do yourself a favor if you feed your cat wet food… don’t do it at the same time every day … why is that bad you ask? because it sets a schedule and god forbid if you are late or he tries to talk you into feeding him early …
My current cats are 21 20 and around 4 years old … years ago with cats that have departed and our current ones we decided to give them their food at 10 pm every night … … the howling to get fed early starts at 8 pm and say your busy at feeding time? they will act like being a few minutes is the end of the world and literally, maul you until you get their food …
This is true. I get seriously howled at by the Princess (official name Allie, believed to be Siamese-mix, about 11 years old now) when she thinks it’s suppertime. I did have to break her of the “canned gunk for breakfast” routine when I got very tired of being summoned to play waitress at godawful-o’clock on days off.
That’s a great tip. It bad enough that the kids wake me up on the weekend, they’ll grow out of it but 15 years more of that may drive me crazy.
How much variation is good? We’re not on much of a house hold schedule in the evenings but the mornings are fairly regulated. Of course I say that after the two year old quote the whole house up an early this morning. Basically I have two opportunities to feed in the morning either before I take the kids to school or after I get back. The two slots are about an hour apart is that enough? Or is it better to just not feed wet in the morning?
That’s probably enough if you vary the time more on the weekends. And that is indeed a very good idea – not only don’t let them get fixated on the same food, also don’t let them get fixated on the same feeding times.
I find the free-choice dry food helps a lot with that. The cat who’s really hungry can go eat some kibble. (That’s why you don’t mix it with the canned – most cats will eat dry kibble that’s sat out a day or so, but will only eat canned that’s quite fresh. They’re not like dogs that way. If he doesn’t finish his canned once in a while, toss it before the next meal. If he doesn’t usually finish it within half an hour or so, give him less of it. There’ll probably be some kinds he won’t eat; as long as there are two or three brands and several flavors that he will eat, just buy the ones that he will.)
Well, Ducky is definitely sick. He’s got a fever of 103 f and it seems to be a head cold though the vet said his lungs were loud but thought it was because of the head congestion. He’s lost half a pound since he was fixed though that may be due to different scales. The vet wasn’t worried and gave him an antibiotics injection though he said the problem was probably viral.
We also learned that Ducky’s baby upper canine never fell out so we’re having it removed in a couple of weeks once he’s over his sneezing.
Yes, and he might end up with not only sharp claws but XL claws as well, which will inflict wider scratches. My Maine Coon Poe is a year and 3 months old, so he’s still growing, and has just out-grown size medium claw caps. The vast majority of fully grown adult cats, even those on the upper end of frame size for non-giant breeds like his 12lb “brother,” never need large caps (note that obesity does not affect nail size).
If he’s only 5 months old, you may need to feed him more than twice a day. Not because he’s possibly a Maine Coon mix, but because he’s a kitten. My boys were still eating 3x a day until they were about 8 months old.
For now we’re going with feeding him a fix amount of dry food that is available all the time with wet food in a separate bowl twice per day. Ducky definitely eats throughout the day and while we’re not worrying about it he is eating some of the free feed dog food that is available to him too. We’ll keep an eye on him chunking up but for now that seems the easiest plan for everyone.
Oh NO! Poor Ducky and poor you. Nobody is happy when a pet is sick. Here’s hoping he’s feeling better soon.
I never noticed claw thickness before, so took a look at our cats’ feets. Now that I think about it, I must have noticed claw thickness in the back of my mind because I own a set of large claw trimmers.
How are the claw caps working? I’ve never used them, I’ve always depended on trimming often, but Hubs’ paper thin skin might require caps with George.
Pretty well! Most of the scratches I’ve gotten since they’ve been old enough to cap have been times when I forgot that Linden will jump at a wand toy with a short string while I’m picking it up and him clumsily landing on me with his back claws (generally speaking, people don’t cap hind claws).
One thing to keep in the back of your mind, though, if they’re without caps because you haven’t gotten around to replacing ones that grew out, they’re less likely to remember to retract claws while playing since they don’t have that learned experience that you get negative feedback for scratching. So if he’s got issues that could make a scratch serious, while playing he’d still want to be careful not to get his hands too close to exciting toys.
His feet are pretty furry. You don’t have to trim the fur, it’s generally easy to sweep the fur out of the way with your fingers as you glue the caps on.
OP, has anyone thought to mention that most dogs think that cats hide tasty treats in their litter boxes? Logically, it makes sense, cats are obligate carnivores who eat meat. Dogs are garbage guts, critters who used to be raised on predigested meat carried home in their mother’s bellies. A little sand covered used cat food is just a step away…
IMHO you should discourage him from eating dog food. His growing body needs protein and dog food has a lot of carbs. He should be on the Catkins diet.
Thanks again for the helpful advice @elfkin477. Due to hub’s medication, he’s got paper thin skin and can scrap himself just by brushing against a shelf corner. He’s also on blood thinners so even a single claw prick can have him bleeding for at least an hour. Often he doesn’t even know he’s bleeding until he sees blood somewhere.
Medium yikes. Loud lungs and possible lost weight aren’t good, but I gather he’s still eating and the vet’s not worried, so both of those are good. Try to make sure he’s getting plenty of fluids – maybe add a bit of extra water to his canned food – and if he does stop eating I’d call the vet. back; but as long as he’s eating he ought to be OK. And if he’s playful he’s almost certainly OK.
Occasionally these things are persistent – quite a few years ago I brought home a couple of barn kittens, one of whom had a drippy nose; it seemed to clear up OK with her first round of vet. treatment, but we had to delay her spaying several months later because although she’d grown nicely her first couple months with me she’d then started losing weight instead of gaining and it turned out the infection was back – vet. thought it might never have been completely gone. A second round of treatment did the trick, though (I don’t remember now what the vet. gave her) and she lived to over 17.
Just stumbled upon this thread and thought I’d ask how Ducky is doing. Bit of a cliffhanger ending on him being sick, but I assume we’d have heard if he didn’t get better.
I’m curious how he’s getting along with the dogs and the humans and wouldn’t mind some updated pics.