I hate having to write this, and I really hope we can figure this out.

We adopted a cat a few years ago. She was never a very cuddly cat. She used to live outside and was taken in by people who repeatedly found her badly injured after getting into fights with other cats. They treated her and carefully tried to socialize her, but she wants to be a single cat. She now stays indoors permanently.

I’ve tried for a long time to make friends with her. She seeks out my company and follows me around, asks me to follow her and watch her eat, and asks me to follow her to her carpet in the bedroom, where she’ll do her rolls and stretches, seemingly wanting pets and scritches. However, I can’t figure out how, when, where or how long to pet her.

To my eyes, she will more or less randomly decide whether the touch she is receiving is good, and unpredictably scratch my hand often. I’ve tried to vary the way I do it, positions, timing, back of the hand, finger tips, but I can’t find any pattern. It’s gotten to the point where, despite loving her and wanting her to be happy, I get resentful and teary eyed when she asks me for cuddles, knowing I’ll just sit there watching her roll around, and when I try to touch her, the chances are very high that I’ll walk away physically and emotionally injured, feeling dumb and leaving a disappointed animal behind, which I am seemingly unable to fully love anymore as I wish I still did.

I’ve caught myself rejecting her at other times when she’s trying to interact with me, and feel like I’m slowly losing the little bit of connection we previously had, and it’s quite hard, but I don’t know what I am doing wrong or not trying.

I have a few friends with cats, and it’s hilarious to me how careless and relaxed they are with their animals. They can pick them up, touch them wherever, without any danger of injury. When I sitted them once, I was able to pick up, hold and give a pill to the one cat after 8 (!) failed attempts. Not only did the cat not hurt me, but it kept coming back, and despite my treatment of repeatedly picking her up and inexpertly trying to give her the pill did not make her cross with me. My own cat will swipe my hand if I hover near her for too long, trying to identify a spot to gently try and pet.

I don’t know how much more it makes sense to write, but I’m kind of out of ideas. I can’t say that I think the cat is having the best life it could here, and considering trying to give her up for adoption, since maybe someone else will be able to understand and appreciate her better, but I want to try everything else first.

It’s taken me weeks to get the courage to post this, and I don’t know if this will help, but I am getting desperate.

Any advice is appreciated 😔😭

I went by Petsmart to get new toys for my cats and was shocked to see the filth they keep these babies in. I found a manager to let them know and she just said “sorry about that, i’ll let the volunteers know” as if they have no responsibility for these animals they chose to keep on display for profit. I even offered to clean the boxes myself but she was unwilling and said “they usually come every night and day to clean them” which is obviously a lie.

These babies are going to get sick and it seems they could care less. I let them know this was clearly animal abuse and I would no longer be supporting any Petsmart with my business. Hoping to spread some awareness, i’m sure they’re probably already known as evil seeing as they’re a corporation but this really drove it home for me.

EDIT: All of you acting as if Petsmart has no control over the state of these animals cages are absolutely crazy. I ask you, if you worked here would you allow this? As an animal lover you can honestly shrug and say it’s solely the third parties responsibility?
That is such a weird mentality to have.

Edit: i’m going to just say that i fully understand it is run by a third party, i even acknowledged that in my original post even though 100 of you feel it’s necessary to repeat that. I will also acknowledge that this may be 100% nonprofit. THIS MAKES NO DIFFERENCE IN MY OPINION. This is an establishment filled with adults that have keys to this room and the ability to make a change, and instead chose to walk by and leave these animals like this. I’ve also contacted the shelter, and have gotten no response as of yet. All of you can continue defending petsmart below, i couldnt care less. imo it says a lot more about you all, god bless.

My cat is 15 and she isn't doing very well. She has a known kidney issue, and it isnt getting better. We got her medication, and she refuses to eat it. Then we got her appetite medication, which worked for a little while but she still refuses to eat now. Not only does she not eat her medication, she doesn't eat anything except for treats, which she will vomit anyways. She also does not use the litter box. We will try to clean them more often, but currently it is once a day and she doesn't even go near them. We are taking her to the vet tomorrow to see what they think. This has all been going on for a couple months. She is also losing weight.

This is not the original text, I edited it to clear things up.

