Our cat was recently paralyzed following a stupid preventable accident at home where he got spooked, jumped off a couch and landed wrong. Now he’s largely immobile. He can get around in short spurts using his front legs, but his hind legs and tail are limp. This has all occurred within the span of a week. Last Monday, 11/20, he was fine. He developed a slight limp on Tuesday, was clearly worse on Wednesday, and fully paralyzed by Thursday, which was Thanksgiving. Friday was when I returned to the initial vet we saw Wednesday for a follow up who recommended putting him down due to the time and potential cost for care, and we got the second opinion elsewhere within an hour that same day.

So the first vet immediately suggesting putting him down, and the second opinion vet offered more hope and said he might be able to bounce back and recover, but it would take a while. Anywhere from 4-12 weeks before showing any improvement. I’m going to do all I can within our means to save him if it’s possible. But I have concerns surrounding his bathroom needs, and potential pain I may be unaware of. Both offices ruled out “FATE” and neither feel it’s heart disease, heart failure, or a clot. Both feel it’s a slipped disc in his spine.

As a result of all this, he can’t use his litter box himself, and I need to learn how to “express” his urine and other end myself while searching for how we’ll be proceeding with his future care.

He’s been having urine incontinence the last few days, regularly leaking a bit when laying down (he’s always laying down now, but you get the point). I need to know if this is only possible or a thing when his bladder is uncomfortably full, or if it can happen regardless of the contents of his bladder, because I’ve found contrasting opinions. Some sources say it’s only leaking because it’s about to rupture and emergency care is needed, and other sources claim it can leak regardless of how much urine is in his bladder at any given time. It can leak when there’s a little or a lot. I don’t know what to put any stock in. I do know that shortly after expressing urine yesterday, we got a lot out….enough to make us think he must be empty or nearly empty, but shortly after he was still leaking a bit, which makes me think this is just something that we will have to deal with in general even if his bladder isn’t full.

The last thing I want is for it to rupture, and I’m finding removing / expressing his urine to be incredibly difficult. I’ve watched a dozen videos demonstrating it on youtube and read guides with photos featuring hand placement, and it’s just not coming easy or naturally at all. He’s a big boi….a little over 18lbs, so he’s a chonk. That’s making finding his bladder especially difficult.

I was able to successfully get a lot out yesterday, and he hasn’t had any water since. But he has had one of those treats that’s kind of like paste in a push up tube, and a small bowl of wet food. I know cats also develop urine from the liquid from their food.

I’m going to be “expressing” him at least once a day. I’ve been told it should be done up to three times a day, but I’m just not there yet, and he’s so uncomfortable I don’t want to put him through that more than necessary. When he drinks water it’s not all that much, maybe half an inch from a small bowl.

Lastly, I’m curious to know if he’s in more pain than I know or realize. We all know cats are great at hiding and masking pain, but at the same time they still do vocalize when they’re uncomfortable, or in distress. I can pick him up without him yowling or making noise, but he tends to complain the most when picking him up just to move him back onto a towel I’ve been keeping under him due to the incontinence.

I’ve read that when cats are in a fair amount of pain, they lose their appetite and stop drinking. Our guy is still doing both, and seems to enjoy both. He doesn’t randomly vocalize or cry or yowl. He’ll protest a bit when I shift him from spot to spot when changing towels, but that’s all.

Any help / thoughts / guidance / advice would be very much appreciate. And if anyone here can recommend a neurology clinic or hospital or other facility that treats cats without RAPING US FINANCIALLY that would be wonderful, because my God has this been frustrating. These people want upwards of 4k for an MRI. It’s positively unreal.

Thank you.

My 10 week beagle pup Kiwi was diagnosed with strangles. She was put on Clavamox and prednisone. I saw a lot of improvement fairly quickly with the swelling and now she is drinking again and is playful and no longer lethargic. My question is regarding the length of the prednisone treatment. She is on 5mg twice a day for 3 days and then 2.5 twice a day for 3 days and then 2.5 once a day for 4 days. I had never heard of this before she became sick and so I have been doing a lot of reading. Everything I have seen so far suggests a much longer course of steroid therapy. I am somewhat uncomfortable about beginning the taper so soon as she still has some swelling on the face and lymph nodes. Should the dosage remain the same until symptoms resolve and then begin to taper?

