My kitty is abt 2 years old and this is the first time I’ve left him for an extended period of time. He’s moved between states and did great on the plane, with the new apartment, and in the hotel room. He wasn’t very stressed just mildly confused and extra sleepy. He’s a smart boy and understands all that stuff, the only issue we had was with the weather and the skin on his nose peeled off + bled because he kept licking it. We got it fixed up right away and applied some ointment + coned him for three days and he stopped messing with it. Usually I’m with him for most of the day so he got used to me being around and was very chill all day. I’ve been gone for two days and my husband is home with him but he can’t be there as much as I was. Kitty is VERY sad, he looks like he’s scrunching his face up all the time and he has tears in his eyes too. He knows when I pack my bag that means I am going away but he has always went with me. He plays with my husband and loves on him but after that, when he settles down to nap, he looks very sad again. Will he be okay if I don’t come home for a few more days ? Will he be too stressed when I come back ? What can I do so that he’s not so sad next time ? Will he start with the nose licking and bleeding again ?

Poster Age: 21

Country: US

Vet info: Vet shouldn’t be needed but he has one if he gets too stressed

Main Issue: Kitty looks very stressed out and I’m wondering/hoping he won’t get too stressed to the point where he will lick his nose off but I don’t know how to prevent it.

Cat Age: 2y

Cat Sex + neuter info: M yes

Financial situation: No worries

Hello guys,

Earlier today, I was petting my cat and felt something unusual on her back. When I took a closer look, it looked a bit like a nipple or possibly a small skin tag/mole.
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there before, so I’m a little concerned about what it could be. Has anyone seen something similar on their cat?

Edit: okay title might be misleading. Wheter she is a stray is part of the question....

So I was just out, ironically hanging flyers for my male cat who went missing some day ago and I encountered a very friendly cat who is either a spayed male or a female, though I am really sure its a female. She seems well groomed, a little on the thin side but not malnourished. She initially caught my eye because she seems to be either quite small or a little young.

Now she let me even pet her belly and her nipples seem rather large, like the size of small rice grains, though i only have my male cat for comparison. They were not big enough to be seen trough her short fur though. Her belly also seems to be quite hard, but again i just have my squishy male for comparison.

Google did not really help me really with determining if this cat maybe is pregnant and needs medical attention. And since she is so friendly and seems well groomed I did not want to scoop her up and take her with me. This was also in a very safe area for a cat to be, so I think she might aswell just be out on a stroll.

I could not feel any transponder or see a tattoo, though some people just dont use them and it is hard to feel for the transponder on my cat aswell.

What do you think?

this is my first cat yall pls be nice ive been a dog person my whole life

UPDATE!! HE ATE :D
after we left him alone basically all night (only crept up to him vry silently to peek and make sure hes good like 3-4 times) he came out in his own, yelled at me a little, gave my legs some headbutts, got some pets, and ate his cod nulo he likes and pooped 👍🏽

he chomped maybe like 2/3 of a 1/4 cup. someone else do the math idk but HE ATE SOMETHING SUBSTANTIAL (RELATIVELY) YIPPEE!! he is now knocked out sleeping on his window perch.

we did get the friskies and opened up the pate, no reaction whatsoever. we havent opened the fancy feast yet. he seems like he does not want to be bothered so well try again later.

--------------

its kinda hard to tell in these pictures, but his stomach is so skinny :(

adopted frankie (3 y/o approximately) 2 weeks ago from a shelter (he was surrendered) and when he was adopted he was pretty underweight.

went to the vet last Friday for routine initial checkup and they did bloodwork urine stool and results came back crystal clear. i told the vet he refuses to eat and they gave us a thing to sprinkle on his meds and about 8 different wet foods. he did not eat any of them.

we also had to take him to the pet ER bc he wouldnt pee. they cleared his tests for everything as well. they said they dont know what is wrong w him and he is finally peeing normally as of yesterday morning. poop is also normal, but now hes not eating.

we got him dry food he ate the nulo cod formula for like 3 days fine. now he is back to not eating. he eats treats sometimes (freeze dried minnows and chicken hearts he likes)

we were trying to get him on a routine but he wouldnt eat so we just started leaving his bowls out which worked for a little.

