Reading CrazyCatLady’s above post made me think too and she can correct me if I’m wrong… even if those puddles were urine the mere fact that the kitty was peeing out of her box is also the sign of a problem!
Inappropriate elimination can be a sign of a lot of things, from dissatisfaction with you box-cleaning habits to a UTI, and should be checked by a vet, but they’re generally not as big a deal as vomiting for days on end.
One of the other reasons I couldn’t take the cat to the vet, which I may not have mentioned, is lack of a car. So I had to wait until my neighbors who know I have a cat called me back, since the emergency vet does not make house calls.
They called me this morning and they took her over. Apparently Phobic is not as bad off as I thought, the vet believes it is an upper respiratory infection. How that caused vomiting I dont know, but she has stopped doing that. I fed her broth from her cat food in an eye dropper last night and she kept it down. The vet said he gave her a vitamin supplement and she took it. So she is apparently getting better. Mostly now it is assumed that whetevr is wrong with her has made her weak so that is why she is not moving very much. But she has no fever and her breathing and heartbeat are fine. I have to take her in on Monday though to get a leukemia test just to make sure.
He’s putting her on an antibiotic, vitamins, and cat milk. It turns out she’s a little younger than I thought, only about 3 months at most which means she was about 1 month old or less when we found her. It’s a wonder she survived.
Whether or not I get in trouble remains to be seen. This guy doesnt know where I live but when I take her on Monday then they’ll ask for my address. Yikes. If the most illegal thing I do in my life is take in a stray kitten that’s not old enough to be on its own, I shouldnt think that’s a bad thing.
Oh and there is no such thing as a permanent or good home for cats here. It’s very difficult to take them when you leave Japan do to animal quarantining and the whole military set up. ESPECIALLY since most people here who have cats aren’t supposed to. Everyone here moves every 2-4 years, so anyone I gave Phobic to would likely give her away again anyway. This is part of the reason why this base is practically infested with stray cats. My neighbors are planning to take their illegal cat to the US with them, and they leave before us, so if it works for them maybe we can keep her.
I’m glad she’s ok, though.
acrossthesea, I’m really getting impatient with your posts.
Let’s start off with me being an 18 year member of the Air Force/Air Force family, and having been stationed where you are, and having aquired two cats while there, and having brought them home to the states. Let me make this clear…we still possess the cats that we aquired in Japan.
Now.
A) If you are living on base, as you state you are, then you are most certianly allowed to have a pet. Military housing regulations allow two pets in all military housing other than temporary housing for transients. If your neighbors are telling you something different, then get down to the housing office and clarify the rules.
B)I said this in the original thread in which you talked about getting the cat, but you obviously ignored it. Listen to me closely. YOU MAY TAKE THE CAT HOME TO THE STATES. IT IS NOT THAT FLIPPIN’ HARD. We took two, with minimal effort, from the same place you are. The US has no quarantine for domestic animals. Pretty much all you need is a vet’s certification of the animals health and vaccination status. The on-base vets, as well as TMO, the office that handles military moves, will tell you exactly how to do this.
You are right when you say many military bases are infested with abandoned animals, and it’s irresponsible attitudes like yours that make that happen.
Start taking your cat to the vet on a regular basis, and never let this situation happen again.
I’m really glad that you got the kitten to a vet. I’m really, really, really glad that the kitten is doing better.
However- it makes me incredibly sad that you are planning to leave her/ get rid of her in just a few years. Do you have any idea how hard that will be on her? I’ve had my cats since their first day on this planet. (Their mother, a stray, died while birthing the litter. They were the only two that survived being born.) If your kitten was found at less than a month old, she has begun thinking of you as her mother. I know the kitten isn’t a human child, but abandoning her suddenly (Suddenly in the cat’s mind, at least. It isn’t like you can prepare her ahead of time.) seems cruel.
I hope you take Lucretia’s advice and find a way to keep her.
There are two forms of family housing at this base. The rules at my base are: only people living one type of housing (garden apartments) are allowed to have a cat or dog. In the other type of housing, (apartment towers), only CAGED pets are allowed. They are strict about it here and do often check into it. This is not a rule stated by my neighbors, it is a rule stated by the housing office. I don’t know if rules on other bases vary, or if you were stationed at a different base in Japan, or if when you were here rules were different. All I know is, I live in a tower apartment, the kind that does not allow cats or dogs.
Oh, what a load of crap. Do you mean to tell me that you took an animal to the vet and they didn’t get your name, address and phone number for the chart, along with all the pet’s pertinent information? Japanese vets must do things very, very differently than any vet clinic I’ve ever seen, heard of, been to, or worked for.