My rescue dog Copper he is amazing, protective and overall a huge part of my familys life. He looks like he has dachshund in hin the length reminds me. Recently we started seeing a limp in his back left leg. He has not been hurt at all. I thought maybe a sprain from playing he does get wild with the neighbors bigger pup. So we gradually notice it getting worse over the week hes limping and the muscle has all gone. I have been walking him maybe gain some back he wont even put pressure on his back leg. Its been a couple weeks and we come home and there is blood comong from his genital when the part comes out. It seems as if he has no control o er it anymore. My heart is hurting and i dont want to put him down he is only 2 years old but he seems missreable. He does not speak it (cry) but the look in his eyes tells me everything i need to know. I do not have the money now to go to vet and pay 1,000 tell i get a new job. Please anyone if you have been through anything similar or any home remedies to ease him.

I think my dog has IVDD, she is in pain in her neck and when she walks she keeps her head down and her neck muscles are twitching, i would like to know what to do in this situation to give her relief what medicine are safe for her, specially in my situation and where i live. i couldn’t afford it.

** cat who is veracious around feeding time help**

Hello! I have 3 cats that are patients there. I have had 2 cats, Blink and Havoc for about 5 years now. They are biological brothers. They have always shared everything and we never really had any problems with food or their weight.

About 2 months ago, we adopted a blind cat, Gemma who is about a year old. Her foster said that she would free feed her at her house and that she never really had any aggression with food. I’m not sure what happened because once we adopted her and brought her back here, she has became very veracious with her food. Our solution now is to feed her the dry food in a separate room (we feed her according to the package instructions) because if we do not, she will race through eating her food so she can start trying to eat the boys food as well.

With wet food, I monitor them and am constantly shooing her away so the boys can finish their food as she always inhales her food super quickly.

When we separate her, she will cry until we open the door and then she comes running full speed to the food bowl.

I’ve never really seen anything like it! She is so sweet and other than that there really is no issues I’m just looking for advice if there is anything I can do to make feeding time not so chaotic.

I want her to feel secure that she will always be fed but I can’t leave food out because I don’t want my other cats to eat hers.

I guess my question is, is this a behavior that can be changed or do we just work with it the way we are now? She seems to have a lot of anxiety around food and I’m sure being blind doesn’t help so I wasn’t sure what else we can do.

Thank you!

Suspected IVDD: my 14 yr old Jack Russell has been experiencing some severe what looks to be muscle spasms. Took her into the vet and was told she may have joint pain or a neurological nerve pain. They sent me home with pain meds gabapentin, anti inflammatory carprofen and vitamin antinol to see if she got better. It was four days and she didn’t really seem to get better.

Then she seemed like she was developing some sort of serve cough. Took her back to the vet and they said she has some bacterial respiratory infection (also took X-rays) but I suspected kennel cough which they could not tell me 100% for sure, so was sent home with antibiotics. She is up on her vaccines and the only place she has been is at the vet because we don’t have any other dogs around us at home and haven’t been taking her for any walks due to her pain.

It’s been 5 days now and the cough is getting better. However, she is having muscle flares up everyday, multiple times a day. She is panting a lot and seems to be in a lot of pain. The meds don’t seem to be helping a whole lot.

She can still walk but is wobbly. Her legs tremble. I can see her legs are very stiff. Her back looks a little raised. She is still going to the bathroom on her own, but is wobbly.

I’ve put some paw grips on her feet since we have tile floors and some more rugs around the house. I’ve also tried to give her messages which she sometimes allowed me but she’s a Jack Russell and they have their own kind of personality.

What should I do? Any advice? I hate seeing her in so much pain.

About seventeen days ago,our cat was bitten by another cat,she wasn’t treating as the same so we brought her to visit doctor the next day,
She had fever and had stopped eating,
They started antibiotics,we had vaccinated her about two months ago,so they decided that vaccination is not necessary,
After seven days she started to get worse,
And now we found an abscess in her waist,so they drained it and start another antibiotics and started cleaning the abscess with iodide and h2o2 3 percent,
She seemed to be better after two days,but stopped and again started getting worse so she doesn’t eat and hides from us ,we saw that while cleaning and washing the abscess area under the skin, is getting bigger,an right now after 10 days she is getting worse and worse,can you please give us some directions,please help her,she is in a very dangerous situation and our vet don’t know what to do،

-EMERGENCY-

Hello Everyone,

I very much need help. To preface this I am located in Los Angeles. On August 18-20 I noticed my cat’s behavior change. He started peeing outside his box, and was irritable. When I noticed glitter in his urine and I white pus material I knew from past experience that he had a UTI.
We took him into the vet and set up a urinalysis. While getting the urine sample his litter box behavior’s was erratic. But no more crystals, and I never saw any blood. And he was always able to go to the bathroom.

