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I'm planning to adopt a cat soon, preferably not a kitten since it will be my first cat, and there are a few things that I wanted to know. Also, adopting 2 cats, as beneficial as it sounds, simply isn't a possibility. Mostly because of the space issues, but also because I'd like to be certain that I could afford the costs of owning a cat, including emergency visits to a vet and the like. I see a lot of posts here talking about how it's much better to have 1 more litter box than cats. However, my apartment is pretty small so there is really only enough room for one litter box. Will this be a problem? I'm also going to spend the next few days cat/kitten proofing my apartment, by tidying up all my electricity and computer cables, spraying more sensitive areas with the bitter apple spray I've read about in the OP, and laying down double-sided tape in places I can't spray. Is there anything else I should do/know? I've already gone over the OP. Would an 8-12 month old kitten be over or close to being over the rear end in a top hat stage?
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Jun 21, 2010 00:13
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Thanks for the advice, I'll probably go ahead with the adoption sometime this week. Luckily there's a pet store practically across the street, so trying out various litter boxes shouldn't be too difficult.
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Jun 21, 2010 15:39
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Well, I am now the proud owner of one (1) black cat, male, called Charlie. So far, the only thing he's done since I got him home was crawl under my bed. I put a bowl of water near him, cause he was panting on the ride home. I suppose he'll get over the "oh poo poo where am I" period soon? He doesn't seem to want to drink yet.  Exclusive Charlie update!!!: He came out from under the bed and explored a bit. He's really affectionate and kept coming back to me to get pets. He also started purring while wandering around. However, when he saw me carrying a broom he freaked the gently caress out (  ) and ran back under the bed, where he's chilling now.
Don't Ask fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Jun 24, 2010 |
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Jun 24, 2010 10:36
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McKracken posted:I have a Charlie too Charlieposting all up in here. He's now more or less totally out of his shell and is in fact lying in my lap, kneading and purring, as we speak.  The mussed up fur is from him starting to groom and then completely forgetting about it.
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Jun 24, 2010 18:03
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Does anyone have any good advice for how to encourage my cat to stop becoming active the second I go to sleep? He sleeps during the day, occasionally getting up to eat/drink and use the litterbox. However, when I turn off the light to go to sleep he wakes up and starts playing with his toys, running around and generally making a lot of noise. It doesn't matter what time I try to go to sleep, he will "wake up" less than a minute after I turn off the light, get a drink and then unleash all hell on his furry little mouse-on-a-spring. I admit, he's pretty adorable when he's jumping around and pouncing on his mouse (he even uses the wall to rebound), but not at 2am! I've tried encouraging him to play during the day, but I can't really force him to play if he doesn't want to. I just want to sleep. He's about a year old and neutered.
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Jul 12, 2010 20:25
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My cat just barfed up some... stuff. It was greenish and lumpy, and had a few whole undigested treats that I gave him a few minutes before. This is the first time he's done anything even slightly related to being ill, so I'm not sure how much I should worry. Right after he finished puking he became very interested in it, so I covered it with some paper towels and the top half of his carrier, otherwise he probably would have ate it all back up. Then he became very affectionate, purring and rubbing up on me and even gently trying to bat my mouth (which he usually does right after I wake up, having missed me the whole night  ).So overall he seems alright now, but is there anything special that I should be wary of? e: Forgot to add: He's about a year old, neutered, eating drinking and eliminating normally, and he's goddamn fighting me to get to the pile of vomit. He's even squeaking at me to try to get me to uncover his puke! He's trying everything to get to it. Don't Ask fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 25, 2010 |
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Jul 25, 2010 16:17
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This is a fairly silly question: My cat, who I previously thought was black, is in fact a lovely mix of black and another color. This led me to think: Are all black cats like mine or are some "pure" black while other are mixed black? I can only see the other colors on my cat under very bright lights, and since I've never had the chance to see another black cat these lighting conditions, it seems reasonable to me that this type of coloration is actually very common. Note that under regular lighting conditions (say indoor lighting, or indirect sunlight) he seems just regular black. Here's a closeup picture taken with a flash to show the coloration I'm talking about :  And here's a belly shot, to show the coloration and also because he's adorable:  Those stripes make him absolutely gorgeous, but they're pretty hard to see under normal conditions. Oh, and one more thing: Lately he started peeing in the very front of his litter box, making it hard to scoop out the clump of litter since it's right under the entry flap (it's a closed box with a swinging flap in the front). Is there a way to encourage him to pee nearer to the back? He poops at the back, which makes it very easy to scoop, but I guess that it's the reason that he doesn't want to pee there?
