So, why can't my cat poop right?

Factual Questions
1

He’s seeing a vet, I just wondered if you guys could give additional insight. It’s looking like my free cat may top the $500 mark this week, so a second opinion might come in handy. :slight_smile:

If you haven’t been following the Saga of Stokie with bated breath, I picked up this feral cat a couple months ago and adopted him. (I kind of meant for somebody else to adopt him, but you know that didn’t work out that way.)

Since I took him in he’s had some poop problems. I’m not sure how things were moving before his first vet visit, but after the first dewormer we had major diarrhea. The vet prescribed an antibiotic, the name of which I forget, which I think was a seven or ten day dose. While he was on the antibiotic, he improved, although on the first one it was never what I’d call a great poop. So we finished the cycle and a few days later we were back to liquid. (His non-medicated poop state ever since then has been, say, the consistency of thin cake batter. This is much improved from his first few Very Bad days but does not change.

So the vet saw him, gave him his second dewormer, and tried a different antibiotic. This was seven days of Clavamox, and again, while he was on it, good poop. (I’d say with this one we achieved normal poop - in other words, I couldn’t tell what cat had done it.) After the seven days, cake batter.

So since the Clavamox had worked, we tried fourteen days this time. On it? Good poop. It’s been a few days since we went off it (longer than the first two times, I think) and there’s some cake batter in the litter box from last night.

Throughout all of this the animal is drinking and eating (and in fact gaining weight - he had gained a pound before the fourteen day dose and I think he’s even heavier now - he was a tiny little animal when I picked him up but he’s filling out a bit) and gamboling and showing no worrisome behaviors except for this poop thing.

I’m waiting for the vet to call me back. What could it be? What’s the most expensive it could be? Are we treating it right? Is Stokie okay? (I am continually encouraged by the way he’s gaining weight - last time she said that that suggests to her that it’s not a serious issue.)

2

BTW - the vet called and just refilled the Clavamox.

3

Could be all kinda things. My general advice to my clients and others is to allow 3 shots at correcting a problem, after which a second opinion or referral to a specialist should be considered.

Attempting treatment without considering diagnostics is not easy. Is the cat Feline Leukemia negative? Has he had a negative Giardia test? Has a fecal culture and or cytology of a colon swab been done? Has the cat completed a trial of Metronidazole? Just a few ideas.

4

He is FIV negative. I’m pretty sure he has not had a Giardia test, because that’s one of the things the vet mentioned the first time I had to bring him back. I think she just went ahead and gave him whatever the Giardia remedy is. That would have been about a month ago, I think.

5

Did they do the combo test for both FIV and FeLV (Feline AIDS and Leukemia, respectively)? It might be a good idea to have him retested 3 months after the first test to make sure he wasn’t recently exposed to either of these at the time he was testing.

The usual treatment for Giardia is metronidazole that vetbridge recommended, have you been given that for him? It’s pretty much the standard antibiotic for intestinal problems, it gets little nasties like certain protozoa and certain bacteria that you don’t want living there.

Another thing, if he’s been on a course of antibiotics for a while he may have lost his normal gut flora and you need to replace them. There are supplements you can buy for this, ask about Forti-flora or Bene-bac. You could give some yogurt with live cultures but then you risk giving him diarrhea from the dairy, some cats lose the ability to digest dairy after kittenhood.

Another possibility is just stress or food allergies, you could try a gradual switch to a hypo-allergenic food as a food trial, just make sure it’s gradual or the switch itself would cause some diarrhea.

There so many possibilities with GI issues I wouldn’t get yourself to worried about the worst case scenarios just yet.

6

Unfortunately, there really isn’t such a drug. Although, as Wile E pointed out, Metronidazole is commonly used, it is far from 100% efficacious. I just treated a Giardia infected dog with three consecutive trials of Albendazole paired with Fenbendazole in order to eliminate Giardia. Several courses of Metronidazole did nothing.

Also, as Wile E mentioned, probiotics have a use in diarrhea treatment/management. Also, many cases respond to increased levels of dietary fiber.

7

Oh, I forgot - he did get a probiotic powder to add to his food with the first round of pills.

I believe it was the combo test, yes.

I don’t remember the name of the first pills, although I may still have the bottle. Is there a nongeneric name for “metronidazole” that it could have been? That name doesn’t ring a bell.

8

Flagyl.

9

The food all three of them eat is the Iams indoor for weight and hairball control, and when I’m feeling generous they get Iams canned food. When he was taking pills he got them in a bit of spray cheese. (Very popular. When it was time for his pill he’d trot into the kitchen, gobble it down, and then ask to be excused. He was quite upset when he ran out of pills.) Is what they’re getting generally well-tolerated?

I guess what I really want to know is, is it appropriate to just do more Clavamox as my vet is doing, or should I see somebody else? I like this place very much - they’re very good on follow-up and very nice, and extremely great about talking to me on the phone and telling me when I actually need to come in, but I don’t really know how to evaluate a vet’s actual care.
ETA - I think I still have that first bottle. I’ll check to see if that’s what it was.

10

If after three attempts to “fix” the problem, referral/second opinion has not been mentioned, IMHO there is a problem. Just sayin’. Also, the Iams food is relatively high fiber. A food with very low fiber might be worth a trial.

