OMG it's a POOL OF BLOOD!

[L. G. Butts, Ph.D.]

No, seriously! My wife, kids, and I woke this morning to a POOL OF BLOOD on the floor. Granted, it wasn't a huge pool of blood, about the size of a standard playing card, maybe a tablespoon, but still, it was a POOL OF BLOOD!

So we have two cats: Olive and Pepper, two year old Maine Coon sisters who are destructive and playful. About 3-4 every morning they tear around the house attacking each other and generally destroying the house.

So about the blood; it was as I said: a small (3x5 inch) puddle of blood with another small drop about 2 feet way on our hardwood floors. As far as we could see, there was no other gore around our house. We checked the cats and can see no external wounds (though they do have long hair). The cats are acting and eating normally; no throwing up blood on our floors. The only thing we can think is they caught and ate a particularly juicy mouse. This house is old, 70 years old, and we do get mice this time of year sometimes.

What do you think? Where did it come from?

[flatlined]

Voted for a mouse. I have a new house, but when I bought it, I took half of the walls off one room and replaced them with lattice so the kitties could have outside time without actually causing havoc and chaos amounst the wildlife.

Every so often, I see blood on the floor. I just figure that a critter that needed to leave the gene pool had wandered into a room full of cats.

[TriPolar]

Something else. One of the cats may have vomited blood, for reasons other than eating glass. It would have to be a pretty big mouse to have a tablespoon of blood in it.

[L. G. Butts, Ph.D.]

Something else. One of the cats may have vomited blood, for reasons other than eating glass. It would have to be a pretty big mouse to have a tablespoon of blood in it.

Like what? We have not noticed any unusual behavior from our cats, so we have not taken them to the vet. But I have had cats for going on 30 years now and I have seen nothing like this. Our cats are healthy, young, and normal (at least as far as we can tell).

[TriPolar]

Well, rats are larger than mice. Any hairball problems? Maybe one injured the other and it's invisible underneath the hair. I've seen dogs and cats lick a wound until it stops bleeding. But a 3x5 pool of blood sounds like too much for a mouse.

Whoa, any chance they ate some aluminum foil? When I was a kid one of our cats started vomiting blood, and foil. He ate too much, and well, that's all she wrote.

Outside chance, is your house built over an Indian burial ground?

[L. G. Butts, Ph.D.]

Outside chance, is your house built over an Indian burial ground?Holy crap! That explains that new "Disney" channel my daughter has been watching!

[elfkin477]

I'd worry. Over the years our cats have slayed many a mouse, and none have ever left a blood pool bigger than a quarter.

[EvilTOJ]

I'm amused that a doctor is freaking out over a tiny pool of blood.

[FairyChatMom]

Undoubtedly, Dexter set up a kill room in your house but he was in too much of a hurry to clean up properly afterwards...

... or perhaps you were sleepwalking and you paused to bleed during a nightly excursion - did you check yourself for holes??

... or we'll soon be seeing you portrayed on a Lifetime Tragedy of the Week dramatization after you come home and find your cats playing with a disembodied hand! :eek:

I got nothing.

[Vihaga]

Maybe a rat, but not likely a mouse. An actual pool the size of a 3x5 card? Not gonna happen. At work, we're lucky to get a solid .3 mL out of the little buggers on a terminal bleed. I'm with elfkin477.

[Attack from the 3rd dimension]

Look up at the ceiling. Is there blood there, dripping slowly onto the floor below from the corpse (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1248014/Blood-dripping-office-ceiling-sparks-police-murder-hunt.html)stashed in the crawlspace between floors? Or perhaps that's what happen years ago, and that's what your haunted house is reenacting.

[chiroptera]

I voted "something else" because a mouse wouldn't contain that much blood. Also for years on and off I've had cats and old houses which = mice caught by the cats inside. I've never found more than a tiny tiny smear of blood, or the occasional teensy gall bladder left behind.

I can't explain what - one of the cats vomiting seems more likely than mouse exsanguination though.

[Dung Beetle]

Purgatory...is that anywhere near Amityville?