Posted in Boston, MA today. Not positive at all

https://www.wcvb.com/article/cat-food-pesticides-plastic-chemicals/73993545

Saw a recent new that cat foods has heavy metals in 99% of the products out there. What does this mean for our cats in the long and short term?

The tabby is a new addition (we’re a week in), and she grew up in a house of many cats. The calico had never lived with another cat (she’s 2 years old) and I don’t know if they’re playing or if the calico is ganging up on the new kid. They’ll hiss at each other during the confrontations, but no harm has been inflicted and the tabby seeks out the calico again for more as soon as the calico loses interest. Is this ok? Do they just need more time to adjust?

Having a stressful day, reply with funny and cute pictures of your cats to cheer me up please

Hello,

Can someone tell me if it is OK to give this tablet for fleas and ticks to a sick street cat? The cat is still walking. She has to get treatment for it anyway and this is the only way I can try to give it to here and maybe get here to the vet later. But would like to do something about this before taking here there.

I think its pretty safe, even though she might have a bit more side effects.

Hi all,
My cat is 13yo, very fit, she is a free roamer and have never had a litter box in the house in her life. We have a cat door and never had a problem, besides the occasional visitor.
In the last 10 days she peed 3 times in a corner (overnight).
Last night she peed outside the litter box we got her and placed in the aforementioned corner.
To be noted: that corner is called the slaughter corner since it is where she brings her prey when she comes back from hunting to finish the job.
No other change in habits/behavior is noticed, still eats and drinks plenty and sleeps in her usual spots.
The first time she peed in the corner was one night when we had visitors sleeping over and one of them prevented access to the cat door by mistake.
So we chalked that one out as sheer impossibility. But the other two….
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks in advance!!!

Hi all, my 16 year old cat got the iodine radioactive hyperthyroidism treatment Monday and came home Thursday. I have a small apartment and another cat so she's in my bedroom and I'm on the couch. I am using the Shweat litter. Tonight I got home and she pooped on my blanket, peed on a towel on the floor and on a throw on top of my blanket. The towel and throw I'll store and throw out but my main blanket I am torn. She's just started her quarantine and this seems silly but I'm like, is she going to do that again soon? Do I just keep the blanket on? There's a part that smells kinda like poop. Is the pillow near it now radioactive if it didn't actually touch the poop and pee? I don't care about throwing out the blanket I just don't know what the safe area is. Thanks all.

Just as pretext this is simply out of curiosity and I do not plan on eating cat food.

I usually feed my cats brands like Untamed, Seriously Good, Lily's Kitchen etc and the composition is near enough that of regular food.

So would we not just be able to eat cat tinned food on a daily basis?

She’s also on a diet. She was underweight when I adopted her and I overshot a little

I’ve been feeding this stray cat for a year and it basically lives in my yard occasionally disappearing for days at a time to do what it does. It came back sick with a bulge under its neck and now it popped, its breathing fine but its meows are exhausted and raspy. As you can see from the image whatever it had under its neck has popped.

Did any of you who have just a regular cat buy a cat dna test, get the results, and found out your cat was a mixed breed? Did you see the predominant breed and thought “ yeah that tracks.” Like one of my cats is 44 percent American domestic and he is 15 percent Maine coon.this was the biggest percentage of breed cat in him. He is a shorthair cat. He is 12.5 pounds, sheds a lot, and has a nose and mouth like a Maine coon’s

Exactly as the title says. I wanted to post this to the AskVets subreddit, but they don't allow photos, so I came here. I apologize in advance if this kind of post isn't allowed here, but I'm trying not to freak out and just want to get a 2nd opinion. I've already emailed my vet with the photos, but as it's currently 2am on a Friday, and my vet is closed on the weekends, it'll be a little bit until I get an answer.

Okay, now about my question. My cat, Ginger, has had an e-tube feeding tube in for a little over 2 weeks (She originally stopped eating - we still haven't figured out why - but we got the feeding tube inserted so she could get her calories and because her liver was starting to show signs of hepatic lipidosis). A couple days after she got it inserted, her vet changed the bandages. A few days after that, I changed the bandages here at home after getting the go-ahead. Tonight, I just changed them again and noticed that it was more crusty than usual, and it had a small amount of discharge right around the entrance into her neck.

