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I could use some advice to keep my dog from eating cat poop. We have 1 dog and 2 cats. On our first floor there is a mudroom with a pet gate with a cat door. The cats have their litter boxes on one side of the mudroom and food on the other side. This arrangement has worked for 8 years. My daughter’s young cat has had digestive issues for her entire life and would poop on the floor outside the box once a week. We tried all different kinds of boxes and litter and probiotics and food but no changes. She also hates the feel of litter. We tried all kinds and newspaper and towels and pee pads…you name it.
For a month she decided to poop on my daughter’s bed twice a week…which of course was a cleaning nightmare. Sometimes she pooped on the bed while my daughter was sleeping in it.
Finally we found a limited ingredient food that worked along side of a probiotic and her poops are now more manageable for her, less painful I’m guessing and pretty regular. We added a litterbox upstairs to my daughter’s bedroom but she would never use it. We moved it to the large hallway outside my daughter’s room where it was darker and more private and she still didn’t use it. Purchased cat attraction litter and after 1 week she finally used the upstairs box to poop. I held my excitement but it’s been 3 weeks now and no more pooping on the bed. Her poops are also a lot less messy and stinky. Now my problem is if she goes at night the dog jumps right up and eats it. I caught her doing this twice but she was too fast to stop. Other times you can smell that she must have pooped but it’s gone. She’s only going upstairs so I don’t want to take the box away. She’s so picky with boxes and how she sits in the box and how it smells a covered litter box won’t work. There isn’t way to put a gate up in that hallway as it’s a super old house and shaped weird. I’m afraid any change to the box will stop all the good progress. My dog probably gets to the litter box before us about half the time–so it’s not every time. My dog is healthy, eats well, is up to date on everything and is well taken care of. Thanks for your patience with the long explanation.
My cats nail quick is exposed and her nail is not covering it. It is no longer bleeding. Do I need to take her in to see my vet in person immediately or will it heal itself?
Good morning. Glad the bleeding has stopped. You may want to check with the vet- keeping it clean until it is fully healed may be a challenge. Especially with the need for the litter box. You might be able to bandage it somehow to help keep it protected and clean. That would be my biggest concern- infection. Your vet may prescribe antibiotics to help. If your cat will let you clean it regularly, your vet might just suggest monitoring it.
Hello Kurtiss!
Thank you for sharing your cats story. Please let us know how things go. Did your vet talk about the possibility of recurrence? Did they put him on a different or special diet?
Thanks again!
krista
SO I noticed my kitten has a UTI and I couldn’t afford to do a bladder express surgery so I brought him home and I came across a video of sometimes you can express the penis to see if the calculi comes out and if it does you don’t need a catheter. So I gave it try at home and some white stuff came out like salt and he peed so much! What a relief but then this morning he was straining again and I helped him again and more white stuff came out (they look like white salts) I am trying to figure what is this white stuff and I am thinking it’s the magnisum that I am giving him since he can’t walk due to Bengal polyneuropathy. How can we flush him out ? Does he need surgery to remove these white specs? What antibiotics should we get to help him with pain? I need help please
It looks like that is crystals. I would advise you getting to the vet and talking to them. Until then, I would make sure he is hydrated and drinking LOTS and possibly continue expressing and hopefully more will continues to come out. Even if he starts urinating on his own, I would get a visit to the vet. Let us know how Hong’s are going.
What kind of medication should I get ? If he is able to expel them would he be okay? He is able to pee but he keeps straining I believe trying to expel them out ? if he is expelling these crystals can it do harm to his penis?
I have an 18 month old male cat, Chubbs 🙂 – he was a stray that we took in from the neighborhood as a kitten, vaccinated and neutered and we just adore him. On Monday this week, I noticed he was having urinary issues – lots of in and out of box and no action. Our vet was full so we drove about 30 minutes to another town to take him to an emergency vet. Vet told me that he did not have a urinary blockage, but his urinalysis showed evidence of infection and crystals. A chicken and the egg situation he said. They gave him subQ fluids, antinausea med, anti-inflammatory med and send us home with a supply of pain meds and antibiotics. He was low key the next day, but seems back to normal as of yesterday. However, still lots of urinary urgency and frequency attempts with dribbles here and there, but is producing actual normal appearing size voids 3-5 times a day. No blood, no howling. Bowel movements seem a little looser, assuming from antibiotics but no diarrhea. Is this expected behavior? Can male cats have partial blockages that wax and wane like this? Will this continue on for 1-2 weeks while treating the UTI component? Emergency vet told me to follow-up with our vet in ~2 weeks for repeat urine.
I would call your vet and see if you can schedule an appointment before the two weeks just to get your own vet up to speed and see if there are any changes in diagnosis. Err on the side of caution. I can tell you from experience- getting these things taken care of sooner rather than later and staying ahead of the game, is a LOT less expensive in the long run. Best of luck.
Is it normal for a kitten to lick ears???
Hello,
Your kitten is licking your ears? I’m not sure its normal but I’m also not sure that it isn’t. We have a clinic cat who is also obsessed with licking our ears when we hold her. So far it’s been a decade doing this at a vets clinic and I wouldn’t call her normal. But she’s not medically impaired. She’s just a little ear weird. But we love her anyway. As always if you are concerned please mention it to your vet.
Good morning????
We had 2 kittens years ago when I was still in elementary school that did this. Our vet at the time said that it might be because they left their mother too soon. (These kittens we hand raised because their mom was run over down the road from our house) they would cuddle up into the crook of our neck, under our hair and try to lick behind our ears. I know it sounds gross and strange, but they were babies. The male grew out of it, the female never did- so anyone on our sofa with long hair was fair game in her eyes.
Clevercat litterboxes are a LIFESAVER. Not even my long-nosed Doberman can get into them. That said, now that the cat’s using the box reliably, can you move it to a room with a gate? You can also get free-standing gates for oddly shaped entries…we use one in our puppy pre-K class to block an egress point, and it works very well.
OH and as far as your dog’s nutrition is concerned…for some reason, most dogs REALLY LIKE cat poop. I’m not sure why, Dr. Magnifico might have an idea, but this seems to be a thing even with dogs which wouldn’t normally do this. I agree it’s gross, and I hope you can find a solution which works for your situation.