[Athena]

Check the cats better. It's insanely easy for a cat to have a wound that's completely invisible.

Case in point: I had a cat once, a short-haired yellow tabby. I took him to to vet for his yearly maintenance, and towards the end of the exam, the vet asked if I wanted his nails clipped. Sure, I said, and the vet tech took the cat in the back room where they put the hold-o-death on him in order to safely trim his nails.

They came back a minute later and got the vet.

I'm like :confused: for 5-10 minutes. Finally, the vet comes back. Seems that the cat had an abscess on his side that opened while they were holding him for the nail clipping. I guess blood burst all over the place, surprising everyone.

I had no clue; the cat hadn't been acting weird at all. The vet had done a thorough exam on the cat, and hadn't noticed it. And it was a short-haired cat.

So yeah, cats can have wounds that even trained professionals have trouble finding. It's entirely possible that one of your cats got hurt during rough play and bled a bit.

(Kitty was fine after that - vet cleaned it up, put him on antibiotics, and he recovered fully)

[Heart of Dorkness]

Hmm. I voted "mouse", but after reading the replies, I agree; that's a lot of blood for one mouse. Could be a rat, I guess. Or could be an injury on one of the kitties. On people, some areas like the face, scalp, and ears can bleed a surprising amount from a small wound, but these wounds also tend to stop bleeding pretty quickly. I believe the same is true for cats. Also, if they're not declawed, it's possible one of them tore out or damaged a claw - that'll bleed like a mother, but then stop after a few minutes, and aside from the initial pain, cats often don't seem to notice.

Vomiting seems less likely to me if it looked like it was pure blood, rather than blood mixed with saliva and/or bile.

In any case, I think this should totally go in the BOO! forum. ;)

[chiroptera]

Check the cats better. It's insanely easy for a cat to have a wound that's completely invisible.

Case in point: I had a cat once, a short-haired yellow tabby. I took him to to vet for his yearly maintenance, and towards the end of the exam, the vet asked if I wanted his nails clipped. Sure, I said, and the vet tech took the cat in the back room where they put the hold-o-death on him in order to safely trim his nails.

They came back a minute later and got the vet.

I'm like :confused: for 5-10 minutes. Finally, the vet comes back. Seems that the cat had an abscess on his side that opened while they were holding him for the nail clipping. I guess blood burst all over the place, surprising everyone.

I had no clue; the cat hadn't been acting weird at all. The vet had done a thorough exam on the cat, and hadn't noticed it. And it was a short-haired cat.

So yeah, cats can have wounds that even trained professionals have trouble finding. It's entirely possible that one of your cats got hurt during rough play and bled a bit.

(Kitty was fine after that - vet cleaned it up, put him on antibiotics, and he recovered fully)

This reminds me that a completely similar thing happened to one of the outdoor cats (not technically one of "my" cats but one of several strays I was caring for) that I had neutered a few years ago. Took him in to the vet early morning, they called in the afternoon to tell me everything went fine and I could pick him up first thing in the morning.

An hour after that, they called back - nope, not all fine. While working on the south end of the cat, they didn't notice an abcess on the north end, on the back of his neck. It was covered with fur and matted over. However, when he came to in the cage someone noticed some oozing on his neck - when they checked him out it was a big nasty abcess. They had to sedate him again to shave and drain it.

Cats are extremely skilled at not letting on that they hurt; I certainly hadn't had a clue this one had a big infected wound on his neck. He ate and acted completely normally even though that had to have hurt like hell for some time.

So "cats acting normally" doesn't mean "nothing wrong with the cat."

[Scubaqueen]

that's a lot of blood. i suspect somebody's hurt and just not giving it up. cats are pastmasters at hiding injury.

check both cats very carefully asap. if necessary, enlist helpers to hold the ladies steady so you can do a thorough, hands-on, body inspection. i don't know that i wouldn't also haul their fuzzy butts to the vet, too.

[Maastricht]

I don't know, but I had the same mystery. Suddenly, there are about two or three tablespoons of blood spilt in a corner of my bedroom. With force; the splatters are up to a foot on the wall. I didn't know what it was either, but one night ago the cats had a very brief fight near that wall. You know, from silence to fur flinging hisses and to silence again in under three seconds.