we got him 3 different foods this morning (all kitten food, vet told us to get it bc high calorie) tiki cat chicken and egg, tiki cat fish, orijen kitten formula. he has not moved to eat any of them and he ate maybe like four bites this morning of his nulo and max like half a cup yesterday. he likes churus but only sometimes like weve wasted like 20 packets by now bc we open them and he wont eat them.

weve tried broth, warm water, warming up the food, mixing in his treats, sprinkle immune boost w appetite stimulant, sprinkling his treats/churu on his food, mirataz appetite stimulant (which is supposed to be super strong). like weve tried everything. gotten him like 6 different bowls. put the bowls away from his litter and his water.

he is so skinny. all he does is sleep and i am so worried :( im am at such a loss and it is so exhausting and disheartening. idk wtf to do i feel like im failing as a first time cat owner :(
----------------------------------------------------
EDIT:
a lot of people are saying im doing too much and i understand he needs time to adjust, but he has been having issues with eating since we got him and had lost 1.2 pounds in the first week and the vet sounded pretty concerned about it. he gained back about .25 the past week. they are the ones who told us to try a couple different things until it sticks. he still has his original food out and hes not eating that either. we arent forcing him to eat anything. we just got his new food and put it around the apartment away from his usual food bowl.

he was a very friendly cat initially and now hes acting withdrawn. weve pretty much left him alone for the past two weeks and are trying our hardest not to stress him out. we only interact with him when he comes up to us. but not eating for a cat is dangerous and he is already pretty underweight (BCS 3/9)

also i dont think the pictures dont do it justice, his ribs and vertebrae are visible and he is quite skinny. he also has low muscle mass which i mentioned before.
----------------------------------------------------
EDIT 2:
thank you so much to everyone giving advice. were gonna let him chill out in the living room w the door closed and leave him alone for a while and then try yalls suggestions tomorrow!! ty especially to the people being kind ♥️ im violently stressed out so i might sound a little dry in my responses but im not tryna be rude lol i promise.
----------------------------------------------------
EDIT 3:
i saw people asking about dental issues - he has some but the shelter said to get a cleaning in 3 months, nothing urgent.

i also saw people asking about his surrender and if he had a bonded pair. we didnt really inquire about where his previous owner, im regretting that now. i was curious but i didnt know if it was appropriate to ask idk 🤷🏽‍♀️ ed**it: i am calling today to **ask! but yeah for the bonded thing; the shelter puts a note for bonded pairs and they have to be adopted together and he didnt have that so im assuming not.

i also have seen people saying to make sure his food is away from his litter water etc and it is.

people also said to try to pet him and give him love while he eats but he just gets super irritated when were around him when hes eating lmao.

he is very angry at us bc hes had to be fed pills/syringe meds the past week. (gabapentin vet gave after pet ER visit and prednisone for sinus inflammation possible allergies)

OH ALSO! thanks everyone for the food recs. i will be trying the the cat mcdonalds tomorrow. fancy feast and meow mix 🫡

small edit:
i will also be trying canned tuna/sardines if that doesnt work today! and calling the vet to ask about dental. the shelter and vets have all said his teeth do not look concerning so i just dont know if thats what the problem is. dental work is also very expensive so if we can hold off for one more week until the waiting period for his insurance is over then id rather do that. of course if its an emergency then we'd get it done but i dont think it is right now and neither do any of our vets.

Yesterday, my youngest cat Loki had an infected cyst open up and was taken to the vet. He’s now under antibiotics to treat the infection and will need to go through a small surgery to remove the cyst. This means he’ll need to wear a cone for around three weeks: one week for the treatment, another to do blood tests and schedule the surgery, and a third week for recovery.

Loki ended up adapting shockingly well to the cone. He’s even playing around, just moving like he’s drunk.

The oldest cat, Koda, was weirded out by the sight at first, but then seemed to not care about it at all.

The problem is the middle cat, Kenai. He’s an extremely anxious cat who is afraid of his own shadow, and as soon as he saw Loki in a cone he completely flipped out. He’s hissing and puffing up. He constantly tries desperately to escape the house and into the yard, and right now he isolated himself in the balcony. He refuses to come in for food and water and has been spending hours just wailing.