Let’s recap the situation here: you find a cat and keep it locked in your bathroom in violation of your housing agreement. You don’t get it any preventive care, or a checkup to make sure it’s healthy, nor do you bother to do any research to find out what is and isn’t normal for a cat. You think the cat might be dying, and you still hesitate to get it any medical attention because it might get you in trouble. Oh, yeah, and because you can’t walk across base or take base transport to the vet. In addition to all this, you’ve planned from the very beginning to keep this cat for a couple of years, then toss her out when she becomes inconvenient.
I won’t tell you what I truly think of all this, as this is entirely the wrong forum for that sort of language or sentiment. I will, however, tell you that your actions are utterly contemptible. I’m gone now; this thread is bad for my blood pressure.
I think you can see from the responses to this thread that you made an error in judgment in waiting so long to get your kitten help, acrossthesea. However, the fact that you did take her to the vet indicates to me that you’d like to be a responsible pet owner. To be fair, a lot of people wouldn’t have done that.
Since you’ve never had a cat before, I’m going to give you a bit of (unasked for, the best kind :)) advice and information.
First, it’s a myth that cats are self-sufficient. They’re not. They’re domesticated animals. If you abandon your cat when you leave, she will probably die. Yes, there are feral cats, but they tend to have short, difficult lives.
It’s also a myth that cats are loners. Cats who are that way were generally ignored as they were raised. Every cat I’ve ever had has been affectionate and liked people, and most of them even came when called by name. It was a good idea to confine your kitten at first, as that helped her feel safe, but now you need to spend time with her. Pick her up, pet her, play with her, stay in her presence when she eats. Not only will this be beneficial for the cat, it will help you bond with her and understand more quickly when she’s not feeling well. (Let’s be fair, people: responsible pet owners take good care of their animals not only because they feel it’s right but because they love them and don’t want to see them sick. Our motives aren’t completely altruistic.)
Speaking of food, buy the good stuff. I’ve had cats who couldn’t keep down regular cat food, presumably because of the fillers used in it. I’m not talking about super-expensive cat food; Iams is what I use, and my cats are generally very healthy (if a bit chubby). Cats will usually eat less of it than they would of grocery store cat food, and you will notice a difference in the way they act, the sheen of their coats, etc. I’m not sure what’s available in Japan; you may want to ask your vet for a recommendation. Use kitten food until she’s a year old.
Finally, in a month or so, if your kitten is completely recovered, get her spayed.
From your past posts, I know that you’re having some emotional difficulties. Taking good care of and developing a relationship with Phobic is not only good for her, it will help you feel less isolated. But if you truly feel that you can’t take care of her, you should find her a home with someone who can.
You know, I would give anything to have poor little Tess back, and here are people who are just blase about their animals dying.
Fucking amazing.
:mad:
CrazyCatLady, this is a woman who won’t even take herself to the hospital when her husband beats her up because she’s afraid of him. I’d hardly expect her to understand how important it is to get medical attention for a sick or injured animal. I’m glad she ultimately did the right thing by taking the kitten to the vet.
acrossthesea, if it’s really against the rules to have the kitten there, ask the base vet to help you find it a loving home where it will be allowed to stay. And please take care of it in the meantime – that means getting it back into the vet at the first sign of distress, should its health continue to decline or not improve.
acrossthesea, you do realize you have become an abuser!?!?!?!
I know it sometimes happens when someone is abused - they learn the behavior and carry on the tradition. However, it doesn’t have to be that way! I was abused unmercifully from the time I was born until I was into my 20s and I have NEVER abused anyone. I gather you aren’t ready to stop the abuse you are suffering, and for that I am very sad, but PLEASE don’t mistreat/abuse anyone else.
I can’t improve on anything that anyone else has said. A kitten/cat would be a great idea for you. But if you really can’t have it where you are, it’s wrong for you to try to keep it!
Adopting is a live long committment! If you were to adopt a child, would you leave that child when you moved? I sure as hell hope not, but I am wondering about how you are treating your 2 step children if you couldn’t see that the kitten needed to see the doctor.
Right, so everyone reading this thread knows exactly how it is where I live, the exact layout of this base, how easy it is to walk from where I live to the vet, when the bus runs, etc. You also know my current financial situation, when I work, how many friends I have who can give me a ride, and that my two young kids are perfectly healthy themselves right now, right?
Please. I posted here because I care about my cat and not knowing much about them was not sure what steps I could take to help her. If I didn’t care about her I wouldn’t have tried to get help, either by posting here OR by calling my trustworthy neighbor all night till I reached her.
If I didn’t care about my cat I never would have taken her in in the first place. Yes they have stupid rules here. No I did not make them. I am hardly responsible for this base being stray infested. (For the record a lot of the strays on base actually come from off base.)