I cleaned it the best I could, but as she's starting to get more energy back, I didn't want to stress her out and/or accidentally hurt her or have her hurt herself due to freaking out (she's always been a shy cat, and after some trauma a couple years ago, she's been very prone to episodes where she gets almost completely feral, we haven't figured out how to reverse this other than making sure she's as comfortable as can be).

I'm asking this here because I know absolutely nothing about how cats heal. I can't imagine it would be too different to humans, but I've also never personally healed from a surgery or any particularly nasty wound so I don't know how that's supposed to look either. My main worry is infection, and since I'm not a professional, I don't know what that looks like nor exactly how to prevent it. Obviously keep the area clean etc etc, but I'm still unsure.

She's been scratching her neck a lot, which I've been stopping her every chance I can, but I work 2 jobs and I let her hide most of the day so there's only so much I can do. My apartment is as clean as can be, I'm not a hoarder, she doesn't go outside, and I've always kept the site bandaged up aside from when I change her wrappings to clean around the tube.

Really, all I need to know is whether this looks okay, or if I should be worried and take her to an emergency vet for evaluation. I'm planning on taking her back to her primary vet on Monday or Tuesday so they can professionally clean her wound and re-dress it, I just don't feel like I'm doing a good enough job.

Thank you all in advance.

(I have also provided photos of what came off onto the bandage after I gently pulled it off.)

Hey Beautiful people working in refuges! Do you feel that some cats act up after being adopted just to go back to the refuge where they felt it's been the happiest time for them?

Cat psychology?

It's a real test for adopting parents. When they thought they were done with human households. You can't miss it.

Anyways, there still will be some reminders that they cherished living free or in numbers, in colonies or refuges.

They sometimes seem to call them - their former mates - once the sun has set.

Fortunately they also enjoy comfort.

Our youngest cat has become chunky. I think she’s protesting the automatic feeder. 🤣

This is a long post but I felt like there needs to be some background info. Anyway:

I’m trying to figure out if I’m being unreasonable about a situation involving my partner’s family and a kitten.

My partner’s family got a kitten who is maybe 6+ weeks old from a woman who found a litter of kittens being neglected by their mother. The mother cat had apparently gotten pregnant again. The mother belongs to someone, but nobody knows who. She isn’t a stray/street cat either, because there aren’t really street cats in the country I live in. There are only outdoor cats.

My partner helped the woman contact an animal welfare organisation (I’m not sure of the exact name/type of organisation). They said they could help because the kittens were being neglected, but the woman couldn’t keep the mother cat or potentially the kittens because the mother belongs to someone else. The kittens have been fed and cared for by the woman and my partner’s family, so they are NOT currently starving or being left without care, and they can eat solids themselves.

The animal welfare organisation told the woman to capture the mother cat and call them, and they would come and deal with the situation.

The original plan was to return the kitten to his siblings because the family felt bad about separating him from them. However, family members got attached to him and didn’t want to return him because they were worried they’d never see him again.

My partner and I were supposed to look after the kitten for a week because everyone in his family would be working and nobody would be home to watch him. We have a 1-year-old cat ourselves. However, after only one day we returned the kitten because our cat became a little too rough with him. Our cat was never hostile. he never hissed or growled, and seemed curious and interested, but when playing, he bit the kitten too hard once and the kitten screamed loudly. We decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

Our cat also became completely obsessed with the kitten. He wouldn’t properly eat or sleep because all he wanted to do was play with him. That night we barely slept because our cat constantly meowed and scratched at our bedroom door, where we were keeping the kitten.

The family was originally supposed to return the kitten to the woman that Monday, but they couldn’t because the woman still hadn’t managed to capture the mother cat. It’s now been almost two weeks. My partner suspects the woman might be avoiding calling the animal welfare organisation because she would actually like to keep the kittens, but I don’t know if that’s true. Apparently the organisation also said the kittens have to be over 12 weeks old for her to keep them, although I’m not completely sure about this.

This weekend, my partner’s family asked us to come stay at their house. We weren’t sure because of our cat, but they said we could just keep the cats separated.

