Sendhelp Posted March 2017
Caregiver's cats behaving badly.
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Does your Cat (or any pet) misbehave since caregiving your loved one?
Have you been required to take care of your loved one's pet after they have passed? Does your pet have cute antics that entertain your loved one?
And finally, has the cat or dog transferred their loyalty to your Mother?
Another friend that has two cats named them, Buttons and Bows. I think that is cute too.
I love hearing names.
One time my daddy was calling for our dog when he got out.
It was really early in the morning. The newspaper guy was delivering his papers.
My daddy said, “Henry!” My dog was hard headed and wouldn’t come when called. So daddy screamed loudly, “Henry, get your a** back here!”
The paperboy walked near to our porch and told my dad, “That is a horrible way to speak to your paperboy.”
My daddy told him, “I wasn’t speaking to you. I was yelling for my d*mn dog!” LOL.
We laughed about the paperboy’s name being Henry.
'Extra' for a name of a cat- that is funny! I read a book once were the character (a woman) had two cats name 'had I', 'but known' & it took me a few pages to realize that was their names. It was a very good book, but can't remember the title.
Send,
Yes, I named my cat Birdie because she sounds more like a bird than a cat. 🐦😸
I am allergic to cats so that’s why I didn’t get another one.
Mine lived to be 16. We do miss them terribly. Don’t we?
Your cat sounds like my cat was. She would catch lizards too! Yes, she would bring them over to show me her catch!
My friend named a cat, ‘Extra’ because she had a cat and this new cat showed up that she ended up keeping.
I cracked up when I heard what she named the new kitty.
Have you ever had a cat visit you on a daily basis? I did.
I rented a duplex with my friend. This beautiful cat would visit me everyday, he would sit on top of my chest of drawers, then meow to be let outside and would go back home, wherever that was.
He definitely wasn’t a stray. He had a collar on and looked very healthy.
He had the prettiest eyes, a Siamese cat. He didn’t fight with my cat.
I loved that he visited me but I didn’t feed him because I saw he had a collar on and belonged to someone.
I think my bird ordered some millet online. If you can enlarge my avatar, (quick before I change it) you will see him on the computer.
He is a bird, not a cat, but I do affectionately call him "puppy" sometimes.
Do you have any pets GA?
Dosmos, touching story about your cat!
So Shell, your cat is named "Birdie!" Lol!
I could tell the end was near because of his many trips to the litter box and not doing much else. The vet charged $1000.00 to keep him for a week, but it didn't help much. At home I picked him up...he was purring, I thought, But, alas, it was not a purr but the rattle of his fluid-filling lungs. There was one more trip to the vet to say goodbye and thanks for being such a loving friend. It's been awhile, but he still walks across my bed at night (I imagine) and when I'm half asleep I hear him ( I think) meowing for his breakfast. I know he's no longer here, but I still miss him more than I would ever have believed.
When I was younger, we had a cat name Tigger. Who use to do these same things. However, if Tigger wanted in through the front door he would knock. How? Our front door has a mail slot that he could open with his paw then let it go and it really does sound like he knock; however, if he wanted in through the side door he would scratch at the screen, so my mother tied a big bell on it and tried to teach him to hit the bell...it never did work. Tigger could knock at the front door, but refuse to hit the bell on the side door. I guess, he wasn't interested in learning a new trick! Cats are funny little creatures...aren't they!?😸
P.S. Glad that you and your kitties are doing good!💖
Gershun...I'm like you...I love all animals...big or small...with feathers or without...with fur or no fur...I just love them.
I have 3 cats. Moses is a indoor & outdoor cat because I rescue him & he lived outdoors for 2 yrs. His family moved and left him behind. It took me 2 yrs to earn his trust and a really bad snow storm. Birdie and Shadow are indoor cats only. Birdie is also a rescue cat and unfortunately she is not very smart. She was born from a stray cat and I knew she wouldn't make it on her own, so I started to let her and her brother Toby in and out of my house so I could save them. Unfortunately Toby didn't make it. I still think of him. Birdie is a sweetheart. My not so sweet Shadow was off to the pound. She wasn't even 6 weeks old. I thank God she was slow moving at that age because it was love at first sight. I grabbed her and told the people she was going home with me. Turned out, Shadow is a Main-coon. She is big, black, and beautiful. Main-coons are snow kitties, but Shadow doesn't like the snow! LOL!!