This past Saturday (9th) I noticed very early in the morning he was going to the box and nothing was happening. He did it twice in a few hours. He also started licking his private areas. I knew from past experience he was likely he was blocked. My mom is a vet in another state so I was able to bring my concerns to her.
We both agreed I needed to be on our vet’s doorstep that morning when they opened.

Long painful story short I took him in and we determined he was blocked. After going through all the options with the vet and his cat dad we were barely able to afford unblocking him. We waited that day hoping they would call us with good news. SO SO HAPPY! He got unblocked and I was able to come get him and bring him home.

They gave us both pain meds and doses for his crystals, every 12 hours and he got them consistently. We switched to only wet food back at the first vet visit. And since the Sat visit he has only gotten prescript for urinary cats (Royal Canine/Hills)

He was fine for a few days, peeing and pooping normally. I was monitoring everything. Then yesterday morning he stopped going to the bathroom again. All day yesterday, nothing.
We waited all day yesterday. His belly is bloated and he’s getting irritable again. He is off the pain meds now, but still mostly laying around.

This time around he doesn’t even try to go to the bathroom. And he has started licking himself again. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to be in pain. He is eating normally.

We could barely afford to have him unblocked the first time, this past Sat. Applying to Carecredit and Fetch both yielded no results. My roommate and I are trying to figure out a way to have him unblocked again. But with the strike and everything things are just so limited. I don’t want to loose him because we can’t afford to help him.

I have reached out to multiple charities and called so many vets. It’s all taking too long, and we know that it will escalate fast. I’m going to call the vet today and see if maybe we can at least drain the urine. Ideally, we can get him drained and I know there’s a procedure they basically snip the end so it won’t happen over and over.

We can we do?!! Please help!! Call me directly, I don’t even care. I just want to help him 619 931 3747

I have included a picture of our dear boy, he’s 7 and 6 months..so almost a senior. This is his first UTI bout. His name is Jerry, and he’s wonderful.

I have three dogs. One of my dogs, Angel a husky , jumped over my other dog Adonis, and missed so he landed on him. Ever since, he has been lethargic and he does have hip displasia as he is a pure breed Akita Inu.

Well we went in Friday September 1st to an emergency vet near us at around 5 or 6 pm with Adonis presenting limping and being lethargic and acting not like his normal self. After 30 minutes or so of waiting a technician came out and spoke to us saying how Adonis was very reactive when trying to examine him and asked if they could give him pain killers to soothe him and further inspect him. I told them verbally that they needed to put a muzzle on him because I know how he gets when you touch his legs and poke at him, after the tech came to talk to us we waited a total of 4 hours until they finally grabbed us and told us they thought it was his front paw because it looked “swollen” so they gave us an anti inflammatory and pain killer pills. When adonis was brought in he was able to walk but barely and when they handed him back to us he was unable to stand or walk or lift his head, once we got the paperwork, we were aware that pain killers were not given but he was given a sedative instead and no further examination was made after sedative was given as quote “we are very busy in the back”

Saturday September 2nd all day and Sunday September 3rd morning and part of the afternoon we were at the house watching over him trying to accommodate him as much as we could, we called the emergency vet place to ask for advice on how to relive Adonis since he had not been able to stand up since they gave him back to us Friday September 1st at 11pm and had been holding in his pee and poop.

Sunday September 3rd around 7 we took him back to the vet since they suggested they couldn’t give us advice since they didn’t know exactly what was wrong with him and were confused as to why he couldn’t walk, upon arrival to the vet they took him in on a gurney, and we were seated in an examination room. A tech came in and said to give them a few minutes to examine him, 20 minutes later the doctor came in to tell us she thought now the problem was a disk on his neck and suggested surgery or putting him down but leaned more towards putting him down because he is such a large dog. I asked for an x ray or an MRI but both were denied due to his size (130 lbs). The doctors only recommendation is to put him down and because of his large size nothing else was done and they further prescribed muscle relaxants. This visit lasted 40 minutes at most with very little options on how to further help Adonis.

Please help me understand what is going on and if putting him down is really the option or if this vet is being unethical or not doing enough for my dog. I just want to understand my options and how I can move going forward.

Please respond fast I am not sure how long he hasMy cat pepper is a 2 and half year old male nurtured cat I am a 13 year old that tries his best to take care of him recently found out about his uti and don’t know what to do took him to a vet where we’re giving a bill of 500 dollars and pain killers for the cat we could also let him stay at the vet for 3k but our family can’t afford that and I don’t know how to help me cat if I ever loose him I will not be able to handle it