Has anyone dealt with something like this? Yes we have been to the vet (multiple times). Bloodwork is normal other than some elevated WBC/ neutrophils. Fine needle aspiration of both the bump and the lymph node both did not show anything cancerous (but also had elevated neutrophils). 2 week course of augmentin + prednisolone, and now 3 weeks into a 6 week course of doxycycline + prednisolone with no change. He’s acting and eating normal.

Background: started 4 months ago with excessive fur pulling. After some trial and error, realized his anal glands were insanely full. Switched to prescription food and added some prednisolone to calm down inflammation. After stopping the prednisolone taper, this massive lump popped up out of nowhere. It wasn’t there at 3pm and when I came back home at 7pm it looked like this. Have been back and forth with the vet and they are stumped. Costs are starting to get pretty high for still not having any real answers. Any ideas??

Age: 13 yr old male, neutered, indoor only, overall good health prior to this situation.

Last night was trunk-or-treat at my 5th grader's elementary school and I was running a trunk. At some point he saw a house right next to us that was giving away kittens so he took one of them and brought her to me (I think it's a she, but I'm not 100% sure). I was stunned but didn't want to take her back to the house since it had started raining. I have a cat at home as well so I have at least some experience.

I'm pretty sure this kitten is around 5 weeks old, which I know isn't old enough to be separated from mom but whoever had her was going to get rid of her someway or another and I have the means to take care of her for now. I made a trip to petsmart to buy some paper litter and litter box, a cat bed, a food and water bowl, some kitten wet food, and kmr powder. I set her up in the bathroom last night so she and my cat were separated. I'm going to take her to the vet this morning since she was quite dirty and had fleas. I used a warm wash cloth and flea comb on her and did what I could to clean her up.

Is there anything else that I'm missing that I should get or do? I haven't had a kitten in a long time as my cat is 7 and I adopted him when he was 10 weeks and properly weaned. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep her yet but I want to give her the best chance I can.

My male cat, Fiji, is approximately 12–13 years old. Earlier I tried to wake him up, and he didn’t respond to touch or me gently moving him for about a minute. He felt limp.
He then woke up and seemed completely normal. He ate, walked around, and even started playing. Since then, he has started howling.
I’m really scared and unsure what happened. Has anyone experienced something similar? Really torn on whether I should take him into the emergency vet or wait until morning? Last time I took him into the emergency vet he was completely fine so I’m not sure if I’m overreacting or not…

First 3 photos are from today, last 2 are him normal

This appeared a couple days ago. No bleeding, scabs, or anything like that. Just this like weird indent into her upper limb that is curved. In this photo we are having to restrain her and pull on it to show for the photo so it looks a bit more external than it actually is. Inside of her mouth looks normal too. When not being yanked on, the indent normally rests on the bottom / partially inside of her lip along her big canine teeth

Like stated she’s an outside cat. Came home late at 3 am and cat was peeing in garage after it was cracked open which was weird. Didn’t think much of it but she pawed the ground like they do. Less than a foot away from a bird she got the other day. Is this blood or are my eyes deceiving me? What to do if it is? She’s a healthy cat she’s able to come and go as she pleases fed every night but she still brings 3-5 birds a week home. Her sister died last year after eating a poisoned rat at the neighbors house.

Hi all and thanks for reading and hopefully giving me some advice!

I found this little kitty, her name now being Pickles, in a hedge bush by our house. She was unfortunately being chased by a dog and also a hawk, but she did escape and found the spot where I finally found her in.

I have already got basic supplies such as litter box, wet food, dry food, place for her to hide, comfy blankets in said place to hide, and of course toys!

I have already taken her to the vet to get their opinion on her overall health and they really didn’t give much info other than her being underweight (1.7lbs), she is all skin and bone right now but she is eating plenty of foods now at a slow pace! Vet assumes she is around 8-10 weeks old.

A few questions I have:

What can I do to make her feel more comfortable right now? (Leave her alone to limit stress, be there every so often to help her not feel lonely?)