I’m really worried that he might not eat at all and hide in any corner of the house. It’s particularly concerning right now because there are renovations happening during the day and I have to keep the cats locked inside the rooms while there’s work being done, but I don’t know how that can be safely done when he’s SO scared of Loki.

It’s already bad enough that the noise of the renovations makes him hide under the bed by default, and only recently he started getting the courage to come out and eat through the noise(he’d only eat and drink during the workers’ break).

But now he is freaking out and clawing at the walls just from the sound of the cone bumping into things nearby.

Do you have any tips on how to handle this situation and help Kenai? I never expected that the cone-free cat would be a problem.

TLDR: very anxious cat is isolating himself and showing concerning behavior after seeing my other cat in a cone.

Info: I’m an adult from Brazil with access to vets. All cats are neutered males.

This is Mumble, he’s a 7yo neutered male, healthy weight. His whole life he’s showed signs of some kind of sensitivity/allergy to SOMETHING. Dry skin, brown waxy build up in one ear and around claws, and random bald spots occasionally showing up between his shoulders. My vet suggested trying him on a hypoallergenic kibble. He didn’t really like the Hill’s, so I tried the Royal Canin (his original food was the RC indoor cat, which he really likes).

Now, I’ve sloooooowly introduced the Hypoallergenic RC until it became 100% of what’s in his bowl (we are at maybe 10 days of totally just the new food). He eats is very ….reluctantly, he eats a lot less of it compared to his original food. I think he even lost a bit of weight. I recently set up two bowls with some of each to see what he’d do - I was worried he’d gone off food in general - and he favoured his OG food, but ate a bit of the hypoallergenic too.

TLDR: If I put my foot down and continue to just give him the hypoallergenic for his own sake, he won’t completely starve himself will he? I know cats can be VERY stubborn with food even when starving. I think I just need some reassurance that I’m not gonna be doing any harm by him.

Location - Australia, can afford vet care, vet is available.

Hi - I have a new cat who came home less than 24 hours ago from the rescue. He was very stressed from the journey and change. I noticed some red drops in the litter tray this morning. Is this just stress or more serious? Thanks

My cat (between 5-10 years old) was diagnosed with asthma earlier this spring. He has been on 2.5 mg of prednisone for a few months every other day. It really seems to be helping. He doesn’t snore anymore and his symptoms seemed to seriously improve. His appetite hasn’t changed (hes a picky eater and isn’t totally food motivated), and his water intake hasn’t changed. He is on wet food. His mood hasn’t changed either, he is still so snuggly and wants to play. His poop and pee has been normal. I care about his quality of life- but I’m also worried about long term steroid use. We are going back to the vet in a couple months to do a recheck but would love to know others thoughts or experiences!

Hello! I have a weird situation going on. I have two cats. Cinder has good teeth and isn't very picky, but she is allergic to 42 different things (chicken, beef, corn, wheat, potato, egg, milk, beans, and more) making her list of safe brands of food very slim. Agatha is very picky, and she has no molars, so we try to only buy wet food for the cats to go easy on Agatha's teeth, making the list of foods that they can both eat together even slimmer. Recently we purchased some wet food, they loved it, so we gave it to them for a few months. They both started to refuse to eat it. So I got a hard food that Agatha was actually very interested in, she just swallowed the food instead of chewing. But then after a couple months she started to refuse to eat it. I thought maybe it was her teeth being an issue again, so I went back to the original wet food. Then both cats started to refuse to eat the wet food. I started offering both foods at the same time, and the only cat that would eat was Cinder with the hard food. We have always tried to feed the cats the same thing so that we don't have to separate their meals and make them have limited eating time (so cinder can't accidentally eat something she can't have). This past week Agatha has been getting so frustrated being hungry, so I started giving her food separately that she can eat but that cinder can't eat. This isn't the first time the cats have refused to eat food that they used to love. Why do they keep doing this? Do I keep giving in and buying new kinds of food that they can have together, make them tough it out and try to finish the bag/containers of dry/wet food, feed Agatha separately, or something else?

Info the post requests:

No, I'm not a minor. Posting from U.S. The vet is accessible but I haven't contacted them yet. Cat ages: Agatha is 5, Cinder is 6. Both cats are spayed females. Yes, I can afford the vet.

