Cat whispering

[Twinky]

Slow learners, cats, I think, Keith. Slow trusters, certainly.

My girlies have been with me since they were about 15 months old and were born at the Cats Protection League. Their mother was fierce and attacked the carer regularly, hence the girlies were not fondled as very young kittens - has to be done within the first few weeks of life, when they learn that it's okay. When I got them, it was three weeks before I had a glimpse of Tuxedo, and three MONTHS before I saw Crypto, and that's with them living in my small kitchen! They are still very wary of anyone who isn't me and hide - most people don't realise I have cats at all.

I long for the day mine behave like your BJ. He sounds cute.

[Twinky]

I now have two black and white cats.

Crypto (the all-black one) has has an encounter with a can of white emulsion paint. It seems to have been knocked over and has spilled on the floor. She walked through it, and then squeezed her belly through/along the floor where the paint had been spilled. As far as I can tell, she has paint on both flanks, undoubtedly on her belly, and thickly on her front pads and on both front legs from the shoulders down.

Her head, face, and back appear unaffected by paint.

Top of tail still looks black. Can't see the underside. Don't know what the back legs are like, either.

I was alerted by her retching under the dining table. I thought she'd been grazing on my lawn, not uncommon. Went to chase her to be sick outside but she ran off up the stairs. She has now run over all of my carpets including two flights of stairs, over the coconut matting, over my nice couch and other furniture, and other places besides. I know this because there are white pawprints everywhere.

This is the cat that I cannot catch or pick up. She lets me stroke her a little, a very little, nowadays, but she won't be picked up. The thought of trying to catch her and clean her up is immensely problematical; my plan had been to catch her and take her to the vet to be sedated and then washed.

I am very worried about this. The people at the vet's have been nice and assure me that she may feel ill as she tries to clean herself but emulsion paint is not poisonous and there should be no long-term effects on internal organs (like liver damage, or mouth or throat injury).

At the moment she has fled to the garden and is hiding under a bush, from where she peers out at me very suspiciously. She doesn't look happy.

I stand no chance of catching the cat. Better go and see if anything, anything at all, can be done for the carpets and furniture. I wonder if my house insurance company would consider buying me some new ones?

Please pray that my pusska really is well and suffers no long-term ill-effects.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Twinky

[Twinky]

Well. My newly black-and-white cat is now nearly a black cat again. She has done an amazing job of chewing off all the white paint. It was thickly on her front legs and less thick on other parts, and she has chewed and torn nearly all of it off. Her front legs are nearly bald on the insides, from elbow to toes. Her belly - well, she tugs at bits of it for a while then leaves it and goes back to it later - I guess it gets tender. It looks like dreadlocks hanging off her tum. Her left flank is now clear of paint and the right side mostly clear. My carpets have been covered in fragments of paint-hardened hair from where she's pulled it off and spat it out.

She does not seem to have been affected by her unusual diet - perhaps she didn't lick as much off as I'd feared. She was still eating her kibble the night it happened, and begging for her treat (fragments of ham) at treat-time at 11pm. She hasn't been sick, and doesn't seem at all bothered in any way.

So, if you prayed for her, thanks, and it's a great result.

I still wouldn't recommend emulsion paint as cat food, though. :wacko:/>

[Allan]

glad to hear Hazel !! Our cat is a Bengal, he is huge, watched him the other night send a fox away with it's tail between it's legs lol

[Twinky]

That's a big cat, Allan, a Bengal male. Must be about as big as the fox. Must have given "Reynard" a fright :o/>

[Twinky]

Long time since I posted on this thread.  An update.

My cats are now, what, 15 years old, and coming up to their Halloween birthday.

In that time, the black and white one, Tuxedo, has become a real cuddle bunny.  She loves to be picked up and petted, sits happily unrestrained on my lap, and enjoys lying with me on the sofa.  She purrs loudly and happily at this.  But, the silly creature, she knows what she wants, so comes up to me and miaows.  However, when I stoop to pick her up - she turns around and runs away!  Sometimes I can catch her by the tail, sometimes I have to chase her round the house, but once caught, she loves to snuggle.  She won't ever get herself onto my lap, but she will jump up onto the couch beside me, sometimes.

On a frequent basis, I threaten her with swimming lessons in the water butt with a rock tied round her neck.  She is sick almost every day, sometimes just the kibble, sometimes it's more digested.  It's an endless round of: I clean the carpet, go to bed or out for the day, get up or come home, find the sick, clean the carpet...  I have had her to the vet several times as this problem has got worse in the last couple of years, she's had various blood tests, everything is in order.  The vet says a scan or X-rays might show a problem, but if there is something, operating on an older cat has its own risks.  Even though she is a very healthy-looking cat, she's still at increased risk under anaesthesia.  Vet thinks it might be IBS.  Tuxedo is a notoriously anxious cat and perhaps she makes herself sick with worry when she's not with me, but I can't take her up to bed with me or give her the run of the house, I'd be finding piles of sick everywhere.

 

Crypto, her littermate, is in some ways a more social cat.  She is "Miss Wary" to the other's "Miss Anxious."  Crypto will now come to me and want a stroking session.  This is achieved by me sitting on a chair and she passes herself under my dangling hand.  She likes a scratch on the neck and along her body to the tail - but don't touch her flanks!!  I can comb her like this, and she appears to enjoy it, if she's allowed to inspect the comb or brush beforehand.  I have picked her up maybe half a dozen times, and only with great caution.  It's a good job she's a healthy cat.  I suppose I will know to take her to the vet when I can catch her without difficulty or danger.