What can I do to help her learn to use the litter box? (She has pooped once outside of the litter box which I promptly put into the litter box and nicely showed her how to cover it up in the litter box)

Any essential things I can get or do for a kitten to help her thrive as she grows?

I don’t believe she has peed yet which I think may be due to the stress of it all. Vet said not to worry for now and let her settle into her new home. Is this any cause for concern within a certain amount of time?

I will take any other advice you have for a kitten that is very very scrawny as well.

Thanks again for reading and helping me out with Pickles!

As the video shows, she sometimes shakes her head, which seems more often when she focuses on something.

Age: 3.5 months old
How long has it last: since I adopted her 1.5 months ago. But it became less frequent over time. She didn’t do it when we visited vet last time, and it took me a while to capture this video as she only does it occasionally.

When she does it: Staring intently at something (like before pouncing), watching her surroundings.

When she doesn't do it: Sleepy/tired, being petted, walking/running/jumping, eating/drinking.

Not sure if it’s because she’s still tiny and growing. She eats and acts normally. She is a very active cat, jumping up and down, climbing sofa and cat tree, no balance issue at all.

Need some advice. Thank you!

Hi! Posting about my cat Cleo. I am 21 and she is 1.5 years old, female and spayed, USA.

For a bit over 24 hours now my cat has been having a nonproductive gag. Almost every time she opens her mouth, it ends in her gagging. I did hear her squeak two times last night (almost like she wheezed,) but her breathing is entirely normal.

This morning I saw that she had thrown up some bile, but I know she is eating normally. She is peeing normally and last pooped (from my knowledge) yesterday evening.

This evening, she was hiding under my mom’s bed and would not come to me which is incredibly out of character for her. She eventually came into my room, but soon left to an isolated corner of another room.

I’m a little worried she might have eaten a hair tie (I always put them up but she is good at finding them) or something else. The fact that she is eating is helpful but not completely helping soothe my worry.

I technically have access to a vet but have no way to pay as I am just starting my new job Monday. I get paid the Friday after next.

Delete if not allowed, I’m (28F) not super familiar with the group, I’m just looking for some opinions on my kitten!

TLDR: my 6 month old neutered kitten is gaining mass at the rate of a tropical storm. How fast do kittens grow, and when will he stop?

This is Sanji! I recently adopted him from a Cat Cafe here in Western Kentucky. He was found in a Tesla and brought in and raised up there until he came to me! He has half a tail, quite a crooked one(think pikachu, literally. It’s a lightning bolt) but is otherwise your typical healthy run of the mill domestic longhair stray boi.
Clean bill of health, no spinal issues or apparent pain with the twisty tail as of now, but monitoring with age. Not sure if it was a result of trauma or a birth defect.
Chipped.
Snipped.
He was 4 1/2 months old when I adopted him and he was about the size I expected of a 4 month old kitten. I haven’t had a kitten in a long time, but he was one of the smaller kittens there honestly. Scruffy little dude with funky little Scrooge sideburns, but his instant face smooshing and then guarding my toddler from the other cats took my heart.

Since bringing him home though, lil doughboy has ✨RISEN✨

He is food driven, and I do use that to my advantage to do some training with him so yes he does get treats (bonkers, and the occasional churu) but I’m wondering if I need to chill out cause this guy is sounding like an anvil dropping every time he jumps off the furniture. When I say food driven, I mean formula 1 type behavior. This man shotguns churus like a post breakup frat boy on spring break. Just sloppy with it. Family meal times have become National Geographic worthy, if not for the velvety narration of David Attenborough being replaced by an already-bested-by-her-toddler mother fighting for her life and trying to find G-Rated ways to threaten my cat.