Now that I think about it, all the cats I ever had were rescue kitties...I guess that is my lot in life!! Rescues kitties! 😸
P.S. I would run back into the house to if I heard a train and not knowing what the sound was. Poor kitties...I bet the horn of a train is loud to them.💗
shell - that's what I tell my kitties - I can't change the weather. They also will come to the front door when they are out and look like they want to come in - then when I open the door they look at me, and smell the dpor step and stay there or walk away. They are just checking to see if I am still their servant. lol Pumpkin gets up on her hind legs and scratches on the glass by the front door to get my attention to be let in. Yesterday she was up on the bathroom counter and started scratching her image in the large mirror!!! I told her "No" but that probably won't stop her. She has no boundaries, Rocky has good boundaries. What next??? 😼😼
It sure is nice to know that my cat is not the only one who has to go to the front door and looks out but won't go out and than we go to the side door where I open the door and he looks at me & mewo, so off we go to the back sliding door and he will either go out or just sit there making his little noises than just to walk away to find a place to curl up and go to sleep. I think he thinks I should be able to change the weather. The darn cat doesn't know if I could change the weather--I would!
Kitties, you just can't help but love them. 😸
Uh oh, now he is ordering from Instacart!
Shell - you asked once if the kitties had tufts between their toes - yes they do. Rocky's neck ruff is so thick now in the winter it is matting a little behind her ears so I have to keep an eye on it and keep her groomed. She loves it when I run my fingers through her hair and pull out on any small matts. I had to cut out a large one when I first noticed. Now I am checking her regularly.
ff - mine chew on my laptop charger cord. I am not impressed. I blame myself for letting them watch cat videos showing a moving piece of string. Then I got them some fake leather cords/string to play with and they love it. How can they know the charger cord is not their toy?
In the past, if one of my cats appear a bit sluggish, I will put out a tiny amount of butter. For them it seemed to help pass whatever is clogging.
My current feline, he doesn't care for butter, so I am trying to grow a pot of grass [the backyard kind] that he munches on like he is enjoying a salad.
Also got a plastic chewer, too, but he prefer hard plastics. Like tabs on vegetables, loafs of bread, etc. My cat is a Ginger/white. Forty years ago I had my first Ginger, and he would crew on the plastic ends of shoelaces.
Awwww...
I am hoping that is all it was and that your cat is doing well. We love our fur babies. They are family. I miss mine so much. Now isn’t the time to get another one.
I just can’t bring myself to accept losing another animal. It hurts too much but this is the first time that I haven’t had a pet. It’s a big adjustment!
Both of my cats will chew on plastic bags I line the trash cans with, sometimes they swallow a little bit. I think that could be what the blockage was.
Now, he's "asking" for food again and eating. I'm still taking him to vet, both of them.
Ah, the ups and downs of cat mom life.
It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Our animals do communicate with us. We may have to figure out their language but they are speaking to us.
My friend and I were standing in her backyard. She has a stray cat that she started feeding. He stays outside.
The cat was rubbing on my leg and I thought that he was friendly and that I could pet him.
My friend said, “Don’t pet him. He is a stray that I feed and he isn’t trusting of people.
Well, being the cat lover that I am I decided to take my chances since he was rubbing himself on my legs. I should have listened to my friend. He hissed loudly at me and attempted to scratch me. Haha, my friend said, “I tried to tell you not to pet him.” I told her that I was wrong to try and pet him and that I should have listened to her warning.
I never figured that out. Why would he come by and rub all over my legs but not let me pet him? I get that he is afraid of humans but why did he weave in and out of my legs?