I HELPED MY CAT. She is not dying. In fact today she is much improved. Say what you will about what you assume I’m like based on my posts about my marriage or anything else, but PLEASE don’t decide I am a pet neglecter because I asked some questions before getting her to the vet.
I don’t keep her locked in a small room. She lives in my bathroom because she is a small frightened kitten who likes to hide in small spaces. (This is why we named her Phobic!) She has access to everything. She chooses to stay in that room.
Many many people on this base have cats and give them to someone else when they move. If we do not take her with us that is what we will do. We are not planning on releasing her back to the streets. THAT IS AN ABUSER.
I think I’m pretty much done with this board, I’m very disappointed because I thought this was a place where one could discuss something without being labelled an abuser, or contempitble.
It really bothers me when people who have never had animals before decide to get one and don’t even bother to learn a little about them. That’s something that anyone should consider doing, just out of common sense. Now, I don’t mean like reading up on everything there is to know about animals, but AT LEAST the basical skills of taking care of said pet, and having the sense to do what is needed when it’s sick.
It’s horrible that you waited so long to have you cat taken to the vet. Horrible. You should have called the vet THE DAY the kitten started to become ill. You listed what was wrong with the cat, and anyone with a clue would have known it was serious enough for a vet trip.
I hope you know that those things don’t just suddenly happen, it’s progressive. How long was it before you finally did something about this? Do you pay that much attention to your cat?
Learn now to take care of cats, read up, ask the vet, do whatever you can to know what you’re doing. Never get involved in something unless you have at least some idea of what to do. I know you didn’t expect to have a cat, but that doesn’t give you the right to remain clueless on how to protect it’s well-being just because all of this wasn’t planned.
Get the kitten completely vaccinated annually, get it checked for FeLV (Feline Leukemia) and FIV (Feline AIDS), and let it roam the apartment. Trapping it in your bathroom is cruel. Take care of your pet.
AfterAugust, she mentioned in a previous post that she’s having it checked for feline leukemia Monday. She also mentioned that Phobic is not locked in the bathroom. She chooses to stay there because that is where she feels safest. This is very common behavior with cats that are introduced to a new environment, and feral cats/kittens, which is basically what hers was most likely, can take months to come around. (I know; we’ve recently adopted two feral kittens, and I had to harness and leash one of them for a few weeks so that she’d stop being scared of us. FTR, it worked, but if I hadn’t done that, she’d still be under our bed all day, and we would have no way of knowing if she wasn’t eating, etc., because she would still be doing all that at night while we’re asleep.)
Good grief, people, this isn’t the Pit. Acrossthesea came in for help because she wanted to do the right thing and is getting pummeled. Yes, as I mentioned before, she made an error in judgment, one that she’s not likely to make again. However, several of her mistakes may be understandable when you think about the situation.
For instance, if I saw a yellow puddle outside the litterbox, I too would think it was probably urine. Admittedly, that in itself would worry me, but that’s because I’ve had cats before. If, say, I’d only had dogs, I might tend to think, “Well, puppies have accidents too, so it’s probably not a big deal.” I’m not saying that’s the case, obviously; I don’t know, but neither do you.
Also, my guess is that if this kitten is in the bathroom she is still somewhat scared of people and very well could run and hide (behind the toilet, etc.) whenever someone comes in. If that’s the case, then the inclination of most people would be to leave her alone until she comes around on her own. (Before I put my kitty, Pepsi, on a leash, I even agonized about it a little because I was worried it might stress her out. I decided to do it because I figured being scared all the time would probably cause her more stress in the end. It worked out, but like I said, it wasn’t a no-brainer decision. Most people would probably have decided to let her come out on her own time, and if we’d done that, she could easily have gotten sick without us knowing.) Again, I don’t know that the kitten is hiding, but I don’t know that she’s not, and knowing how scared cats behave, it’s certainly not out of the question.
Finally, the fact remains that she took the kitten to the vet (or arranged to have it be taken, anyway). I know that as animal lovers it seems to us that she did the bare minimum, but the fact is that she did something a lot of people wouldn’t have done. Many people would have said, hey, it’s just a cat. She’s probably going to die anyway. And that’s even without the possibility of getting themselves in trouble. Do you really think acrossthesea would have asked our advice if she truly knew how serious Phobic’s condition was?
And one more thing: it is not cruel to give your animal away to a new, loving home. As much as I love my cats, cadolphin, they are not human. Cats can adapt to new environments (success depending on disposition of the cats, of course). Otherwise, it would be cruel to adopt an adult cat knowing the stress you put on it, wouldn’t it? And as far as the abuse thing goes, you seem to be projecting your past and feelings onto acrossthesea without knowing the full story.