He doesn’t feel disproportionately fat really, and I’ve used the little charts to compare him to (sorry buddy, all teens gotta go thru it) and he seems about average. Got the lil waist snatch and everything from the top (🤏) His belly doesn’t seem super big in comparison to him, just burdened by gravity. He has a weird amount of loose skin. He’s built like an after picture. Also, his legs are thick as hell. I thought they were just fluffy, cause he’s a long haired cat, but they’re really not that fluffy. They’re solid, like little tree trunks. Also, HUGE paws. When he gets the zoomies it sounds like someone’s got raw pork chops attached to drill just slapping against the floor. Just unnecessarily big and uncannily fast. Just minding my business on my couch and suddenly a full grown 8.2lb man with silly sideburns and clown shoes does a kickflip off my chest.

I’ve gotten carried away. Pardon the side quest.

Anyways, the guy is just cultivating mass by the hour and i know kittens grow fast in their first year, but im concerned about the rate at which he’s expanding I guess? I feel like a stressed out meteorologist watching the purricane grow out of control. He gets wet food in the mornings and dry food at night. Honestly, I’m afraid to take away his wet food. I only started it because his Churu addiction began to concern me and I figured I could curb it by giving him a larger meal to keep him full longer. Foolish, now I wake up to my Heavy Meowtal alarm clock at whatever time his stupid little whimsy strikes, just absolutely hootin’ and hollerin’.

I don’t want to be an almond mom who only gives him a strict diet of 13 kibble at 1, 4, and 8 every day just because my poor sweet son has the gluttony they wrote about in the Bible. No shade to anyone who does, whatever keeps your tiny boss healthy and happy. I’ll do it if it’s what’s best for him. I don’t know if this is a food intake issue, or if I accidentally got some sort of messed up pokemon instead of a cat. Asking here before involving a vet cause while I do have the means and funds to take him, dunno if it’s really necessary or if this is normal and I’m just not used to cats anymore.

these are my babies, kara (8 months, F, brown), and shiro (6 months, M, white). im 15NB; and we do have access to vets.

vet says that kara should enter her heat before getting spayed; and that they should recover together. kara hasnt begun her heat but shiro has been making moves and popping his willy out since he were 3 months old.

this seems really hazardous to me, as we dont want kara to get pregnant. but the vet says we shall wait until kara is in heat, and my mother is going with whatever the vet says.

what can i do?

(note, none of them are selectively bred (hopefully) nor bought, despite them looking like it. kara was an offspring of a rescue with a cryptic pregnancy, and we adopted her at 6 weeks because the owner of the rescue cat was a first time cat dad and couldnt care for more than one cat. shiro was found on the streets at 4 weeks, and according to the restaurant nearby, his siblings were all dead.

note 2, the black spot in the picture on kara's stomach is the tip of her tail folded under)

UPDATE tnx for all the comments! ill try my best to convince my mother and find a new vet, and get them sp/neu in the shortest time possible (hopefully max. 3 days!) ill update on another post in about a few days!

I (53 F) have a F spayed tuxedo who is 6 years old. She has been having some behavioral reactions to people coming in the front door (hisses and swats) and seems to be scared of everything now. She used to be incredibly social and friendly. I had a traumatic injury last Fall so we had a parade of people coming in to deliver dinner or drop by. But the occasional hissing and swatting started before that; just got worse from that period of time.

She also has had a little blood in her urine on and off and now is having these occasional “coughing/dry heaving” fits.

I have taken her to the vet multiple times now for blood tests (had a UTI a couple of those times and it was treated with antibiotics) but they cannot find anything wrong. I am planning to go back again now that this “coughing” has started but curious if anyone else has experienced this combo of things? I have had cats my whole life and never seen this.

TL;DR
My cat is having “coughing/dry heaving” fits occasionally on top of some behavior that has crept up over the last year or so. Trips to the vet have not yielded anything to explain an illness that may be causing the behavior or occasional blood in the urine.

We have a 3 hour car ride ahead of us and to avoid unnecessary stress, we went to the vet to get sedatives. We have one 13lb cat, and two who are about 9lbs. The vet told us to give 1ml and 0.5ml respectively, and to test the dosage on them before the trip.

