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Hiro Protagonist posted:My cat Reina has always been an indoor cat (as far as we know, she was a shelter), but since we moved to an apartment on the first floor she's been trying to go outside. Whenever she does go out, she only goes to one spot below one of our windows, and lies there as long as the sun is on her, then jumps back inside. She'll also jump back inside if she sees a dog or cat. Is it okay to let her out for about an hour to sun there if I sit there watching her? Any other advice?
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# ¿ Aug 11, 2018 15:25 |
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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 22:26 |
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Joburg posted:I have Litter Robots and they are great. If you look at their website you can find a refurbished model for cheaper than new, they are still expensive though.
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# ¿ Sep 21, 2018 14:47 |
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Sefal posted:They are still kittens so it seems like they can't use the litter robot until they are older.
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# ¿ Sep 21, 2018 15:13 |
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Itchy posted:Are there any self-cleaning litter boxes that are actually worth buying? Ms Adequate posted:Anyone got ideas for keeping Fred calm at night? He has Hieronymous to play with, and they play pretty much daily, we play with him too, but every night he goes nuts chasing the other cats, making a huge racket, and so on. My mom will never shut their bedroom door so he usually gets dumped in my room awhile a I am nocturnal, and sometimes he's chill, but he loves going ballistic. We've tried waking him in the day so he's tired at night and stuff, but he has literally infinite energy.
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# ¿ Sep 28, 2018 14:50 |
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From Scout's perspective she's discovered a guaranteed way to make her human pay attention to her and pet her. Her actions are perfectly logical to her.
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# ¿ Oct 21, 2018 14:41 |
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Rescue Toaster posted:My wife is considering fostering kittens that need bottle feeding (we have two cats right now) because she's around enough to do it. Is there extra vaccinations or anything we should consider for our cats (normally just rabies and distemper)? I'm paranoid about this stuff because I'm immunocompromised, so I guess I'd have to worry about toxoplasmosis? I don't want to end up on Daraprim (considering what it costs these days). If your wife keeps the fosters completely separated and you don't mix litter, food or water, and she washes her hands before touching the family cats then it should be fine.
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# ¿ Oct 25, 2018 13:30 |
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I recently took in another cat (from a co-worker, it's a long story) and while the social dynamic has more or less settled down*, there's a weird "only happens with cats, huh" thing going on where the newbie will refuse to go into the kitchen. That might not be a problem, except I keep my automated litterbox in a half-bath that you have to pass through the kitchen to get to. My extant cats love the kitchen and will sprawl out on the floor whenever I'm there; the newbie will not cross the threshold over from the dining room no matter what, staring in with the same gaze a condemned man gives the gallows. So now I have to keep a secondary litter box in the dining room. It works, for now, but it's less than ideal. I'm curious if anyone's had a problem like that before and what they did, if anything, to resolve it. He's fine in any other room and he's been pretty keen on exploring the house otherwise. I don't think it's the surface either since he had to stand on the same faux-stone tile to use my flowerpot as a makeshift bathroom before I set out his personal litter box. I even have some Feliway plugged in at the outlet closest to the kitchen, it's right where the food/water bowl are (and which he is happy to use). It's the oddest thing, and I'd like to somehow acclimate him to the full run of the home. *"more or less" because I have a big tom and smaller dam, the former of which is literally twice her size and almost always gets the better of her in play fighting. She displaces her annoyance at losing by walking up to the newbie and swatting and hissing at him, who is smaller than her. Cats!
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# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 17:58 |
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FuzzySlippers posted:Anyone have a litter robot? It looks kinda absurd but it seems the best reviewed of the self cleaning litterboxes. We've had a cat genie for 3 or 4 years and we've been very happy with it (as has the cat who gets an ultra clean box all the time) but now we need to add another box some place where a cat genie can't go. One problem though is that not all cats will use it. I have a pair of cats that took to it, then adopted a third who will sniff it with distaste then go do his business in a litter box dedicated to him.
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# ¿ Nov 22, 2018 18:09 |
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Each cat is unique in that they'll hate in their own way whatever you buy, especially if it was highly recommended.
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# ¿ Jan 3, 2019 23:09 |
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It's already executed in the most perfect material for the target user: cardboard.