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Aug 2, 2010 19:22
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I know this is probably a very stupid question, but I've always heard that sudden behavioral change is usually a bad thing. Is sudden change a warning sign even when the change is for the better? I adopted Charlie around a year ago from the SPCA, and it quickly became apparent that he was probably abused at his former home. He was extremely skittish, his tale was probably broken once, and sometimes he'd get so scared that he would defecate from fear (vets checked him out, no medical problems). Over the past year I managed to somewhat rehabilitate him, and he's slowly becoming a regular chill cat. However, 2 days ago he suddenly changed. He became a lot more playful, and where he would usually spend maybe 10 minutes at a time playing before getting tired of it and taking a nap, he now has the energy to keep playing for over an hour straight. He's become much more affectionate too, and has started demanding lap time, and when I place him in my lap he kneads and purrs for much longer than usual. I know this sounds silly, but this is really unlike him. I know that these "symptoms" sound great, but there are a couple of other things that I've noticed him doing since Thursday: He's twitching his tail more than usual, his ears are noticeably warm to the touch. Again, I'm sure that this will look like a really dumb question, but he's changed so suddenly that I just gotta make sure. He's around 2 years old, eats Royal Canin, he's eating drinking and eliminating normally, and there haven't been any changes to his environment. please dont laugh at me 
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Apr 16, 2011 19:41
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I'm considering adopting another cat, but I'm not so sure that it's the right thing to do right now. I got my first cat over a year ago, and most of that time I spent at home. I've recently started working again, and that means leaving my cat alone for 12+ hours each day. Problem is, I'm not so sure that adopting a new cat when I'm not able to spend more than 2-3 hours a night with it is a good idea. Another thing, I don't really have room for more than one litter box in my tiny apartment. I know the general rule is number of cats +1, but can it really be such a big problem? The third possible problem is that my cat free feeds, and I don't want to get another cat and have him stuff himself all day long on the cat food. So tell me PI, what do you advise me to do in this situation? In return, here's a picture of my Charlie. 
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Aug 10, 2011 19:48
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Looking for advice on how to handle adding a new cat/kitten to a household with a cat with special dietary needs. I've had Charlie for ~11 years and for most of that time he's been eating Hills Z/D for food allergies. When he was on regular cat food he would have a bad reaction to it - it was a fun time finding out what was causing him to throw up every single day, usually on the bed... We've decided that we want to adopt another cat and we're not sure how to go about the whole food business. Charlies' obviously costs more than regular cat food and we don't want to feed both cats the Z/D as it would be pointlessly expensive. Charlie doesn't have a scheduled feeding time, we just keep his bowl full and he nibbles throughout the day. How can we make sure that two cats won't eat each other's food? Any tips on how to keep 'em separated? For reference: 
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May 29, 2020 22:38
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Thanks for the replies, I guess we'll feed them both on Z/D, I'll just verify with the vet that it's OK for regular cats. Enjoy a picture of Charlie from today's photoshoot: 
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May 30, 2020 16:52
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So as a follow up to my questions from a few days ago - Today we went to an adoption event looking for a ~6 month old female and we came home with this little dude intead: Meet Louie!   He's incredibly cuddly and has been purring nonstop (except when he's asleep) nearly from the moment we let him out to explore the bathroom he's confined to for now. He was found around 10 days ago in a car engine and he's got some gunk on his toes; we cut off some of the matted bits that weren't near the skin but he's still got a lot left, mostly between his beans. We attacked it with some dishsoap but it's still there so we'll see if the vet has any ideas. We got him an old towel that our resident cat (Charlie) slept on, and tomorrow we'll switch and let Charlie get used to the scent. The plan is to introduce them slow and keep Charlie from stressing out. He's spent ~11 years as a lone cat and it'll probably take some time to get them to be BFFs.
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Jun 6, 2020 21:26
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He really is, he's super loving, had no problem using the litter box straight away, and initial indications are that it's fine to leave him food out and he'll just graze throughout the day. However, I have discovered that kittens are extremely pointy. I've got tons of little pinpricks just from having him kneading on my arms, and he has very quickly discovered that he can jump out from the floor to my knee. And if he misses? No problem, just need to dig his needle sharp claws into my skin for purchase... I've started getting him used to the idea that hands and feet aren't toys by either taking away my fingers until he calms a bit or by redirecting his energy to toys. I hope that'll work, I'm afraid to think what will happen if he gets to Charlies' ~7kg size (not fat, just yuuge) and still thinks that he can play with our bits.
