That could be him. I’ve known since we had our previous dogs (so 15 years?), and we haven’t talked about his “musical” history in years. I can’t remember the details, although that story sounds really familiar. And, yes, this is on the west side of L.A.
OK, here’s an update. Short version: vet was very nice, prescribed gabapentin.
After calling several times, we got the vet appointment moved up, from Aug 2 to July 28. Just as well because our kitty boi has had bad diarrhea. We were away from July 24-27 and our adult daughter who’s been at home says it’s been going on a couple of days, and he also had it 2 days the previous week. There are poop streaks on the side of the litter box and on the back of his legs, which we get cleaned off with a spray bottle and paper towel.
The veterinary practice seems very nice. There’s a poster at the front desk saying that they don’t scruff cats (including a drawing of a cat being scruffed with an X over it). A cat was sleeping in a basket on the reception desk. There were bunnies in a big crate with cloth tunnels and a guinea pig in a big cage, and lots of cute cat and bunny decor.
We waited 10 minutes and the vet called us in. From what I saw on the website, she’s the youngest one in the practice (and looks like a college student, even though she has her veterinary degree) but she seemed skilled at dealing with our cat, gently, but patiently and thoroughly.
She managed to get him on the scale (he weighs 12 lbs), examine him, look at his mouth and teeth, and with the help of one of the techs holding him, clean his ears and clip his claws–I was surprised at how quickly she did it, with no complaints from the cat and with a nice running commentary about his being a beautiful, good boy. She asked us to bring in a fecal sample, prescribed gabapentin, and recommended an OTC, Composure. She also gave us a few packets of probiotic and then brought him in the back room for a B-12 injection and a liquid infusion since she said he was slightly dehydrated.
We brought in the fecal sample yesterday afternoon and just heard back from the vet’s office that it’s clear, they don’t see any parasites or giardia.
So here’s hoping that the gabapentin has a good effect. We gave it to him with a little liver last night and he ate it all, unlike other times when we’ve tried to give him Benadryl before a road trip and he’s rejected it.
Thanks for update!
– and it seems that you’ve found a good vet.
Here’s also hoping that the gabapentin works well; and that the other treatment for whatever’s making him ill is effective.
Huh, i wonder why not? I always scruff squirmy foster kittens when i need to weigh them, and they don’t seem to mind, except for maybe minding being interrupted in whatever they were doing. And of course, that’s what the mom does when she needs to move them.
Anyway, it sounds like a good veterinary practice. Good luck.
Would you pick up a 20 lb. cat by the scruff of the neck? I would use two hands and make sure to support the cat.
No, but I would scruff the cat with one hand and support its weight with the other. I’ve done that even with larger kittens. (Adult cats are less squirmy, and might not need to be scruffed to be weighed.) When I’m weighing the kitten, all its weight is supported by its butt and maybe its front legs, but I’m still scruffing it to hold it still.
I scruff the Siamese. They weigh 8-9 lbs each. You can’t hold them any other way. (my other cats never need scruffing to coax into things they may not choose to do)
The Vet practice may be talking about the rough looking way feral cats are scruffed to get in and out of boxes. Sometimes it looks very brutal. I would not do that to any animal. That’s for someone with more mettle than me.
I’ve never encountered “scruff” as a verb before. Am I right in assuming it means to pick up by the scruff of the neck (the way a mother cat would do with her kittens)?
the only time our cats were being picked up like that was when they did something egerious and were about to face the wrath of grandma …although our sassy cat would hiss and take a swipe at her nose inwhich her nos ewould get flicked and there 'd be an argument
her name was Raven and she was such a brat at times it got to the point that the neighbors thought my aunt had a new daughter named Raven… I said “No a new kitten” The neighbor laughed and said "Same thing "
I have scruffed cats and I think I actually recommended it earlier in this thread. When I saw that part of the description of the veterinary’s I googled and read a couple of articles opposed to scruffing in order to try to find out if I’ve been missing something.
I suspect it got the bad reputation from being done wrong; though it occurs to me that who’s doing it may also be an issue, and maybe the vet. actually shouldn’t be, at least in most circumstances.
First of all, unless the creature being scruffed is a very young and small kitten, don’t lift the cat off the ground. Adult cats are too heavy to be carried like that, and doing that to an adult cat is going to hurt and may do damage. Only take a small portion of the cat’s weight on the scruff; leave at least the back feet and preferably all four on the ground or supported.
Second – maybe this should only be done, in most circumstances, by somebody the cat knows and trusts. It occurs to me that, for example, having one’s mother grab one’s arm to stop a human from doing something – whether the one being grabbed is an adult or a small child – is going to be perceived by the grabee quite differently from having a stranger or near-stranger do the same thing. I’ve never had a cat seem to be frightened or seriously upset by having me scruff them, though I have occasionally had one get annoyed instead of calmed – but I’ve never done it to a strange cat, and it would have to be a pretty drastic situation for me to do such a thing.
But in any case I’d far rather have a veterinary practice that leans over backwards not to upset the patients than one that errs in the other direction.
(I once had a veterinary have to bag a particular cat in order to carry out a procedure – zip him into a bag with only his head sticking out, so he couldn’t claw and the range of his teeth, though they were out of the bag, could be controlled. The vet. was massively apologetic about it, she really didn’'t want to do that to him: but he really needed the procedure – I think it was a blood draw – and I knew that cat; he had gone into full fight-this-off mode and he wasn’t coming back out of it until he was safely back home. He would have shredded the vet. if his claws had been free.
