Is your tap water fluoridated? Perhaps he doesn’t like it? So fill a jug and let it stand for a couple of hours and the fluorine will evaporate. Then you can give it to him.
Only if there’s a fluoride source in the local water table; we have well water.
We collected some clean snow and I’m melting it right now. I also put some in his dish, and he just sniffed at it. But maybe he wasn’t in the habit of eating snow. We don’t want him to consume much that’s cold right now anyway because we’re trying to keep his body temperature up – it was low last time he was at the vet.
Last time we gave him his Karo syrup dose, I was wringing out a rag in a bowl of hot water as usual, to wipe any drippage off him, and he got really interested, got up and checked out the bowl. Warm rag water, OK . . . but the water was dripping off my rag. Interesting. Maybe we need to try warm water.
ETA: Oh oh oh . . . I just got up to check him and HE’S DRINKING THE MELTED SNOW IN HIS DISH! :D:D:D:D
I’m sooooo glad Wolfie’s doing better! I’ve been worried about you both!
Oh, freckafree, we are so relieved! I sent a thank-you PM to Butterscotch for the awesome suggestion to use “outside” water (I’d missed the edit window), and mentioned that when Mr. S saw him drinking, he was so happy, he cried!
Since then he’s been a busy boy. He slurped at the water on and off for a good half hour. He even pooped (dunno what he had in there to work with . . .) and peed some more. Then we dosed him up, and that tired him out, so we put him back in his nice, warm, dark crate to rest. He’s one tuckered-out kitty.
Hopefully now that he will drink on his own, eating won’t be far behind. (And perhaps I can try to get a picture of him soon.)
Go, Wolfie, go!
I am SO glad he’s feeling better. I was honestly a little afraid to check this thread, because of what’s going on with Haplo - I just didn’t think I could take it if there wasn’t a good outcome for your cat.
That’s so sweet of you to worry about Wolfie, Zsofia, when you have your own sweetie to be concerned about. I hope you are having some quality time with him, and that tomorrow goes as easily as possible.
{{{Zsofia and Haplo}}}
I’ve been following this, too, and I’m so glad to hear he’s drinking on his own. I hope that eating is his next step. When my sister’s cat stopped eating, she ended up having to feed him through a stomach tube for a couple of weeks before he’d take anything on his own. My own cat went through a similar stage when she was ill, but we were able to tempt her with canned chicken and tuna.
Thanks, WVmom. It’s great to know that we’re not the only ones pulling for Wolfie.
I just talked to the vet again for the Friday morning update. He says we can stop the fluid injections, as Wolfie has drunk almost 100mL of water on his own now since last evening. Phew! He was pleasantly surprised about the melted snow-water, said he wouldn’t have thought of that. So Butterscotch, you’re smarter than the average vet! 
He also say Wolfie should be ready to eat, so we can start giving him the liquid food by mouth again, a few times a day, to get something in his stomach again, and supplement with the syrup. I asked, “So are we done with the every 3 hours around the clock?” and he chuckled and said, “Yes, you can sleep now.” Double phew!
The only other hurdle besides food is getting him pooping normally again. After that one hard poop yesterday, he’s been more or less pooping syrup, and he doesn’t always make it to the litter box; often it just leaks out of him. And he sometimes pees at the same time. We should buy stock in rubber gloves, paper towels, and laundry detergent. We’re going to buy (among other things) baby wipes and an extra litter box today. (We had been moving the box around with him, but it’s a chore dragging it out of the crate! And he doesn’t always seem to remember where it is, even when it’s in sight. I can’t blame him.)
So even though Mr. S returns to work today, taking care of Wolfie by myself should be much easier. <huge sigh of relief>
Yippee! So glad I could help. How’s it going?
Spooky!! My first simu-post!
OK, I finally got a picture. Not a bad one, either; you can’t see either his poor shaved hiney or the litterbox that’s directly behind him! I futzed with the contrast to try to bring his eyes out; hope it shows on other people’s screens.
About one minute after I took this, he absolutely conked out: nose on the floor, one ear hovering over the water dish. <peeks> Whoops, his head’s up again . . .
(Still not eating voluntarily, not even the liverwurst we bought just for him, or the juicy chicken and broth I gave him out of my Chicken Noodle-O’s. But I got the syrup and liqui-food into him today. Perhaps it will be a few days, just like with the drinking.)
Very happy to read a great good ending story! 
Best wishes to Wolfie!
Thank you!
He’s not quite out of the woods yet . . . he needs to start eating on his own. So now we need telepathic suggestions to that little brain: "You’re hungry, Wolfie, soooo hungry . . . Look at all that yummy chow! Eat it. Eeeeeaaaaaat it . . . "
If all goes well, we take him back next Friday to get his stitches out. Yes, taking a black cat to the vet on Friday the 13th . . . hmmmmm.
Try offering him some tuna or something equally smelly. Maybe that will get him going.
