it's too much, and has become a pretty big lap cat throughout the day. He doesn't even devour all his food anymore as soon as it's put in his bowl, he'll just graze throughout the day no issues. Heck, during the shared feeding time he'll even share it with the other cat. He's almost a completely different cat since coming home from the shelter and out of the foster program now that he doesn't have anxiety about us disappearing. I hope he wasn't mistreated or anything in the foster program, though I think he was around other cats constantly so he was probably just very very stressed all the time between foster home and adoption center. Definitely a cat success story
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Mar 7, 2022 21:08
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My younger cat has loved fetch every since he was a kitten But the only thing he'll fetch is the stretchy hair ties my wife uses  We periodically pick them up and put them in a bowl to try and keep them from being as easily found, but he has a hunter's sense for hairties and invariably I'll find him up there stealing them to amuse himself or bring over for fetch until they're all under doors again
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Mar 9, 2022 00:12
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Gorgar posted:If you buy him enough of them,he might not mind if your wife uses a couple of his toys to hold back her hair. Yeah, at this point he has his set of hair ties that he gets to play with that goes in the bowl, I like to think it makes him feel smart that he "sneaks" them away from us Cause if we didn't, he would absolutely get into the real stash of hair ties that she uses lol
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Mar 9, 2022 02:51
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Jayne Doe posted:I adopted my cat during Covid, so I wasn't doing any of my usual semi-regular travel for work. Now that travel is starting to pick up again, I'm curious about how to judge what's a reasonable vs. cruel amount of time to be away from my cat. I did a week long trip in the fall, with someone checking in on her daily to scoop her litterbox / try to play / check that the autofeeder wasn't malfunctioning, etc. She seemed to survive that, although was clearly unhappy when I got home and pretty clingy for the next week or so. Definitely too long, in my opinion at least We have a lot better luck with having a cat sitter come over and check on them though. Boarding always seems really stressful for the cats
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Mar 13, 2022 21:39
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Jayne Doe posted:Thanks for the thoughts! That jives with my thoughts - I'll have to see if I can find someone she's at least a little comfortable with who would be willing to stay over during the longer trips. I'm a little nervous about just getting a pet sitter that she hasn't met before to stay, because she tends to hide when there's a stranger around. I guess she would probably at a bare minimum still come out to eat + drink + use the litterbox when they left to do things during the day. Our cat sitter, before we moved (and then covid hit so we haven't needed one since) was actually one of our vet techs! We'd leave the keys with her, and she'd pop over once a day to give the cat her medicine, play with them, give them brushings and treats and stuff for an hour and a half or so So you don't need someone there full time really (unless there's a medical problem that would require that of course), just someone swinging by to check in on the cat and give them a little attention seemed to be enough in our cases
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Mar 14, 2022 22:16
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Jayne Doe posted:Oh, I think I misunderstood your post! My original question was if she would be okay with someone popping by once a day if I was going to be gone for 2-3 weeks, so I thought you were saying that probably wasn't enough attention. Oh shoot, I actually completely misread the original post then. That's my fault! Honestly that's always been fine for our cats. Once or twice a day for some intense cuddles and playing, then they go to sleep and end up napping most of the rest of the day anyway
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Mar 15, 2022 01:27
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