My cat rarely ever gets sick. Actually, in the 7 years I've had him he's been noticeably sick only once.
Last night when I came home I fed him and he wouldn't eat. My cat loves food more than any cat I've ever met. I thought maybe he was just being finicky, most likely bored with his food, so I brought out some treats and he wouldn't eat those, either. I'm going to bring home a can of tuna tonight and see if he eats that.
To all the cat owners on the Killoggs, how long do you wait before taking a cat to the vet because of disinterest in food? 1 day? 2? It's been less than 24 hours at this point. I check his littler and it seems fine. I cleaned it to see if he uses it at any point today.
He's giving me those mildly sleepy-eyed looks that terrify me. The last time i saw sleepy eyes on an animal was when I tried to save a fledgling bird Trout brought in to play with later. Before I went to bed I chekced in on the little bird and he looked up at me with sleepy eyes. The next morning he was dead.
I am very very sensitive to my cat's health and have rushed him to the emergency room for ailments that probably didn't even deserve a vet visit, let alone a $600 emergency room visit (they ended up operating on him, don't ask, long story). So I'm trying to figure out if I'm just overreacting about this.
brianbibbly [email] said at 2:44 PM 09-20-2006: Oh man, I can't take any more kitty in distress stories! I'm not going to bawling a la Ed, but I don't like hearing them.
My unprofessional advice: If you come home today and kitty is still not eating, then I would take him to the vet, fast. Maybe not the ER, but to the vet first thing in the morning.
cory said at 10:29 PM 09-20-2006: Hey, Marcy!
I'm assuming your cat is indoor, so this probably won't apply but I'll tell you about it anyway. My dog quit eating for a few days, and then he started going lame in one leg. I took him to the vet, and he had Lyme disease. Lyme disease in dogs is not so serious. Just takes medicine. I think cats get Lyme disease too, so if your cat has had ticks or has been out in the woods, maybe that's something to screen for. Don't worry too much -- loss of appetite can mean lots of things and also nothing.
marcia [email] said at 12:23 PM 09-21-2006: Hey cory! It's nice to see you peek in!
Trout is an indoor cat, though I go out in the woods quite a bit and have brought home ticks on my clothing before.
The fish is okay.
Well, I went home last night immediately after work to check on Trout. I tried to feed him again and he wouldn't touch it, though he was acting pretty normally otherwise. I checked on his litter and he'd been using it, which was a great relief.
I bought a can of tuna (for people) before I got home and that flea brained cat started chirping the second I opened it.
He ate the whole goddamned can.
I didn't know whether to kick him or hug him. I waited for him to finish and then let him sit on my lap while I read for an hour. He just purred and purred and then fell asleep. Cats are such assholes!
He may be having tooth problems. When I took him to the vet she said one of his molars will need to be taken out in the next year because she noticed some decay on it. He didn't react when she pressed on the tooth of his gum so she told me to just wait a bit.
I'm going to buy him a cheap box of cat food to see if he's just bored with Iams right now. If he doesn't eat the cheap stuff I'll look into the tooth theory. Though I would think if his tooth was hurting he wouldn't want to eat any type of food...
marcia [email] said at 12:48 PM 09-21-2006: Funny you should bring up weight because my cat is a fat cat. A friend of mine used to make fat jokes about him all the time. And one of the vets said he looked like a giant, fuzzy marshmallow. I started getting concerned about his weight when he was too fat to lick himself properly, causing greasy, matted hair on his back. I was also worried about other things, like diabetes.
In the past 6 months, He's lost 4 lbs, putting him at 18 lbs. Trout is a large cat--very long and big boned--but i want to see him get down to about 15 lbs which was his weight when I found him.
Maybe all the fat jokes have finally gotten to him. Poor kitty.
shauna* said at 3:22 PM 09-21-2006: my big fat kitty zelda stopped eating and drinking once, and i took her to the vet on day two. she hadn't been using the box, either, and was just sort of lying bloatedly on her back. they x-rayed her, and when they slapped that film onto the wall for me to see, i wanted to cry. the poor cat was all, erm, backed up. her little intestines were all fulla poo rocks. they had to flush her out for two days, and then i had to start making her this nasty soup out of half food, half water.
she's much better now. but i guess eating any more hurt!
marcia [email] said at 3:57 PM 09-21-2006: My boyfriend mentioned this possibility to me (which didn't help my nerves). He said constipation can kill a cat pretty quickly, so to make sure I checked his kitty liter box.
My cat is so laid back and quiet it's really hard to tell how he's feeling. And cats in general are quiet about pain--they usually just hide.
marcia [email] said at 3:59 PM 09-21-2006: And yeah, thank god your cat didn't go to kitty heaven because of her pooed up intestines. I'd imagine that would be very painful. That was have been pretty scary.
meredith [email] said at 7:57 PM 09-21-2006: I don't want to alarm you, but I thought Hedwig was just depressed. Not that I could have done anything more if I had brought her in early, according to the vet, but I am still kind of kicking myself.
Just bring Trout in if you have any kind of nagging feeling.
marcia [email] said at 1:12 PM 09-24-2006: No, understood. The thing is, Trout, before he stopped eating, had gone to the vet twice in a month. First, for a check up and then, again, 3 weeks later, after tests showed everything else was normal except his white blood cell count, which was abnormally low. The vet thought he may have FIV, which had me shaking in my shoes at the thought--especially since he had been in contact with a non-FIV cat of a close friend and she had attacked him. I was terrified that he may have put her at risk if he was positive. After 3 weeks of being a worry-wart, I took him in and he was negative.
And then the little punk stopped eating for no reason.
After the tuna feast, I bought him a cheap bad of Whiskas which he's been devouring. I'll give him a week to enjoy the gluttony and then I'll introduce him to a different dry cat food--perhaps Science Diet, to keep his weight loss and dietary health up.
After hearing about the Hedwig trauma it did give me serious pause when he stopped eating.