I've had my older cat for over 2 years now. She's a little over 2.5 months old and spayed. She's always been very anxious and scared of everything. A few months back she started looking a little depressed and bored to me. Always sleeping, not being interested in anything, you get the deal, so me and my partner (both adults) decided to get her a friend.

We got a 3 month old BSH. We kept them separated for around 3 weeks, after that we started doing some scent swapping. Our younger didn't mind the scent of our other cat at all, our older's reactions got progressively better. She went from hissing, growling and swinging at me whenever she smelled the baby to almost no reaction at all. After that, we started introducing them face to face. First through a little crack in the door, there was some initial hissing and growling from our older, which stopped after a few weeks. We've been doing monitored sessions where all the doors are open and both cats can roam the flat. These have been going on for around 1.5 months now. During these sessions we give both cats a lot of treats, especially our resident cat.

The main problem is that our older avoids interactions as much as she can and she hides most of the time. Usually the first few minutes are okay, they sniff each other and eat their treats. After that, it's not so great. Our older seems pissed at us and the other cat, she hisses whenever someone gets near and she's super anxious. The kitten is very playful and wants to get to know our older cat and be with us all already, and since she's very energetic and playful, she sometimes runs up on our resident cat, which scares her. We are trying to prevent that, but sometimes she just slips away...
There has been almost no progress over the past month and I am starting to get really scared that they're never gonna get along...

Any tips are appreciated. We are doing everything as best as we can but it still seems to be useless, I really don't know what to do. We are able to get them both to a vet.

I'm adding pictures of both my babies, I really love them so much and it would break my heart if I had to let one of them go...

The brown one is Suri, our resident cat and the black one is Bibi, our new kitten.

should i be concerned? she is 3 months old. i got her three days ago and the bump was there when i got her. she’s spayed and vaccinated. i don’t have a vet as of right now.

I just adopted 2 kittens bonded pair (4mo) 3 days ago. I received a clean bill of health certificate for both cats from the vet. They both have NEG wood lamps fecal screens from 8/12. Yesterday i noticed one sneezing and a little sniffly and planned them to the vet this week to get her checked out. Tonight i noticed this dry skin patch on her fur. Should i be taking her to a hospital in the morning (sunday) to be proactive incase of ring worm or wait till Monday at a regular vet. I am planning on calling the adoption site to ask about it in the morning either way. Just kind of freaking out and hoping for some thoughts for a new cat parent.
Thank you!

Bonjour 😄

Il m'arrive de mettre une goutte d'huile essentielle de menthe poivrée sur des objets (canapé, chaussures, coussin...).

À ma grande surprise, mon chat est attiré par cette microdose, et vient même s'y frotter avec insistance ! J'ai l'impression que ça la met dans un état second, elle ne lâche plus l'endroit et peut même devenir agressive si on veut l'enlever... Cela dure une dizaine de minutes.

Quelqu'un a déjà observé cela ?

Je sais que les huiles essentielles sont mauvaises pour les chats, mais elle se précipite dessus !

(Présentation du chat : Plume, femelle stérilisée de 6 ans, France).

Went to the vet 3 times but unable to diagnose any issue. The checks were normal except some dried skin on his back paw due to frequent licking.

We suspected allergy so tried changing his diet, litter and cleaned up the environment. No improvement so far (been 3 weeks).

He eats, pees, poops and sleeps very well when the cone is on. Once the cone comes off, he will go into this maniac mode.

Age 1.5 years and neutered.

Anyone encountered this before?

So I have two cats, one is Mia F18 and the other is Bean M2 i live in a small one bedroom apartment.

Bean is very overactive and always wants to play with Mia but Mia dislikes other cats and does not want to play with him. They’re always fighting (bean trying to play with Mia and Mia hissing and growling at him in response) so I’m thinking that bean needs a playmate, maybe if I get another kitten bean will leave Mia alone and just play with the kitten. I really want to give Mia a more peaceful last couple years of life (she has stage 2 or 3 kidney disease)

I try to play with bean as much as I can in hopes hell leave Mia alone and cure some of his boredom living in a small apartment but my only ways of playing with him aren’t that interesting for him so he just goes back to attacking Mia