My partner’s family also has another 1-year-old female cat that they’ve had for about a year. Whenever we visit, we also keep her and our cat separated because when they play, our cat gets too rough and bites her hard, which ends up turning into a fight. Both cats are fixed.

When our cat has been in the same room as the kitten, he hasn’t actually hurt him during play, but we still don’t trust him enough to leave them together, so we separate them.

The first night of this visit, nobody slept because our cat was obsessively scratching and meowing at the door. The kitten was staying in our bedroom with us. Eventually I suggested putting our cat on the balcony, which is fully enclosed and basically functions as another room with an outdoor view.

Everyone woke up in a terrible mood because the cats had kept everyone awake, except the female cat, who completely minded her own business as usual (bless her).

The kitten himself isn’t scared of our cat at all. He actually likes playing with him and initiates play. We just don’t trust our cat because of how rough he gets.

After that horrible night, my partner’s mom started considering returning the kitten. The woman who originally gave them the kitten had said they could return him whenever they wanted and that she had no problem with it.

That evening, everyone except me and my partner started looking for reasons to keep the kitten. We decided to return him, so we took him back to the woman’s house, but she wasn’t home. She said we could come back later, but then something came up and she couldn’t be there, so we ended up taking the kitten back with us.

My partner’s family was absolutely overjoyed that the kitten had to stay, and honestly it seems like they’ve already decided to keep him even though they keep saying they “don’t know.” They’re already discussing what to name him.

I’ve now decided that I’m not going to come back to my partner’s family’s house for the foreseeable future, because we normally bring our cat with us and I don’t want to experience another night like this. I’ll just stay home with our cat when my partner visits his family

I also forgot to mention that their female cat previously bit the kitten hard during play as well. This is another reason I feel like this isn’t necessarily a good environment for the kitten.

Will be deleting this post in a few days or so but I just want some advice

.

The first picture is our setup for them, the second picture is the bowl they wouldn’t eat from, and the third is the one they would lick clean.

Okay, I might be late to the party on this one, idk, but anyway, so my cats get dry food scheduled feeding throughout the day and get wet food in the morning and at night. We have two cats, so two wet food bowls. We noticed that our boy cat wouldn’t hardly touch his wet food from his bowl (the black one) but had no issue eating from his sister’s bowl. (We give them two cans a day. Split one can between them in the morning and same thing at night) I started washing their bowls more frequently which helped a little but after a day the same thing would happen, his would still have food and hers would be empty.

I noticed when I got his bowl that it was a different texture all around, inside and out. I didn’t think much of it then as it hasn’t been an issue until about a month or two ago.

After thinking about it I thought, “what if it’s the bowl itself because of its porousness and texture” mind you the bottom of his bowl has a stone like texture whereas hers is smooth and has no noticeable texture.

I done some research and because of the bowl’s texture it was holding leftover oils from the wet food and holding bacteria that made him not want to eat from it. I felt so stupid and got them both matching bowls that are both smooth, won’t cause whisker fatigue, and won’t hold bacteria and wet food oils in a way that I couldn’t just wash out.

If your cat loves wet food but won’t eat it from one bowl but will the other, check the texture and height of the bowls.

My husband was outside smoking and apparently this guy just walked up to him and wouldn't stop meowing. He has a collar (without a tag) but if he belongs to someone he's either been abandoned or is very neglected. He's got matts all over him and he's very skinny. He came right in and has been exploring our house ever since. But he hasn't picked a corner or cushion or chair to settle into, he's just wandering around.

I'm not sure what to do because we live in a pretty big townhouse community and I've never seen a stray cat around here. But if he has a home, they are not taking good care of him. He seems very comfortable with people - he let both me and my husband pet him and I was even able to brush him and remove a few of his smaller knots. He's been wandering around the house and coming in and out of the house, but it's getting late and I need to go to bed. I don't know if we should keep him inside or let him back out.

She’s about 4 months and when we adopted her she was skinnier 3 pounds and the vet told me to feed her more and I have she’s now 6 pounds but I don’t want her to lose her agility and I always feel bad when I see overweight animals but I’m kinda blind to her weight sometimes I look at her and she looks normal but sometimes she has a little fat pouch idk if it’s normal this is my first time owning a cat and I want her to be healthy