I also knew the vet. from multiple other interactions and I knew there was no way she was doing such a thing unnecessarily. I loved that cat; but he was genuinely hazardous when he got ticked off, and he got ticked off easily. – I once asked a farm intern to bring me a laundry basket; she came back without the basket and said “um, there’s a problem.” I said, “is there a yellow cat asleep in the basket?” because he often slept there. She said, “that’s not the problem. The problem is that there’s a yellow cat awake in the basket, and he growled at me.” She wasn’t touching that basket, and I didn’t blame her a bit. The cat did let me take it, a little bit later.
I dunno. I was fostering a litter of feral kittens earlier this year, and both the woman who ran the shelter and the uber volunteer who took them from me scruffed them. So did i, when i needed to do something like put them in a travel box. They didn’t like it, but they also didn’t take my hand off.
Re. scruffing, its use as a verb is new to me too.
Here’s the poster I saw at the vet, or one that’s very similar: https://icatcare.org/app/uploads/2019/09/Scruffing-poster.pdf
And the “Pledge to go scruff-free”, explaining why they consider it problematic especially in a professional setting: https://icatcare.org/our-campaigns/pledge-to-go-scruff-free/
But if my cat attacks me again, I’m going to try to get him off me by scruffing him, cruel or not, pledge or no pledge. At that point the issue is my safety.
I don’t find it an issue if done with good intentions. Your safety and or the need to remove the cat. Or to put them inside a box.
You can support the bottom and keep from harming their neck.
I equate it with the ‘Mommy hold’ for human babies that have to be given injections or other medical treatment.
You don’t want to have to do it. But, sometimes it’s necessary.
Kittens are different, I think; at least, if they’re still young enough that their mother might have carried them that way.
Agreed.
Even the poster that was linked to supports that:
Our campaign refers specifically to the routine use of scruffing when handling cats. There may be exceptional circumstances in which there is a real and imminent risk of injury to a person where very brief heavy restraint, such as scruffing, may be necessary.
I think what they’re trying to get stopped is using the technique as the vet’s routine way of handling cats; I get the impression that some places had just been scruffing the cats whenever they did anything with them.
– I don’t think I’ve ever scruffed a cat when putting them into a box. It’s often helpful to put the cat in butt first; harder for them to put all paws out and fend the box off that way.
Yeah, i certainly agree that it’s better to start with gently holding the animal in place. And honestly, most pet cats are comfortable with humans, and that will be plenty. My tame kittens were cuddled by the veterinary assistant, and fed treats, they weren’t scruffed, and that worked very well.
I’m surprised they think wrapping a cat in a towel is more respectful than scruffing. I consider that the last resort when handling feral foster cats, not scruffing. Something to think about.
The cat who got bagged certainly didn’t think it was respectful; he was furious. (Admittedly, they bagged him because he was already furious; but bagging him certainly didn’t make him any less so.) But I don’t think scruffing would have worked – it would have worked to get him off somebody, maybe, but it wouldn’t have made it possible to get a needle into him. He’d have kept right on flailing trying to get claws into anyone within reach.
And also, none of that would apply to tame foster kittens living in my home. They are in their own territory, they think I’m mom, and i don’t think they find my scruffing then to weigh them stressful at all. Slightly annoying, maybe, if they want to play. But it’s just a way to tell them, “be still for a moment” that they understand. I can see that being scruffed by the vet would be more stressful.
I’ve never scruffed a tame cat to put it in a box, but we’ve had some feral litters that very hard to handle.
Hmm. I have seen cats who required a Hannibal Lecter mask at the vet’s, plus someone to restrain her so she did not flail around. Some feral cats require a squeeze cage to keep them still enough for injections, and certain procedures may even necessitate medication like ketamine hydrochloride and dexmedetomidine hydrochloride that will get the cat as high as a kite.
We couldn’t have gotten medication into the bagged cat without bagging him, either!
– most of his vet. visits didn’t go that badly; the bagging only happened once. If it had been routinely necessary, I expect we might well have tried medicating him at home before taking him in. But I think, though I no longer remember the details, that on that visit it was necessary to do several things and while we could manage the first one or two at that point he started to freak out and it was still necessary to do something else. Some cats might well have calmed enough if given a couple of minutes but with that one it was unlikely.
ETA: He was one of two kittens produced by a mother so young that I took her as too young to be spayed yet when a housemate brought her home, although later evidence showed that she was already pregnant at the time. The other kitten didn’t live for a day, and I’m not sure the survivor was entirely sane. He lived for 19 years 7 months, though, and generally enjoyed himself.
Sigh. I was thinking that the cat had calmed down for good–he hadn’t scratched me badly since the summer. A week after the 1st 14 days of Gabapentin, mid-August, he scratched me mildly so we gave him another 14 days, which did seem to quiet him down. A few times I saw him giving me what I’ve come to recognize as a pre-attack stare when I was sitting on the couch, so I warned him to get away from me, or got up and changed positions. But then. a week ago, he scratched the back of my legs when I was walking up the stairs, 2 days in a row.
So I asked the vet for a 3rd Gabapentin refill, which we started giving to him on Wednesday. But just now he jumped at me with a yowl and scratched my arm and stomach–deeply enough to draw blood, through my cotton sweater with a t-shirt underneath.
I really hope that the Gabapentin has an effect within the next week or so. This last attack wasn’t as bad as some of the previous ones where he got his teeth into my arm or leg, but it did shake me up.