Cat Chat Feline Forum

Thanks for posting this, but really sorry to hear about your experiences with your neighbour. They might be willing to change them to the type Catotum recommended, but otherwise cat-proofing the boundary from your side may be a better option. If your neighbour's are really against your cats going in...

What a lovely story. Well done for recognising what your cat needed, and being willing to provide it. I've had cats at varying levels of fear and trauma, and each one has their own story and challenge, but lying down on the floor with them is always a good start for an anxious cat, and has shown you...

You're right to be worried about the toxins in insecticides, both for cats and children. But boiling water should do the job. Pour it over the nest site, and do as often as necessary until you've got all the wanderers returning to the nest.

I'm wondering if you scraped off the licked area and served it up anyway!

Well done finding ways to engage with your puss. We had a blind cat for a while (didn't realise until we got him home from the rescue centre) so we had to make quite a few simple adaptations to make his life easier and more fun. One of our current pusses is completely useless at hunting and not much...

I'm afraid I have no insight into this except to say "Get her back to the vet asap!" This looks very nasty, and the existing treament clearly isn't working if you have seen no improvement after 7 days, and it's in fact getting worse. This needs further testing and alternative treatment. You refer to...

Thanks for the heads up. It's a bit worrying that your vet was so glib about the readily accepted reliability of quality foods. But is does reinforce the importance of speaking to your vet when trying to fit diet to multiple health issues, when some treatments/diets may be bad for other conditions, ...

I understand your pain completely. Most of my cats over the years have had a go at the carpets to varying degrees, but Toby takes it to a whole new level and we've had to resign ourselves to fluffy carpets. He does it when he's excited, when he wants attention, when he's hungry, when he can’t open a...

I can completely relate to what you describe, we went through exactly the same when we brought Toby home, and Elsie decided to show him who was boss and teach him the house rules.in our case our normally sweet and gentle Elsie was actually attacking tiny friendly little Toby, so we were bewildered. ...

I’m sorry to hear that it may be bad news. I can understand why you’re so upset, but your puss won’t be feeling the same stress, they are much more fatalistic about life, so it’s good to hear that he’s calm. Sadly sometimes we can only do for them what our circumstances allow at the time, life is me...

I'd suggest a vet visit to be on the safe side, but otherwise it does sound behavioural. Cats can be very odd about trays. Try moving one of the trays to a different area to give her a bit of privacy. Our Elsie, who is a timid cat, always prefers to come in from the garden and use her covered trays,...

It really is a lottery. We had a big lad Sam, then Elsie, who got on pretty well, and when Sam moved on to another home, we got Ziggy about 5 months later, and they also got on fine from day one. Sadly Ziggy died very young, and we got Toby, who showed every sign in the rescue centre of being a perf...

I agree with Mollycat. If he has lived with you in a flat since a small kitten, he isn't socialised with other cats and probably finds them very threatening and also hasn't learnt any manners in how to interact with them. If he's unneutered, he will be ten times worse, so get him fixed!! My Toby was...

I agree, the sudden bed peeing and inability to groom is a sufficient warning signal to bite the bullet and brave the stressful vet visit. With cats, very often the sooner conditions are diagnosed the easier (and cheaper!) they are to fix before they get much worse. I would certainly be carting mine...

Good advice from exlibris. I'd also suggest you look at what flea treatment you used, some of the cheaper ones (eg Bob Martin) can cause skin problems. The vet prescribed ones are more expensive, but it works out cheaper if it doesn't result in skin conditions and the cost of vet visits to sort it o...

Has the vet ruled out throat infections? It would probably be helpful to try a course of antibiotics as a first line of attack, but then your vet may already have tried this. I think all you can do is follow your vet's advice, but I hope someone else on here will have had experience of this and can ...

I'm so sorry to hear about this diagnosis, especially in such a young cat. I can only suggest you talk through with your vet whether there's anything you can do with his diet to firm up his stools, but if his gut is compromised by the tumour, that may not be possible. If he's lost his appetite as we...

I suspect she is thoroughly confused if you are still letting her out and, to her mind, making her use a tray when she has a perfectly good toilet outside. This is the equivalent to locking the door to the loo and she can't probably understand why she's expected to cross her legs until you finally o...

We have awful harvest mites every year, I counted the bites on my own body and gave up at 70! But they do only hang around for about 6 weeks from the beginning of August, so yes, they should have gone by now. Some cats (and people) are more affected than others (they left my husband alone!). My two ...

Of 8 cats I’ve adopted from shelters over the years, somewhat shockingly I have only ever been home checked once. The others didn’t ask me anything about my experience, circumstances, type of cat I was looking for, local area, cat flaps, etc etc. In one case I took two long stay hard to home cats, s...

Glad to hear it came back up again. Best keep an eye out for stray bits of stringy stuff if he’s fond of eating it, or it could get expensive at the vet’s!

I agree, it’s really very early days. That’s quite a trauma to recover from, and I don’t care what people say, they do respond to such events at an emotional level. Give her lots of gentle love and reassurance to help her get through the adjustment and recovery phase. It is surprising that the vet l...

I’m pleased to hear his eye is improving. If he keeps doing this, I’m wondering whether his sight might not be too great to start with. My blind laddie Mitz kept injuring his eyes as he didn’t have a blink or swerve response if something was about to poke him in the eye, and he also ended up with bl...

Sorry for short reply, it’s late and I should be in bed(!) but it's very early days at the moment, you can’t force these things. Keep giving the resident cats lots of love and reassurance, but allow them their space to retreat to. You might want to try using a dog crate to put your newbie into for s...

If it’s only hissing rather than full on fighting, I would be inclined to let them sort it out between them. Give both somewhere to retreat to when they’ve had enough, be prepared to step in if things are getting a bit OTT, and just try to calm things down a bit. I tend to view hissing as a warning ...

So sorry to hear of the problems you’re having with Max’s eye, it sounds miserable. All I can suggest is that you continue with the vets treatments, it has healed up before, so it may do again. The silly boy just keeps re-injuring it. I've been through something similar with two of mine, but in our ...

The food you’re giving her is very rich. Have you tried something more bland, like boiled chicken or steamed white fish? Probably less fattening too. Also good quality dried foods, eg Royal. Canin for sensitive tums.

It’s hard to know whether the cleaning products are part of the problem, or indeed your own hormones, but my guess is that they may not be coping with your toddler being mobile around the house. When she was less mobile, the cats still had the rest of the house as their safe territory, but now they ...

I had this problem recently. Elsie is about 5 yrs old and has always been very friendly, even submissive, with previous male cats. When little Zig died very suddenly, we waited a few months then got Toby, who was about a year old, and also very sweet natured and very cat friendly. She went nuts! if ...

Hi Chloé, sorry you’ve not had any replies to your post, which suggests this isn’t a problem many of us have experienced. It must be distressing to watch, and you’re right to take him to the vet. I hope they can get to the bottom of this for you. Let us know how you get on.