At present, it's been raining lightly.  Despite having fresh water (tap or rain) in the house, and another bowl of rainwater outside, and there being rainwater on certain other easily accessed surfaces, she prefers to jump onto my wooden patio table and lick the rainwater from that.

 

This has been - what - 14? 15? years careful effort.  And I still don't have the cuddlesome critters I wanted or am used to with every other cat I've known.  I don't suppose there's going to be more improvement but live hopefully that one day they'll realise that I just want to be nice to them.

[Twinky]

It makes me think of how many people reject God's blessings.  God provides for all of us, and just wants a close loving relationship with him.  Yet time after time, we reject that love or are fearful of it.  We don't have to do anything, just accept it.  Some of us do accept: hesitantly.  Some manage to accept wholeheartedly.  And some remain mired in fear and cannot understand or accept that which is freely given.  Whatever our start in life, whether good or bad, we can leave that behind for something better that will see us through to the end of our lives.

(And no threats of swimming lessons in water butts, either  )

[Twinky]

Oh, and one more thing about these silly souls.

My mum and her little cat Dinah came to stay with me for a couple of months during lockdown, in the summer, end May to end July.  My two don't like anybody else being there so avoid Mum.  But her cat as well!! Horror!

Dinah is at least 20 years old, less than 2kg in weight, has no teeth, and is as playful and lively as a kitten.  She's a highly social cat.  My two: Tuxedo was a 4.6kg cat, anxious and Crypto is about 3-3.5kg, at a guess, never been weighed.  A couple of years ago, Dinah came to stay for Christmas and Tuxy went for her in the house, growling and being intimidatory - Dinah had this surprised "what did I do?" look on her face.  

But this summer, Mum and Dinah moved in, and my cats moved out. They went to live on the lawn, in the flowerbeds, under the shrubs, or on or under the wheelbarrow, which was filled with homemade compost that needed digging in.  They came in to eat, at night and morning, when Dinah was safely in Mum's bedroom.  A truce seemed to take place between Crypto (Miss Wary) and Dinah, but Tuxy had always got an anxious eye on the little creature half her size.  Dinah didn't care at all, she just loved sitting out on the bench or table and being with people.  If nobody was outside, she'd wander off into the backstreet behind my house and waylay the few passers-by.

 

Mum and Dinah have been gone a while, but it's only now that the weather is getting colder and quite wet that my two have started to spend the nights and sometimes, the days, inside again.  And then I found that my 4.6kg cat was bony and skinny and getting worse.  I can understand that neither cat wanted much to eat over the very hot summer, but this was something else.

Vet's visits showed Tuxedo got down to 3.2 kg but since put on just a little, to 3.4kg.  Her bones feel prominent beneath her skin.  She does actually look better than she did when she was so large (she looked like she'd eaten a football, sometimes, very fat round belly).  I call her a puffer fish.  Sometimes she'd be skinny, and other times very bloated.  But her behaviour is the same, she's a little more affectionate, coat is lustrous, eyes bright, she seems otherwise well ,and nowhere appears to cause her pain or discomfort.  

I now feed them on Purina One Sensitive (not that it makes any difference, she's still sick daily).  Next step is some variety of over-priced hypoallergenic food.

Any cat-carers got any ideas?

Edited October 27, 2020 by Twinky

[T-Bone]

we've got 2 older dogs and a 2 year old cat. The 2 older dogs seem to have gotten pickier on food - and recently even the cat; we switched from Blue Wilderness to Nutro - but they all still tend to be picky...Tonto says we ought to start giving them homemade meals - it sounds like a lot of work to me...don't know what we'll do.

[Twinky]

Since I've been feeding them Purina One, the girlies have gone completely off Go-Cat, which they used to enjoy.  Well, it's half the price; perhaps it's half the flavour.

Older cats can lose their sense of smell and so go off their food.  Perhaps that applies to dogs, as well.

 

I remember my dad boiling up "lights" (which I think is lungs) for a long time, and our animals (dog and several cats) used to go bonkers for it.  Smelled vile, but they loved it, and the broth in which it was cooked.  You could see if your local butcher (is there such a thing in mid-west USA?) has it, or other types of offal; you might not find it in a supermarket.  But I could be wrong!!

[T-Bone]

well...to give you the whole picture - dogs & cat are somewhat picky with the dry food we give the in the morning - currently it's Nutro brand (to be clear it's specific for dog and cat - in other words we're not giving dogs and cat the same thing - it's just the same brand formulated for dogs or cats). in afternoon we give dogs some Purina moist & meaty dog food packets & some Milk Bones - and cat gets some Blue Wilderness moist canned cat food - no sign of picky eaters at that meal.

we're looking into some homemade recipes - here's a couple of websites we've looked at for ideas:

Pets Web MD homemade food for cats

homemade meals for dogs & cats from All The Best Pet Care website.

[Twinky]

Interesting link about the homemade catfood, T-Bone.  Thanks, I'll come back to your links at a better time for me.

I often wonder if Tuxedo has developed an intolerance to something in the dried catfood that she prefers  They won't eat wet catfood, just lick up the jelly or gravy with enthusiasm, but won't eat the chunks of (pseudo) meat.  I checked out the Pets Web MD and found some interesting info.

[Twinky]

Bump.

[Twinky]

So as not to let this thread get interminably long, I starated a new thread called Cat Whispering II.

Fitting, really, as life with the cats was about to change when started the new thread, and as at now, it's definitely changed, with Tuxedo now (very sadly) dead and buried in the garden, and Crypto and I working out some different relationship.

[Twinky]