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kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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?
I'd imagine the advice will depend a lot on where you are. Is this a suburban area? Rural? City? Does your building front a lot of vehicular traffic? I'd argue "no" because the outdoors is simply more hazardous, but if you're in a suburban area with little traffic and pretty much no one outside because they are no sidewalks then that's relatively safe and cats aren't exactly helpless against many animals. On the other hand, this assumes her continued good behavior and if there's anything we learn about cats, it's that they follow a routine until they decide they don't. If she wants to go explore because something piqued her interest that one time, do you think you can stop her from disappearing into the bush from where you are inside? What's the plan if she's not a good girl?

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kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.
Litter Robot is great and it's an enormous QOL improvement to only have to worry about emptying a bag of litter once a week. I've also had a Cat Genie, which is almost entirely thought free since it self-flushes and stuff, but that requires a water and drain hookup. That's a lot trickier to install and my current home wasn't amenable to putting it in a place that was acceptable to me and to the cats. But it's cheaper (initially), and it's odor free since it literally flushes away.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Sefal posted:

They are still kittens so it seems like they can't use the litter robot until they are older.
You can but you'd have to run it manually once a day since it won't trigger the weight requirements. I'd put it off until at least they're old enough to get desexed if only because I'd be uncomfortable with a teeny little thing trying to climb into the litterbox; my cats were 10 months old when I got the Litter Robot and they've been perfectly fine.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

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Itchy posted:

Are there any self-cleaning litter boxes that are actually worth buying?
I have the Litter Robot and while it's pricey (and bulky!) it does the job very nicely. My litter involvement these days is making sure the litter is topped off and pulling the bag from the drawer and replacing it with an empty one when it's filled, once every five days because I have two cats. The cats like it too since it cleans the box almost immediately after they use it so they don't have to wait for my lazy rear end to come home and do it.

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.
How old is he? If he's young, he'll likely age out of it. If you're playing a lot already and he's an adult, then sorry, you've got a crepuscular/nocturnal animal and your diurnal nature is of little matter to him.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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).
The foster thread might have a better answer but I suspect that the diseases you want to be on guard for don't have vaccinations and the shelter should be screening for FIV and the like. FeLV has a vaccine but it's not perfectly efficacious and your cats may already have been exposed but survived.

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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! :shrug:

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.
Having had both, I prefer the Litter Robot, but it does mean you actually have to pay attention to when the waste drawer is full. It's big, bulky, expensive, but unlike the Cat Genie it can actually go into most homes since you don't have to dedicate a laundry room or bathroom to it.

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Each cat is unique in that they'll hate in their own way whatever you buy, especially if it was highly recommended.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

It's already executed in the most perfect material for the target user: cardboard.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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 :shrug:

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.
If you're worried, you may want to open her mouth and do an oral examination yourself. (Cat owners should in theory be doing this regularly for the cat's oral health, but like oil changes every 6 months this is usually a theoretical dream.) This will probably mean cat burrito and forcing her mouth open to see any obvious anomalies, loose teeth, etc. Like, I can't imagine her acting that way in the video if she was truly in distress, because it's entirely too normal.

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

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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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Infinitum posted:

TIL about the Lykoi breed aka Werewolf Cats

https://i.imgur.com/2pbYBzB.mp4
Why would you cross a cat with a black rat???

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Robot Mil posted:

He seemed to really miss us when we were on vacation recently though so who knows, he might like company *shrug*
You know how the best simulation of a cat is just a cat? It's probable he misses you specifically and there's no substitute for the affection his humans can give. He'll likely view another cat as an encroacher on the resource he wants, your attention.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Did your vet check his teeth? With those symptoms I'd almost suspect a toothache.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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?
I have a Litter Robot for my three furry jerks and it's great. I haven't scooped litter in two years now. If your kittens are small there are a couple of caveats though:

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

If it's soaked through that floor section is hosed, plain and simple.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Spikes32 posted:

Is one litter robot enough for three cats?? I've not gotten one because I assumed I would need to get multiple.
The Litter Robot people would say buy more (of course!) but because the box shifts in a few minutes after the cats do their business, there should in theory be a clean litter box 98% of the time. Of course all cats are different, so some cats will not tolerate any shared boxes, or they must have it squeaky clean pristine or whatever, in which case you'll need alternate boxes. But in my experience all three cats co-exist just fine with the one LR. My fatass male will go, his sister still immediately jump in because they've shared bathroom time since they were kittens. The third will watch, wait till the box cycles, then take his dump. No accidents since they got acclimated.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Boris Galerkin posted:

I have an update on “my” ginger cat:



She shows up about once a day and waits at my door until I let her in to eat. After she eats we play with a feathered wand. I’ve been trying to get her exhausted from the wand so that she falls asleep inside, hoping that she’ll realize it’s so much better than wherever it is she sleeps now.

I’m hoping she’ll start showing up more often (right now about once a day, seemingly for food) and spend more time inside, especially more time waking up indoors. Eventually I’d like to take her to the vet to get checked out.
Have you considered just closing the door behind her when she comes in and calling it a day? Cats can easily adapt to being full-time indoors if you have the necessities and enough toys/furniture to distract them.

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Yes.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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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kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

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.

Shosta's going to be on antibiotics for another week and cat narcotics for a couple days to help with the pain. He can only chew dry food on one side of his mouth until the abscess drains and heals so I'm planning to give him wet food for the duration.

Mouth pain is awful and I feel bad he's been suffering for a month or more. He's my first cat; I got him based on advice from this forum back in 2006.

Is there anything else I can do for him?


I'm sorry to hear that, but I suspect there's not much further that can be done. Cats are very good at hiding pain and discomfort and it is fortunate you were able to catch it at all given how far back in the mouth it was. The soft foods is a good idea, you may need to give him more than you may think because solid food is usually much more calorie dense. Besides that just continue what you're doing.

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