Question:
Good morning,
I need your input about my cat. Maybe some of you have been through the same and can give me suggestions.
Our cat is 10 years old and he's been very healthy until November 2005, when he started to be constipated and do #2 very rarely, maybe once every 4 day. When he finally did it, he would do it in all the wrong places, mostly on the sofa and the reclining chairs. It took 3 vet's visit to get him straightened out, but the vet was no help. She did all kinds of blood tests on him, gave him 2 enemas, and even though the enemas helped, he was back to being constipated two days later.
I was the one who finally figured out a solution after many searches on the internet.
I discovered that we needed to do two things:
1. Switch him to "wet food", because dry food is hard on old cats
2. Mix pumpkin with is food: I read it would help him being regular. It worked!
After things went well for a while, we saw that he was starting to drag his butt on the floor and we though this was not a good thing. So we decided to bring him to the vet again, but this time a different vet, because the other one had not solved our problem.
When my husband brought the cat to the vet, she said everything seemed fine, except that he was getting overweight and needed to lose weight. She said that being overweight caused him to strain when he defecated and that’s why his butt was sore.
So, she sent the cat home with a new diet that was very high in fiber. I argued a lot with my husband because I thought that changing his diet so drastically could not be good! But he was so adamant in following the doctor’s orders that I went along with it … reluctantly I must say!
Well, after 3 weeks on this diet, he’s constipated again and does it in all the wrong places when he finally does it! Déjà vu all over again!
So I called the vet Friday and told her what happened and she finally agreed with me that this drastic change was not good for him, and that I should do what I felt helped, which is starting mixing his food with pumpkin, and maybe add mineral oil to help. It id help him get “loose”, but he ended up doing it on the sofa and the reclining chairs again. What a smelly mess I tell ya!!!!
When we went to bed yesterday, I had an idea: I locked him in the bathroom with his litter, so we would not wake up with another mess again this morning. He did fine; he used the litter at least 3 times during the night. That's a good start.
Now, I am bringing him to the vet this afternoon to assess the situation, but I must say I do not trust vets anymore!
Any ideas???
Answer:
Do a search on the health section of this forum, and email a moderator to move your post to the health section too.
I think you on the right track by getting a second opinion, and know what a disappointment it is to not have a proper diagnosis, your doing a good job for your cat and I hope you can get the proper answers this visit.
Answer:
Thanks so much, I will do that!
Since I am home today, I have been looking on many websites and found some interesting tips. I gathered all this information on one document and I will print it later so my husband and I can both read it again, and again, and again.
After reading all this information, I made a few changes to the litter:
I removed the liner. Many websites say that cats hate the liner--it can be irritating to some cats.
Since he's been eliminating on the couch and the reclining chairs, he seems to like eliminating on a soft surface. One of the articles said: if your cat is eliminating on soft surfaces, try using a high quality, scoopable litter, and put a soft rug under the litter box. So, I removed the landing mat, and replaced it with a soft rug. We both thought at one time that he might not enjoy landing on that spiky mat anyway.
Funny thing, the idea I had yesterday of confining him to the bathroom was not such an innovative one: I found it on many websites! So, while we are in bed, and when we leave for work, we will do that for a while, at least until he is using the litter box regularly.
Thanks again!
Chickadee4ever
Our cat Wilson is like our kid. We love him and want to keep him healthy and happy!
Answer:
I'll move the post for you
Owned by Pepper and Pumpkin RIP Snickers 8/22/00 -- 11/28/06
http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/

Answer:
Thanks Lisa!
Our cat Wilson is like our kid. We love him and want to keep him healthy and happy!