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# ¿ Jan 23, 2019 22:31 |
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I can't imagine what kind of mechanical action is required to make that sort of sound with a soft substance like a cooked pea; that almost sounds like something is not right with her chewing motion. But that usually causes cats to have other symptoms like drooling or avoidance of food, which is expressly not happening. If she's otherwise normal maybe it's just cat being cat, and you can ask your vet on her next scheduled physical. If she starts avoiding food then you take her to the vet asap, but for now
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# ¿ Jan 28, 2019 00:10 |
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I've got the weird converse, my kittens weren't very talkative to begin with so they grew up not doing a lot of talking (they have the cutest, tiniest little meows though). When I picked up a third cat, who could be super vocal with a set of lungs like a jet engine, the other cats didn't seem impressed. He's largely given up on meowing like he's being murdered and has settled into quietly being an rear end in a top hat to the other assholes.
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# ¿ Jan 31, 2019 01:33 |
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Cats love carpet, to lie on and to scratch, so upholstering it would be a great idea. Though my dumb rear end cats often ignore their cat condos and lie on the cold hardwood floors.
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# ¿ Feb 8, 2019 03:40 |
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You have to be super stringent about cleaning the litterbox. It's doable but it has to be big enough to accommodate the droppings of both cats between daily (and probably twice daily) cleanings. And some cats can flat out decline to eliminate in the same box as another cat. Most cats will probably be fine, but...you know. Cats.
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# ¿ Feb 9, 2019 14:59 |
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Katt posted:It sounds like she's chewing on an ice cube or something. It's also kind of random. Sometimes she does it and sometimes not. My advice from last time still stands, but perhaps for your own peace of mind you may want a vet to take a look. If it's nothing, then you have a professional opinion. If it is something then he or she will be in a position to effect aid.
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# ¿ Feb 9, 2019 19:39 |
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The general consensus says "no claws, no blood, no problem." There's a spectrum between a permanently merged kitten pile and blood feud that can only result in death. As long as no one's limping away from the altercation, obviously hurt, this is the cat equivalent of two roommates having an argument over someone eating that last slice of pizza that was totally reserved. If there's a fight where you see the claws come out, break it up at that point but a little wrassling is how they settle disputes, and better they do it in a non lethal manner before it escalates.
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# ¿ Apr 22, 2019 16:24 |
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Is a kitten, working as intended (unfortunately). Given another year he should calm down, but unless you have yet another kitten to play with him there's likely no foolproof method of distracting him for hours at a time. Kittenhood is, for better or worse, a temporary condition though. He'll grow out of it eventually. Hopefully. In the meantime give the old dame a space, if possible, that only she can access and that should give her some measure of peace.
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# ¿ Apr 22, 2019 20:23 |
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All the automated systems have their flaws. The cat genie is highly restricted to where it can be placed, and it also has a long cleaning cycle, which lead to my cat deciding to poop on the floor mat in front of the litter box instead of waiting. When it works, it's almost totally maintenance free. The litter robot tends to "heap" the litter in its waste tray causing it to not cycle unless you empty it or pull it out to settle the used litter below its sensor. But it cleans in only a few minutes which is super useful when you have multiple cats and they're literally queuing up to poop, and it only needs a place to plug into power. Either one is much preferable to hand sifting. gently caress that.
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# ¿ Apr 25, 2019 16:28 |
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Infinitum posted:TIL about the Lykoi breed aka Werewolf Cats
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# ¿ Jul 20, 2019 17:53 |
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Robot Mil posted:He seemed to really miss us when we were on vacation recently though so who knows, he might like company *shrug*
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# ¿ Jul 27, 2019 16:19 |
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I had my pair spayed at 6 months and good thing because the male was getting horny and was trying to mount his sister whenever he had the chance. He's a chunky 17 pound cat that is bigger than any other cat I've ever had; she's a healthy 12 lb adult.
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# ¿ Aug 14, 2019 13:49 |
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Did your vet check his teeth? With those symptoms I'd almost suspect a toothache.
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# ¿ Dec 30, 2019 03:43 |
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Two of my cats can be free fed and they'll have a healthy weight. The one rear end in a top hat who ruins this platonic setup cannot be trusted and I was told in no uncertain terms he needed to lose weight. So now they ALL get fed at set times and try to tag team me in the morning to rustle me out of bed to be fed. I figure I have a few more months of trying to ignore them before they give up or I splash a pile of cash for an automated feeder.
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# ¿ Jan 4, 2020 01:37 |
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My idiots have trapped themselves in one of the spare bedrooms and tore up the carpet in a desperate attempt to escape. That's not punishable; they're animals who were in a bad situation they don't understand. So the result is going to be strictly a human behavioral change; I just leave that door closed and accept that if the cats get in to that room to make sure they're not there when I leave.