Acrossthesea is trying to do the right thing. It’s not as if she came back and said, well, I’m not going to take Phobic to the vet. What is it exactly that you are all trying to accomplish with this pile-on?
As a person involved in rescue of animals that pounds won’t take (reptiles), I’ve come across a lot of Abusers. I’ve heard some horrible stories about what people can do to animals.
This isn’t one of them. The animal actually got taken to the vet. The person with the animal actually cared enough to ask.
Do you know how long it takes to starve an 8 and 11 foot Anaconda to death? At least 2 years. I’ve seen and 8 and 11ft’er starved to the point where they had almost no muscle, easily within months of death. With water that was was green with algae. In a 6X3 cage. Together. Then the owner asked if it was safe to tranport said animals in a pillowcase-like bag. This is not a too terribly strange thing for me to see, sadly.
Through my experiences, if someone cares enough to ask how to make things better, to make a vet visit, to want to change, then I’m damn near giddy. Hell, if someone even feeds their pet half appropriately, I’m happy anymore.
Okay, sure. It’s not the ideal way to handle things.
But instead of letting the animal die, releasing it outside, etc, she asked. Asking is the first step.
And she brought it inside in the first place, instead of letting it starve in the wild.
So, people make mistakes. Not everyone is well-educated (I agree people should be before they buy pets, but that’s idealic). But the steps she’s taken, that she’s taken any at all, make me not classify her as an abuser.
-Coming from a rescuer.
I wouldn’t call her an abuser and I think she means well, but it’s irresponsible to get a cat, let that cat be very ill for who knows how long, notice that the cat is skin and bones and hasn’t eaten in days, and then say she’s afraid to take the cat to the vet because she might get in trouble. Sorry but people have to live with the consequences of their actions, even if those consequences aren’t the most pleasant. She chose to bring a cat in when she wasn’t allowed to have one, and now that the cat is sick she’s got to live up to her commitment and take care of the cat. The cat should have had her shots long ago and if acrossthesea can’t get those shots, for whatever reason, then the cat doesn’t belong with her but rather with someone who is able to properly care for her.
I am glad everything seems to be working out and the kitten is getting better, and I hope they find a way to either bring her back to the U.S. or at least get a good home for her.
So, acrossthesea, you’re done with the board after several months because you didn’t like the advice given to you and the opinions formed based on your post? I’m not familiar with every aspect of your situation, nor am I a vet. HOWEVER, when I read your post, I couldn’t understand how you couldn’t realize that your cat was horribly ill and in desperate need of veterinary care. Weird vomiting of yellow stuff (I assume it’s bile), no interest in food, noticable weight loss and lethargy are signs of a MAJOR problem. I understand that you care about the cat and that you eventually got it medical help, but when you own a cat, you are responsible for it. It’s up to you to keep it fed, healthy and happy. Cats can’t tell you that their ill, and they can’t take themselves to the vet. They need you to pay attention, and use common sense when it comes to their health and wellbeing.
I’m sorry if you think you’re being persecuted, and I hope you don’t give up the SDMB forever because of one thread.
Don’t ask for advice and then get angry when people tell you things you don’t want to hear.
I don’t think she was angry about the advice, Guinastasia, considering she took it readily. She never once indicated that she was upset with the advice she got. Here’s an overview of her posts.
The first two times were the OP and an addition to the OP, in which she asked, not whether she should take the cat to the vet at all, but whether the situation was serious enough to warrant taking the cat right then or whether it was something she could wait until Monday to do. The third time was her saying she would call the emergency vet. The fourth time, she told us she’d arranged to get the cat to the vet, that she’d be taking the cat to the vet again Monday, and that the cat was doing much better. The fifth time was an overview of the relevant regulation(s) at her base. The sixth time, she said that we didn’t know enough about her situation to judge her (true), and she also pointed out that she’d taken the offered advice (also true). She also said she was abandoning the SDMB, which I do think is overreacting a bit, but then, I haven’t been called cruel, stupid, irresponsible, and blasé about my pet’s life, nor have I been told that my actions were utterly contemptible, all after taking the advice offered without so much as one argument … so what do I know?
i’m with skeptic_ev on this and to be honest if someone pits me over it so be it. acrossthesea came here looking for advice and you just dogpiled on her labeling her some of the nastiest things you could. we all make mistakes however acrossthesea took that advice and took the insults for a while and fortunately the cat was fine. you think she is likely to make this mistake again? and yet you still have a go at her, you still pile on her. now do you think that if acrossthesea or anyone who else reads this thread will want to come to the SDMB for advice if this is the response they may recieve.
im sorry but this was completely uncalled for.
thats my opinion anyway.