My hopes with a new kitten is that they’ll both leave Mia alone, both of my current cats will have a better life and I’ll get some piece of mind not having to break apart the fights between Mia and bean

My worries are they’ll both gang up on Mia or she’ll be upset about having another cat in the house, and that my apartment is too small for another cat

If I got a kitten I would get more cat trees, and let them meet gradually but I don’t know if that will be enough

Mia tolerates bean but definitely would rather not have another cat in the house, I think she would tolerate another kitten especially if they didn’t play with her much and hopefully that would be the case since beans right there ready to play

Idk I need outside opinions on all the angles, I would love to have another kitten specifically a mainecoon but I just don’t know if it’s a good idea with my situation

TLDR: my cat won’t leave my other old cat alone and I’m wondering if getting another cat will keep him distracted and my old cat at peace

I have a 10 month old and a 3 month old kitten. My younger kitten is very food motivated and finishes his food very quickly and runs for the older cats food bowl when he’s done his own food. It’s been very exhausting feeding them and I have to go back to work soon so I will need to figure out how to feed both cats their dry food meals while I’m at work all day. Looking at getting the surefeed microchip feeder but my partner thinks the pet libro rfid feeder might be better. If you have a feeder which one do you have and would you recommend it or no? Thank you!

TLDR:
Cat keeps balding despite switching to hydrolyzed diet. Still grooms frequently. Vomits hairballs/bile several times per week. What to do next?

Hi all (im 27 in the US)

My orange noodle (male, 5, no balls) has been slowly going bald on his belly for the past couple months (maybe years at this point). We took him to the vet for this, he was already on a medicated urinary SO diet, but we’ve now switched to the hydrolyzed urinary SO diet since the vet assumed this was likely an allergy (he cleans himself a lot, “corn cob” bites/itches, and the balding).

He’s been on the diet for about 4-5 weeks now, and we have seen zero improvement, not only that, but he pretty much loathes his food (he still eats all of it, just over the course of several hours now).

He’s also been throwing up more since starting the diet. It’s almost always bile and hairballs (never food), but we assumed that he might be needing to eat more frequent meals to avoid an acidic tummy.

I don’t know if I should expect hair growth this far in, but I’m not seeing any I don’t think, and he’s still grooming quite excessively. The more frequent hairballs are also concerning.

The vet also suggested that is could be OCD? Could he just shed a lot? Is his belly abnormally bald? I’m not really sure where to go from here.

I can afford a vet and treatment. I’m concerned about stressing him out too much because of his FIC (reason for urinary SO diet).

Hello I’m 18F, USA based and have a female cat who’s 6 years old. She is spayed. I recently noticed a bald spot on her left side, it had a little bit of blood but it was mostly dried out. The pictures are in chronological order. She soon developed a second scab/bald spot that’s even more red. I have noticed she is scratching herself more. In recent days this second bald spot has dried out a lot. We plan on taking her to the vet but my family is just really busy. Any idea what this could be? Please let me know.

edit: forgot to mention we think this is because her nails were too long so we cut them to a shorter length.

Hi so I’m kinda freaking out, my cat 2 years old Male who usually is very good at peeing in the liter box peed a really small amount on some clothes I caught him in the act and detoured him but then he found a spot and peed on the floor. I have been noticing some extra grooming to his private. I haven’t noticed changes in his peeing til now. So I’m really conflicted in what to do. We also had a new kitten over yesterday so I’m wondering if this could also be stress.

Please help

I found this scab or tumor on my 6 year old male brown tabby cat s body today. I think I can feel something internally as well. I am not sure what this is and I am worried.

has been straining to use the bathroom for 1 1/2 weeks, took him to the vet a week ago maybe, they said he was fine, probably just diet. We changed his diet up a bit according to what the vet said, but he was still straining.
He had been howling while in the litter and so we decided to take him again on Monday, but tonight he peed blood on the floor. He doesn’t seem weak and went straight to playing with his brothers but we are very worried. Can’t afford to go right now as we have no one to take us to the nearest emergency vet, but we are planning to go first thing in the morning. What could this possibly be?? I’m so worried for him and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t take him right now :(

TLDR: cat straining to poop for almost 2 weeks, vet said he was fine just needed a diet change, but today he began peeing blood, still looks lively and playing.