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Jun 7, 2020 19:35
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Another question in the saga of (~11 year old house cat) Charlie and (new ~2.5 month old kitten) Louie - who is probably Louise since the vet thinks she's female: After keeping Louie in a closed and separate room, we've started letting her out during the day to explore most of the apartment and burn off some energy. While she was still separated we let her sleep on an old towel which we later moved to Charlie's usual spot, which he sniffed with interest and then proceeded to sleep on it. However, they aren't getting along at all. Louie shows friendly interest in Charlie, but whenever she gets too close he hisses and spits at her, sometimes even yowling/growling, and a couple of times when she got too close and surprised him he swatted at her. This has been going on for a couple of days. Initially Charlie didn't even want to walk around when he knew she was near, but now he's at least able to eat and drink with her in the room. He doesn't try to close the distance and attack her, and a few times he even slowly tried to get near her for a sniff before hissing. His body language isn't very indicative of aggression or fear: Ears are up and forward, whiskers are neutral, his fur and tail aren't puffed out, and he isn't cringing/crouching. He also has spaces and rooms he can retreat to without Louie being able to follow him, but he mostly stays in his regular perch all day. We try to ensure that they don't have any close encounters, and whenever she's near Charlie and he's acting calm we make sure to praise him and encourage him. We don't want them to imprint negatively on each other and we're considering moving Louie back to her separate room, but that will be hard on her since she's getting used to running around in the living room all day. Is this "normal" behavior? What can we do to help Charlie calm down and accept her? Enjoy beans: 
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Jun 15, 2020 23:02
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Our vets have told us that Frontline (and Advantage) aren't really effective anymore, fleas are mostly resistant to them nowadays. We also had a small flea infestation that we weren't able to resolve using Frontline. What did work was Bravecto and Revolution, and my vet also recommended Stronghold and Advocate. This is in Israel but I guess that Frontline is used globally with the same developed resistance. Teething question: Louie has developed double fangs, which is pretty cool, but when do the baby canines usually fall off? This is the same on both sides. 
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Aug 7, 2020 21:19
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I've mentioned Louie before in this thread, a cute female kitten that we adopted a few months ago. We have a huge problem with her - she is in heat and incredibly vocal about it. She's walking around the house yelling, trilling, and presents herself whenever me or the wife look at her. We're trying to distract her with face squishes (which somewhat work) and various toys, but it doesn't take for long. What can we do to keep her calm(ish) and us sane until she's back to normal? The reason we haven't spayed her yet is because our vets concur that she has a heart murmur and that it's too much of a risk to put her under for the procedure, at least until her heart is examined by a professional. However, there are basically only two pet cardiologists in the whole country that can examine her, and the earliest appointment we could book happens to be this Wednesday. It's a bit annoying that we missed it by that much, because the moment she gets the OK for the procedure she's fixed and we really hoped to get it before she went into heat. At least it's kinda amusing how much our (old, neutered) male cat simply doesn't care about any of this "reproduction" business. For reference:  e: poo poo this thread is ooooooooooooooold, I looked at my posts and found my questions (that I completely forgot posting) about adopting my older cat, from ten years ago! Old man belly: 
Don't Ask fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Nov 1, 2020 |
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Nov 1, 2020 23:27
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Don't Ask posted:Well, I am now the proud owner of one (1) black cat, male, called Charlie. Update: It's been 13 loving years since this post, and Charlie is now ~14 years old and still going strong. We also adopted Louie ~3 years ago, and most of the time Charlie lets her know he doesn't care for her by hissing and swatting like an rear end in a top hat. Sometimes, though, he forgets, and then this happens: 
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Jul 29, 2023 01:48
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chutwig posted:One of my cats has gotten newly pukey in the last couple weeks. He’s 2 now and I got him as a kitten; up to this point he hadn’t been a puker at all and had thrown up less than 5 times. A couple weeks ago he started throwing up digested food pretty regularly. He still seemed hungry though, like he’d beg for treats or eat and then throw it up a few minutes later. I took him to the vet when he started projectile vomiting because I was worried about an obstruction. Charlie started throwing up every day a few months after I got him, and eventually the vets determined that he has pretty bad food allergies. I switched him over to hypoallergenic dry foods which immensely reduced the frequency of his vomiting. The added expense sucks but at least it's high quality nutrition. Unfortunately the allergies slowly got worse during the years and we had to try a number of additional medications to try and mitigate them. Currently at age ~14 he's on ~15-30mg of oral corticosteroids every day or so which help, and otherwise he's healthy and happy.
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Jul 30, 2023 18:00
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