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# ¿ Feb 8, 2020 01:49 |
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Many years ago a roommate had his childhood cat brought to him who loved me and my closet. One day he indeed locked himself in and pooped on my clothing while resigning himself to death.
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# ¿ Feb 8, 2020 02:41 |
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If you're concerned about him being abused by your neighbor, take him inside. He's clearly tame and you're already like 80% of the way to adopting him.
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# ¿ Feb 8, 2020 22:45 |
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Womyn Capote posted:Sorry if this has been covered but I am planning on adopting 2 kittens this summer and have been looking into the litter robot. I'm not worried about the money but if keeping the thing clean is still more than its worth. Any advice on it? 1. The Litter Robot requires a certain weight to trigger. Your kittens may not hit that weight until they're a year old. 2. It's really tall. I brought the deluxe kit because it has a set of stairs but even those might be too high for them to use. There's also the fact that if they're super young then you don't want them near any clumping clay based litter (as is recommended with the Litter Robot) because kittens, being assholes, will ingest it and then it's a life threatening emergency when it clumps up inside their tiny delicate stomachs. Also depending on how skittish your kittens are, the sound and motion of the Robot cleaning might be scary to them and would cause, uh, issues with eliminating in the right place. I had a pair of siblings who took to it when I brought it at the one-year mark, but my third who was adopted as an adult had a real hard time adjusting and found wonderful new places to poop in lieu of going to the Litter Robot (he eventually got over it). If they're a year or older then go for it. Otherwise I'd stick with a kitten-sized litter box to avoid babby related complications. I'd probably also not have it there to start with because adjusting to a new home is hard enough as it is for most cats, a new noisy litter box might be a bit too much.
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# ¿ Feb 19, 2020 01:11 |
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If it's soaked through that floor section is hosed, plain and simple.
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# ¿ Feb 19, 2020 16:58 |
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Spikes32 posted:Is one litter robot enough for three cats?? I've not gotten one because I assumed I would need to get multiple.
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# ¿ Feb 19, 2020 21:02 |
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I need a sanity check. I have three cats. Two are healthy weights, while the third is a fatass. That means he is not to be trusted with free-feeding and in fact I probably can't really just give them bowls of food for measured feedings since he may well steal the food when I'm not looking (and he assuredly will finish leftovers from the other two). They are, being cats, very persnickety about being fed on time and on the dot now that they've stopped being free-fed. Instead of a quiet morning of whenever I wake up that day they start clawing me/the door/the bed at 6:30 to get fed and I've had to kick them out of the bedroom entirely at night so they don't wake me at 4AM in anticipation of waking me up at 6AM for their 8AM feeding. I'm trying to figure out how to do a timed feeder that won't: 1. overfeed lardass; 2. actually feed all the cats so they stop bothering me; 3. not cost a thousand dollars in equipment. I suspect I'm going to have to get one automatic feeder for lardass that dispenses his portions at set times, and then another feeder for the other two that can be tied to their chips which can be just a pile of kibble. It's expensive and I'd rather not head this route but I'm kind of desperate to make them stop clawing my carpet or meowing piteously at 4AM. I'll be happy if someone can tell me if there's a cheaper alternative or if this plan is doomed to failure before I throw down a ton of cash at chewy.com.
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# ¿ Feb 25, 2020 02:23 |
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Tubby is 19 pounds of hyper athleticism. He keeps climbing to the top of the fridge in search of that secret stash of food he's sure I have hidden up there. (Narrator: there is no food up there, but Tubby is sure one day he'll discover it.) If I have to restrict access it's gotta be a hard barrier since he is energetic enough to bulldoze his way to get to it, whatever that may be. The tub is intriguing but I dunno if I can get it so it actually stops him. But for $5 it's unreasonable to not try.
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# ¿ Feb 25, 2020 02:48 |
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Boris Galerkin posted:I have an update on “my” ginger cat: This is assuming you know it's a stray and no one else has a claim on her, and can keep a cat in the apartment.
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# ¿ Mar 15, 2020 22:54 |
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Yes.
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# ¿ Mar 21, 2020 05:23 |
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Introductions are easier when you have the space to do it. If you're going to a "much smaller space" it'd be better to if at all possible to get your bonded pair now because any introductions may not be safe or conducive if you don't have the ability to separate the newcomer from your extant cat. I know you said it's really not possible but if you have your heart set on two cats then I would highly, highly recommend making the jump now so you know you have two cats who like each other as opposed to trying to get one cat who's already a little distressed by moving and further disrupting their life with a new roommate. If you're moving from a McMansion into a 1000 sq ft condo, then you can disregard, but if your next space is a NYC studio the size of a matchbook, then you'll have to consider that two cats not already acquainted will be tricky to integrate in a small space.