Well, here’s what we’ve tried so far (many of these both warm and cold, with and without garlic powder sprinkled on):
Several types of canned cat food (different flavors/bits in gravy vs paste)
Ground-up kibble, both dry and stirred into turkey broth
Liverwurst
Tuna*
Broth and chicken from chicken noodle soup
Plain turkey broth
Beef baby food
Smoked salmon
*though I drained it out of habit, before reading that the juice might tempt him. Will try undrained tuna later today.
In the last day or so he has at least started looking at the dishes when I offer them, but he makes no move for them and actually flinches a tiny bit when I try to stick them under his nose.
I read online about things like egg yolk and cottage cheese, but the vet nixed those and said to stick with meat protein. Short of bringing in half a dead mouse, I’m running out of ideas. I don’t think raw meat would be good for his delicate system right now.
I’m hoping that today or tomorrow the penny will drop like it did for the water and he’ll just start eating. I even tried offering him a plain open can of cat food, since that’s how it had been served to him outside (like the snow water, trying to think of what’s most familiar).
My brother’s late cat(died last Dec.) loved tuna juice. In fact it was so spoiled that they would often open a can of tuna for it, and it would lick out all the juice, and take two bites and that would be it. The rest was tossed!
I don’t know why they didn’t just give it the two bites, and all the juice, and use the rest for their own lunch?!
Aw, he’s a cutie-pie!
I was going to suggest killing a mouse for him, but eeeewww! 
As an alternative to that, see if your pet store carries frozen raw food, such as this or this (I know Centinela Feed & Pet carries this brand, if there’s one near you). More about a raw food diet.
Still pulling for Wolfie!
Well, I opened a can of albacore tuna and left all the juice in. Broke it up a bit with a fork and mooshed it down so the juice would be on top. Nada – though he did seem to be looking at it once, but that might just have been his head turned that way anyway.
I was just reading about spoon feeding. I may try that with some really mushed-up cat food.
Shayna, interesting about the raw food. Unfortunately the closest real pet store is 40 miles away. Mr. S is off Monday-Wednesday, so we may make a quick road trip. Thought I suspect we may end up going the appetite-stimulant route on Monday if he isn’t eating by then. Today we ran into an acquaintance who’s a vet tech and asked her advice, and she said we’re pretty much doing what she would recommend.
Wolfie, eat something, please! (I was also reading about people who’ve been force-feeding their cats for weeks . . . yikes!)
Has your vet run any blood tests on Wolfie? Maybe his lack of desire to eat or drink on his own is unrelated to his injury and recovery. Perhaps he’s sick, and that’s what weakened him to the point where he could be injured in an attack like that? For instance, kidney failure would cause his liver to take over some of the kidney function, which creates more bile in the stomach which can make a cat not want to eat because of an upset tummy. If appetite stimulants don’t help (our cat paced and paced and wailed and wailed on them), ask your vet about trying Pepcid AC (1/4 pill twice a day was enough to get our kitty to resume eating like a pig).
Also, when you make the trip to the pet store, look for either Nutri-Cal or Nutri-Stat. They’re the exact same thing (made on the same assembly line, but one was previously marketed “for veterinary use only”, so they could charge more for it). It’s a high calorie vitamin supplement, and also stimulates appetite. You could try that instead of the syrup.
Also to pick up while you’re there, some puppy training pads to place around, especially near his litter box. If he tries to make it but misses, he might land on a pad, which will be much easier than cleaning up the floor, and also prevent the urine from penetrating the floor to the point where cleaning it won’t even take the smell away.
Well, he was eating normally the day before, and he did lick at the gravy of some beef “gravy & bits” food a few days after the surgery. I’ll mention it, though, next time I talk to the vet.
Yes, I’ve seen these mentioned too. Will make a note.
Actually, he’s been pretty good about making it to the litter box on time. We have several near his usual spots. After he started leaking the gooey stools, we started putting a layer of paper towels under his behind. Of course, then the gooey stools stopped; he made a couple of regular-looking poops, I think yesterday morning, but nothing since. (After all, he hasn’t been eating anything solid!) He does usually leave a little light stain, pale greenish-brown, on the paper towel when he gets up, usually right before using the litter box to pee. And we have towels and newspapers spread all over the place. (Look for us on the cover of House Beautiful!)
After reading about spoon feeding, I decided to try it just now. (What else would we use fine demitasse spoons for?) I got four or five tries in, I think, and got a little dibble of extra-mooshed food in his mouth each time. Once or twice he just pooted it back out, but I think some of it went down. I had hoped that the taste/texture of it in his mouth might give him ideas. I put some more of it in a little dish in front of him with tuna juice spooned on top. Nothing yet. So I just forced the usual liquid food down him instead.
I also remembered that we had some “sounds of nature” cassettes (mostly birdsongs) and have been playing those in my office while I work, with him on the floor behind me. Thought they might lift his mood or something.
Did you try warming the food up? I don’t remember if anybody else said anything about it, but you can smell warm stuff better.