11

So how do you pick another vet? I had somebody I used to take my dog to, but he died. I’ve been going to the same practice, but I’ve been getting postcards in the mail about some weird split where the vet I’d been seeing took her practice elsewhere, and I wasn’t that crazy about her to begin with, and when I took the dog there yesterday for a haircut I guess his old groomer had gone with the vet, because he itched and itched and itched all night. Poor guy.

So I take the cats to this other place because they just do cats, and they’re so nice. Also convenient. But if they’re not actually fixing my animal…

I don’t really know anybody else who has cats and a vet they’d suggest.

ETA - what has low fiber? Factory Sweepins’ Cat Niblets?

12

No, there are foods made that use phrases like “highly digestible”. Purina’s veterinary line has one (either EN or DM).

To find a new veterinarian, word of mouth is one resource. Personally, I love seeing 2nd opinions. Much of the work has already been done, and often a fresh evaluation leads to success. An appointment with an internal medicine specialist, either at the veterinary school in Raleigh or in private practice is another idea.

13

I don’t know how he was crapping when he was a porch cat, but at least some of his diet was supplied by my boyfriend’s ex-roomate’s girlfriend, who fed the strays sometimes. (Inconsistently. Which seems unfair - either feed them or not!) At any rate, I’m sure she fed them Standard Grade Floor Sweepin’s Cat Niblets (made from real cats!) - perhaps that’s what he’s used to?

He also farts. A good bit. And his farts smell like Cheerios. I don’t know if that’s a diagnostic aid or not, but dude is it gross when he jumps on you and the jump knocks a fart out of him. Especially fun when he jumps on you ass first and you see the fart come out. I mean, I’ve smelled way, WAY nastier cat and dog farts, I assure you, but there’s something particularly gross about the way Stokie’s farts smell essentially like a part of this complete breakfast.

When I go to pick up the pills today I’ll see if I can speak to the vet. I mean, when he’s on the Clavamox he does poop well, but I’m concerned that that’s just covering up the problem and not actually solving anything. I’m not looking forward to the idea of spending more money on my free cat to stick something up its ass, but if that’s what the animal needs then so be it. Surely he doesn’t enjoy crapping cake batter any more than a person would.

14

Frankly, a couple of months isn’t very long for a feral cat to adjust to being a pampered pet with a trained servant (Zsofia). Deworming, good quality food on a regular basis, clean water, etc. are all major changes for this cat’s body, and it just may take a while to adjust. I wouldn’t be too worried about it at this point.

My vet has previously suggested 100 days as a guide – give the cat 100 days to adjust, then come back for further tests if there is anything that is still a problem after that time.

Since he improves while on antibiotics, I’d keep giving the ones the Vet recommended, and asking about different ones, and longer term ones. (There are lots of different antibiotics available.)

But don’t worry too much – it sounds like he is doing quite well.

15

Oh, he’s doing fine. But he’s very picky about the litterbox and will not go in the robot, so there’s a puddle of cake batter on my floor that I just could not deal with this morning.

16

He has been on Antibiotics, thus very likely a dose of Probiotics will help. Call your Vet make sure he doesn’t say “NO”, and give them a try.

NutriMalt (Not Petromalt, made by the same company) may also help.

17

Sorry, I just have to hijack this.

Our cat had dingle berry problems. It seems she always had a little souvenir hanging on the back of her, um hiney.

We finally took her to the vet and he explained that she was too chubby to keep herself clean and that to help her I needed to trim the hair around her anus. :eek:

I told the vet, “I’m glad you have a solution but I gotta tell you…There just never is that perfect time of day to trim the cat’s ass”

Now Mrs’ BD does the task using my “old” beard trimmer and I nervously hide my “new” beard trimmer lest she ID the wrong one.

18

Don’t worry.
He will soon have you trained well enough to deal with such things. It’s just part of the task of making a human a well-trained cat servant!

19

Would it not be better to dechubbify the cat? (Unless it’s the kind that will not self-dechubbify any more than it will self-asshole-lick, that is.)

20

malenka the miraculous has horrendous poo problems. i found her at 3 days old. by 4 weeks things exploded, literally out her tush. we rush her through weaning to get her to dry food in an attempt to stop the flood. didn’t work, at that time she tested pos.(fiv) but the vet wanted to wait 'til 3 months to be sure. she could have been going off of mum cat.

we went through a few different antibios in the mean time. like your little guy malenka did well while on the meds, badly when off. at the 4 month mark we tested again and she came up neg.(fiv) big relief but the kitty was still leaking poo. she was mostly in a small room and you had to be very careful handling her. she wouldn’t use the litter box any more as it hurt when she would go. she was fine otherwise, playful, cuddly, interested, gaining weight.

we tried science diet zd, and all sorts of allergy foods. nope. no go. at 6 months she had her spay and because i went on vacation in nyc she stayed at the vets for 5 days. (they felt the power of her poo, it was fiercesome.) they did biosies of her intestines while doing the spay. all came back good. so the theory is that she has one heck of a case of ibd, and went on metronidazole.

it is a miracle drug, she went from a poo dripping cat to a cat who only poos perhaps once or twice a day. litter box still a bit of a problem. then about 2 years ago it stopped working.

we moved onto predisone. that held for a year and a half and now we are back to metro. it is working again. she is much happier.

also science diet indoor food seems to work the best with her. we’ve tried her on nearly every food on the market. and this one works the best. still trying to get her to go in the litter box… i’m happy if she just goes in the basement. unfortunatly when she has to go she really has to go and it doesn’t matter where, just get out of the way or the room if possible!

i hope your guy does better than malenka.