[Count Blucher]

Its just a pool of blood. C'mon, be positive...

[kayaker]

Any family members ever experience stigmata in the past?

[Rushgeekgirl]

Check all their claws? My cat got his claw stuck in a screen once and ripped it out. There was more blood than you'd expect from such a small wound.

[Rushgeekgirl]

Mouse blood seems rather thin and brownish to me, by the way. We've had a few caught by cats in the past. Not these little darlings though. They would probably be scared of them.

[Dogzilla]

I don't know, but I had the same mystery. Suddenly, there are about two or three tablespoons of blood spilt in a corner of my bedroom. With force; the splatters are up to a foot on the wall. I didn't know what it was either, but one night ago the cats had a very brief fight near that wall. You know, from silence to fur flinging hisses and to silence again in under three seconds.

I found blood spatters on my walls once. Turns out, my male cat had a urinary tract infection and his widdle pee pee was hurting whenever he tried to pee. So he'd pee on the walls instead of in his litter box. By the time he was peeing blood, he had a pretty raging infection going on. Antibiotics hooked him right up.

[purplehorseshoe]

Both cats female ... are they spayed already?

[Teacake]

No experience with cats, but guinea pig claws certainly bleed like hell when torn out. Check the cats.

[ducati]

Have you thoroughly grilled all occupants of the house?

Long ago, I opened my travel agency on a Monday morning to find blood everywhere.
I kept a Blue Front Amazon parrot in a huge cage there, and that's where the blood began. It was clear to me that someone stuck a finger where it didn't belong. For a week I questioned employees; only half a dozen or so had keys, so it wasn't an involved process.

No one confessed to B&E&B (bleeding), so I was stumped. I finally called the police to make a report of NOTHING just in case. Only when the fuzz actually showed up did Rosalee* confess.
She and her hubby had stopped by to get some documents, and while she did, hubby poked at said bird and drew back a stump.

He said he felt so stupid that he swore her to secrecy forever! I don't know how they missed all the quarts of blood sprayed everywhere. I suppose they were in a hurry to get away from the deadly animal!

Waterboard your kids. They'll talk. :dubious:


* Her real name!
Bwahahahahah!

[brittekland]

Well, I voted "one of your cats has a hole in it" partly just so I'm subscribed to this thread to find out the answer. A friend has two cats with pretty much the same disposition and they hurt each other a lot and you can't always see the wound or get the reaction from the cat at all or not until some time later.

[Dusty Rose]

This happened a few months ago with our beagle. It was a bigger pool of blood, but I suspect he's bigger than your cats. Our vet suspected that he either ate something that had poison in it, e.g. coolant; or that he ate something that had eaten poison.

In other words, if the neighbors are poisoning mice, and my beagle ate the poisoned mouse, he'd get poisoned, too.

I wonder if your cats ever go outside, or if there are poisoned mice coming into your house. The vet said one thing to watch for was bloody diarrhea along with bloodshot eyes. If the dog had both to get him in RIGHT AWAY.

[Autolycus]

Hey, don't knock it, because you know, free pool of blood.

[Rysdad]

Look up at the ceiling.

See that thing hanging there pretending to be a large bat?

Think: garlic necklace and holy water squirt guns

[T. Slothrop]

I was a medic on helicopters in the seventies in Viet Nam. It is the Medic's duty to clean the helicopter. I was flying night shift. Night shift is hard on my (and anyone's) tiny little brain
After the night's flights, I go to sleep and wake up some time in the afternoon and there are puddles and splashes of blood in the helicopter. I clean it up but I seriously don't remember what I did the previous night.

[chorpler]

No one confessed to B&E&B (bleeding), so I was stumped. I finally called the police to make a report of NOTHING just in case. Only when the fuzz actually showed up did Rosalee* confess.
She and her hubby had stopped by to get some documents, and while she did, hubby poked at said bird and drew back a stump.