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# ¿ Mar 22, 2020 16:02 |
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This is salvageable. How big is your home? Can you keep both cats in two different portions of the home for a bit and still feed them/litterbox/play with them on their own? Keep Molly where she is, but close the door. (She likely is a little scared from her big move anyway. Smaller spaces are more comforting to cats at least while they're adjusting.) Giver her own litterbox. Take Ruthie and stick her in another portion of the home away from Molly. Give her the same stuff. Follow the guide in the OP for letting two cats meet. If you have the space you can take as long as you want, and eventually the cats will get used to the scent of another cat. It sounds like you'll need to give it the extended acclimation process; feed them both at the same closed door, let them sniff at clothing/blankets/towels they sleep on so that the other's scent stops being unfamiliar. Then let them interact for small amounts of time through a transparent barrier, then supervised meetings that you can easily separate them. (Etc., it's in the OP.) Molly needs time to adjust to you. Eventually she'll stop being scared. Ruthie needs to learn to stay indoors, and to accept the presence of Molly. All this will require time and space and patience. I started with a pair of kittens from an abandoned litter, on a whim took in a co-worker's cat and it was kind of a steep learning curve for all involved. Thankfully I had the space to be able to give the co-worker's cat a room to himself while the pair became acclimated to him. One sibling doesn't like him still, nearly two years since they've been moved in, but thems the breaks. But cats this young can and will learn to adjust. Don't panic, play with Ruthie as you do, and let Molly come to you as she feels bolder. Just do it separately for a while.
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# ¿ Mar 23, 2020 13:19 |
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If you can shut the door to the bedroom and close it from the rest of the home, that should be fine. You'll have to live with a litterbox in your bedroom for a bit. Give Ruthie the living room, put the cat food at the bedroom door and let Ruthie acclimate to a new cat. Bonus: as Molly is forced to be with you in close proximity for longer, she should be more outgoing in time. My friend's cat is super super skittish, hates strangers but eventually warmed up to me simply by habit. Likely that'll happen to Molly once she starts becoming comfortable. If you can't do that, then you can jury-rig baby gates to sequester Ruthie. You may need to stack two of them on top of the other, but ideally this again is temporary. If you really really really can't handle both cats, then whom you keep is your decision, and the other should go to a no kill shelter. Sometimes life doesn't work out the way we had planned, but you effectively have had a cat and it's unfair to you to be held to a spur-of-the-moment thing without recourse.
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# ¿ Mar 23, 2020 13:39 |
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The absolutely best thing to do with a cat like Molly is to keep her world small and let her get more comfortable with that space. Let her make it her own and as she graduates to being familiar with you and her new home then you can expand her universe. It's fine, she's a cat and the most important thing is to make her feel secure, which they do by hiding in the tiniest space they can fit into until they think it's okay. My skittish new boy spent the first four days under the bed before I could coax him into a spare bedroom and he spent like another week getting used to that space. He started playing with the other cats under the door on day eight and finally got okay with going downstairs after nearly two weeks. It's not anything you're doing, it's the nature of cats. As I've advocated, keep them separated. Let Ruthie figure out there's a cat she's gonna have to tolerate in her own time while Molly isn't scared of her own shadow.
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# ¿ Mar 23, 2020 16:05 |
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Cats need to approach you. She'll get used to you, you can't rush it or take it personally. It might be easier when she's in her current state to absolutely ignore her as much as possible, because for a mesopredator who is preyed upon as much as it preys on smaller creatures, attention she doesn't seek is bad. Her instincts is to not trust until she feels secure. Let her initiate contact and leave her to her own devices and it'll be fine, I promise you.
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# ¿ Mar 23, 2020 17:57 |
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I've had to throw away so many bathmats over the years, there's something about it that makes it super attractive to cats.
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2020 22:43 |
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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 22:26 |
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Myok posted:My local vet is still doing call-to-drop-off service, which is fortunate because he discovered my 14-year-old cat Shosta has a missing back tooth. Where it used to be is a hole going "all the way up to his eye". The poor cat had been drooling and losing weight but since this was way in the back we didn't catch it at first; we had to explore under sedation after eliminating other "old cat losing weight" possibilities. The vet cleaned it out as best he could including using a laser, but said the angle meant he couldn't reach all the way to the back.
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# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 19:42 |