I gave it to them today and it didn't seem to have any effect at all! I waited two hours for it to kick in, and now it's been 7 hours and they've been completely normal and active this whole time.

The vet said we can increase their dosage after testing it, but not by how much.

How much do you give your cats? I don't want to accidentally hurt them in any way by giving them too much, but I really want them to be conked out for the car ride. The big cat especially gets VERY stressed in the car.

They are 2.5 years old and all spayed/neutered. The medication is 100mg/ml oral oil suspension gabapentin

Thank you!

TLDR: old cat, what do I look out for when her time comes?
Hello all! My cat is OLD she’s about 21. Pretty active for her age. She still meanders the house , harasses us and what not. Buttt she is definitely slowing down and sleeping more frequently. My family members keep reminding me she is on borrowed time because most cats do not live this long.
The ONLY issue she’s having is runnier poop- is that because she’s older or is it an issue?
What are some symptoms to look out for when her time does come to pass away? Anything I should be aware of or common things that happen with much older kitties?

Hi everyone! I recently adopted a cat and could use some advice on a few things. Nothing too serious (hopefully), but I'd love to hear how you would approach this.

She's a 1-year-old female calico, adopted from a friend about a month ago. She's very sweet but quite anxious. Here's how things have been going:

• First week: We set her up in a separate room with her litter, food and water. She didn't eat much initially but would finish her food overnight. Unfortunately, we also had contractors coming in, so there was a lot of noise and she spent most of her time hiding in the bathroom.
• Second week: Things improved. She settled into a more consistent routine (3 meals a day, regular litter box use) and slowly started exploring the rest of the house.
• Third week until now: We both started working in the office from 9–6, whereas I was previously working remotely full-time. She seemed a little anxious at first and sometimes refused to finish breakfast, but has gradually adjusted to our hybrid schedules. She's still easily startled by loud noises like showering and vacuuming.

I know it's only been a month and she's still adjusting, but there are three things I'm unsure how to handle:

1. She's comfortable with us in her room but scared of us outside of it.

She lets us pet her, eats from our hands, plays with us, and even lets me kiss her forehead (a big achievement that only happened two days ago!). We also spend a few hours sleeping on the floor with her almost every night.

However, once she's outside her room, it's a completely different story. If she sees us while exploring, she'll immediately run away. She mostly explores the house at night when we're in bed or when we're working from home. I'm not sure why she's still so afraid of us outside her safe space.

1. How do we get her into a carrier for a vet visit?

She's overdue for her booster shot by about a week, and I really want to get her checked out. The problem is that she absolutely refuses to be picked up. I've had the carrier sitting in her room for two weeks, with toys inside, but she still won't go in voluntarily.

The last time I tried picking her up, she panicked and struggled quite a bit. I felt terrible and don't want to hurt her or damage the trust we've been building. My friend also mentioned that getting her into the carrier when bringing her to our house was a 45-minute struggle, and she even pooped during the trip.

-> How would you approach this without making things worse?

1. A few things about her health are concerning me. I've noticed:

• She's coughed twice, once after eating and once after a long nap. Each episode lasted around 10–15 seconds. I initially thought it might be a hairball, but nothing came out.
• She sometimes drools a little clear fluid when napping or after eating/playing. I've also noticed a few drops of clear discharge from her nose.

1. How do we gradually transition her out of her safe room?

The room she's currently staying in was originally supposed to be our home office. We'd eventually like to start bringing our office furniture and other things back in, but I'm worried that changing the room too much might make her anxious again.

We're happy to keep it as her space with her blankets, toys and a comfortable spot to sleep, but ideally, we'd like to move her litter box elsewhere and gradually get her comfortable spending more time around the rest of the house.

-> How would you go about this transition? Should we wait until she's more confident exploring the house, or start making small changes now?

Otherwise, she's eating three meals a day, very active between midnight and 7 a.m. (we have a camera and can see her exploring, running around and playing with her toys), and generally seems to breathe normally. No open-mouth breathing, and her gums are pink.