When we took our Rosie [15] in because she stopped eating, the Vet did blood work first and everything came back normal for her age. But something was really wrong with her. Got a second opinion couple days later with another Vet from the practice, had x-rays done and that told us the true story.
We also had 2 very elderly cats that had dementia. They would always get lost "in the hallway" and start crying. That, or either the antique library table in the hall was haunted. One cat would forget where her litter boxes were, so the house had a lot of blue sheets on the floor... interesting that cat only peed on the east side of the inside of the house.
My current cat, a Ginger, has a very strong sense of smell. He will avoid me right after I brush my teeth, or wash my hands. Even doesn't like the smell of Tums. Forget perfume or body lotion. Guess if I roll in the dirt, he'd be ok with that :P
My cat died about 30 years ago but we never forget them. She lived to be 16 years old.
I don’t think I could ever be a vet. I would be crying all of the time when they became sick or had an issue.
My cat was an indoor and outdoor cat. She always slept inside though.
She had some sort of accident and she could no longer swing her tail around her body.
In fact, she couldn’t even pick up her tail. It was stretched out and she had to drag it along behind her.
So I took her to the vet. He said possibly a car ran over her tail.
He said that she was not in pain and unless she started trying to chew her tail off that we should let it be.
If she started to chew on it he would amputate it. She never tried to chew on it.
She didn’t seem bothered by her tail dragging behind her at all. Look at the dogs with three legs. They get around pretty well.
My greyhound at age 13 struggled getting up and down. My mom used to say, “Poor baby has as much trouble as I do getting up and down with my Parkinson’s disease.” She loved him and he loved her.
I've had cats with hyperthyroid disease, kidney disease, my two kitties I have now both have had mast cell tumors the last couple of years. My hubs and I have spent a ton of money that we couldn't really afford but did anyway. I know that's not possible for a lot of people but I would probably cut off my arm if it meant helping my cats. But I understand perfectly if not everyone can or is willing to do this so I'm not trying to make you feel bad.
Good luck to you and your kitty!
The vet can tell you if the cat has diabetes.
My friend who cared for all the cats went so far as to inject insulin for years to keep her cat well.
Only you and your vet can decide how far and for how long cat care goes on. These choices are so difficult for the pet owner.
There were two puddles a month ago that showed up in the middle sitting room a few nights apart. They didn't smell like urine but there's also no way -- no ceiling drips, no rain or anything -- for it to be anything but cat urine, and the oldest would be the culprit. He drinks a lot of water and outputs a lot of urine, always been like this since I've had him, but peeing outside the box is very unusual for him. And he peed on the litter-trapper rug outside his box twice, too. All in the past 45 days, and previously never.
And he is acting extra "senile" lately. Yesterday when I came home, he avoided me and was peeking at me around the trunk that serves as my coffee table. I've never seen him do this shy behavior. And still no eating.
So something is going on with him, and I will monitor him closely for the next few days.
Thanks for giving me a place to talk this out. I think he's declining but as you all know, could be fast, could be very slow pace.
You are very wise. As long as he is in decent spirits you will monitor him.
I hope he is okay.
I have seen some really elderly cats (18) and (16) go around the house meowing, like sundowners, and as if they were lost. When I was visiting, I would pick them up and put them on their favorite places, which was where they would normally go in the evenings. They would immediately be comforted and quiet. They may have had cat-heimers or something old.
They too had that greasy-look to their hair, and they were just left that way.
Still, they lived a long time like that. I would sit and throw a kibble treat their way, and they would retrieve it. I don't think anyone in the home was monitoring if the cats (many) ate or not. All the pets were well cared for, vet-wise and food, and the home was so filled with elderly rescues, it seemed like an assisted living home for cats and dogs.
You are a good cat mommy, and will know when the time comes.
One of the other cats is very jealous of this, so I bought him a tub of dental treats so that he can have a "treat" as well.
He jumped up on the kitchen counter and grabbed the tub of treats; fortunately, he didn't figure out how to open them.