Wow. What happened to the fingertip? When a bird bites off a chunk of finger, do they proceed to ... gulp ... EAT it?

[brittekland]

Wow. What happened to the fingertip? When a bird bites off a chunk of finger, do they proceed to ... gulp ... EAT it?

My cousin has two giant green parrots(?) they smuggled out of Guatemala inside their shirts when they were little babies. I wouldn't give those snaky loud bastards a chance at any of my fingers in a million years. Darn obnoxious and demanding monsters.

[kayaker]

I heard about a guy who was found, dead, in a pool of his own vomit. Not a kiddie pool or a personal lap pool; it was an Olympic sized pool.

[brittekland]

I heard about a guy who was found, dead, in a pool of his own vomit. Not a kiddie pool or a personal lap pool; it was an Olympic sized pool.

That sure is something I don't wanna try too hard to picture in my head... but thanks much as I'm already trying to re-taste all that coffee I drank.

[ducati]

I heard about a guy who was found, dead, in a pool of his own vomit. Not a kiddie pool or a personal lap pool; it was an Olympic sized pool.

Was his name Stumpy Joe? If so, that's not his vomit. You can't dust for vomit.

[ducati]

Wow. What happened to the fingertip? When a bird bites off a chunk of finger, do they proceed to ... gulp ... EAT it?



Perhaps that's a bit hyperbolic...

Amazon parrots are large (http://www.uaepets.com/catalog2/images/blue_fronted_amazon.jpg?osCsid=9fd7002881c6b42cba82280ad40f81bc), with incredibly powerful beaks for opening nuts and such.
Biting down to the bone on a finger is child's play.

Arterial spray is just one fun part of parrot ownership!

[Typo Negative]

When I was married, we had 6 cats. (the ex got them in the divorce)

We had fruit trees, and when you have fruit tress, you have rats. The cats were expert mousers would often (and I mean OFTEN) bring their kills into the house to play with. Occassionally, the kill was not completely killed yet.

A few mornings my bathroom looked like a serial-killer crime scene. Blood eveywhere, but no body!

[Minnie Luna]

I vote for checking kitty nails and seeing if one of them shredded a nail. Nails bleed copious amounts before stopping.

[mikews99]

Although a nail bleed can produce a significant amount of blood, I can pretty much guarantee it is not a shredded nail. You would see blood marks everywhere if that were the case.

L.G., what you discovered was NOT just blood, but vomit mixed with blood. If it was pure blood, it would have been mostly dried by the time you discovered it and not in a "pool."

One of your cats probably retched rather violently and burst a blood vessel in their stomach. That's normally not a cause for alarm. HOWEVER, if one of your cats has a GI bleed, it could be indicative of something serious. To determine if this requires a vet visit, you will have to inspect a fresh poop from each of your cats. If you find a poop that is very dark brown to purple-ish brown or black on the surface, but brown or lighter in the center, the cat may have a lower GI bleed (large intestines). If the poop is dark all the way through, or dark in one part but light in others, that usually indicates an upper GI bleed (stomach or small intestines). If you have problems figuring out if it's dark or not, put the poop in a ziplock bag and bring it to your vet. They can tell under the microscope if there's blood in it.

[L. G. Butts, Ph.D.]

Sorry I have been away for so long, work has been busy.

Well, I still don't know what to think. My wife looked over the kitties carefully, including checking to see if their claws were present and no joy; no cuts, abscesses, or missing claws. Granted, Maine Coons are a hairy breed so we might have missed a cut somewhere.

Re: intestinal disorders, it really did not look like vomit. There was no hair in it and it did not look frothy like bile can. I really do not think it was vomit. I have examined their litterbox and everything looks normal. The cats are still behaving normally and seem healthy, happy and frisky.

I am still leaning towards it being a mouse, but we are going in to the vet next week for their one year checkup/shots, so we will have the vet do a special check up.

Oh, by the way. I have never heard of a rat where we live (suburban Denver), though I have seen rats in downtown Denver before. Raccoon, coyotes, rabbits, etc... but not rats. We do have lots and lots of mice around here and they can get pretty big...