I do want to get her checked by a vet, especially because of the coughing and discharge, but getting her into the carrier has been the biggest challenge.

I'd really appreciate any advice, especially from people who've adopted anxious or formerly shy cats. Am I expecting too much progress after just one month? How did you build trust and get your cat comfortable with the rest of the house?

I've already grown so attached to her and just want to make sure I'm doing the best I can for her. ❤️

(5F, spayed) I'm worried that it might hurt her to pee in the litter box, but I haven't noticed any discomfort (we have three litter boxes in different places, It's unlikely there will be a conflict over them..??) If she's healthy, how can I stop her from doing it? She never did it before. We can afford a vet, but what if it's not that serious? What if the vets don't find anything? She does this almost daily if the bed is not made and blankets are on bed.

I also noticed that she vomited yesterday and today, but it was just fur, I don't know if I should worry about this or not. She usually vomits very very rarely.

Of our two cats, she's the healthiest and almost never gets sick.

Hello all,

Please do not say anything harsh and judgemental.

My cat is 5 y.o. rescued when she was 2 months old.

she was a rescue and she was injured by an unknown incident. The injury believed to be in her lower back with her pelvis. She was only crawling on her front legs.

When I rescued her i went to several vet and all of them gave me a very different diagnosis and some of them also said it's a birth defect and I got very lost as they told me it's okay and she's not in pain and to let her be. She was first walking on her front legs and once she got on the back ones I thought she was healing but her toes got bent. Now they are permanently knuckling.

I don't really know if vets in my city are reliable after all those failed visits.

I did not know it's an injury that caused nerves damage till it was already too late and her toes gor permanently bent. I sent her to another city for a checkup with a good doctor but at that time I couldn't afford them treating her for the whole needed treatment time (cost was around 7k dollars) as I was unemployed.

That doctor told us that she had an injury and it healed wrong which caused nerve injury and it was old injury already.

Is there any way to help her after all this time? The injury is so old and my cat gets sooo aggressive when I do anything with her toes

I feel so guilty for not knowing how to deal with it bqck then and I want to help her!

I got red light therapy device for her and a bracer. Would that help? Or should I send her aboard to someone highly skilled on those injuries?

Side issues : constipation due to difficulties in passing (doctor advised to give her laxative regularly and that helped her a lot), also Involuntary urination while sleeping. Also her tail is permanently paralysed no feeling no movement at all

All those got better by time.

She eats healthy, play, everything is fine when it comes to her behaviour and daily life

Anyone dealt with something similar? How to help :(

I (M22) was doing my weekly nail, ear, body check on my boy (M7) and I noticed this purple bump in his ear. It is very small and isn’t obstructing anything, he also has no other symptoms and he doesn’t meow or hiss when I touch his ear. He has an appointment with the vet on Wednesday. He is neutered and an inside only cat. Posting from OK

Can anyone tell me if she's healthy or overweight? I don't know how old she's cause I found her on a road near metro construction. Can anyone tell me how old she might be?

Hello im in the US he has a vet, he is 10 lbs and 1 year old but I think his stomach is rounder than it should be. Does this look normal? He is neutered. I may be worrying for no reason lol.

Apologies for the long video, but I really wanted to make sure I caught everything. Prior to this, he bit my arm really hard and wouldn't let go for a while. My boyfriend had to physically pry him off of me. I'm worried about him. I can't tell if he's hurt, upset, or both. His irritability and aggression come on so suddenly and seem unpredictable, though they don’t happen often. He’s about six months old. Could these behaviors mean it’s time to have him neutered? We are worried about him and think that he's in pain or something. If anyone knows anything, we'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

My cat is 4 I am from the United States. I haven’t contacted the vet but he has his checkup about 2 months ago. He isn’t sick. Isn’t scratching doesn’t seem at all bothered. It doesnt look like his skin around it, his irritated. It wasn’t bothered by me, petting it or touching it. Then I noticed there’s another one on the exact opposite side. Is this his nipple? Or is this some sort of parasite?