Stressed kittie...?

Jack B. Badd

Our cat Eve has been with us 3 weeks now and last Friday we had to take her to the vet as she has cystitis (according to the vet). She had a shot of antibiotics and pain killers and seemed to be improving over the weekend. However, she's displaying symptoms again tonight so I think we'll have to take her back tomorrow.

The vet said it may be caused by stress and I'm trying to figure out what may be causing it. She's been settling in well other that this. We've been slowly introducing her to the garden over the past week and a half and I'm wondering if this could be contributing to her stress levels. She will sit by the door and cry at us (presumably to be left out) when we get home from work but at the moment we can't let her outside without keeping an eye on her so it's probably only for about a half hour in the evening.

Are we stressing her out more or less by letting her outside for a short while and then bringing her back in?

boomerang

Does she have access to a clean and spacious litter tray, where she can do her business undisturbed? A common cause of UTIs in cats is issues around the litter tray...

The Sweeper

Do you have a litter box inside for her? If you're letting her out and she gets a preference for peeing outside, she could be holding her urine until you do let her out, which won't be good for cystitis. Maybe keep her in for a few days so she gets used to the litter tray and chills out a little.

If she's an adult cat you've adopted and she's used to being outdoors, letting her out for very short periods will wind her up because she's going to want more outdoor time. Doubly so if she's used to doing her business outside.

If you do want her to be an indoor/outdoor cat (all the arguments on that one notwithstanding) I really do think you need to keep her indoor only until this infection shifts and she's all better. It won't take too long, but distract her with games, stroking and treats when she cries at the door for a couple of days, see if you can get this ailment under control, then go back to looking at making her a mistress of the great outdoors.

Jack B. Badd

She has one of the big hooded litter trays inside and constant access to it. It gets scooped at least twice a day and cleaned out once a week. She's a very fastidious little cat and hasn't had any problems using her litter tray until last Thursday (or at least not that we've noticed). She's still going in her tray now - peeing when she can and pooping fine.
She's been monitored pretty much constantly when she's been outside so far (almost to the extent of my boyfriend and I following her around the garden) and I've never seen her do her toilet outside so I don't think she's been holding on to go outside.

She is going to be an indoor/outdoor cat but we can't let her out all day at this stage so we figured it would be better to introduce her slowly when we can - mornings, evenings and weekends.

She's currently scratching at the back door and mewing...

luckat

Settling in to a new home is stressful for anyone. Just ignore her a lot of the time so she can find her feet. (Or paws.)

BlackCat2008

I rushed mine to UCD last Xmas and was told he had cyctitis he would have only been a few months old, and have a very old girl which suffered with it for years, the display strange behaver because of the feeling of wanting to go and then finding they don't need to, or know it will cause them pain to go, you must make sure he has access to clean, or better again cool boiled water, I store it in milk cartons so I alway have some at hand when needed, and at least one wet meal a day and forever as the dry food alone doesn't help, it would be better if you could put on some extra meat for dinner for him than to give him canned cat food.

You can also get some stuff from your herb/health food shop to help him, but run it by the vet before you do so, i'll post the name of one as soon as I find the old post on it.

Jack B. Badd

Well, the vet gave us some antibiotics and anti-inflammatories for the week and gave some advise on how to de-stress her - including a Feliway diffuser (instead of dealing with the problem we're just going to dope her up to the nines ).
He thinks we should be ok letting her out in the mornings and evenings in a week or two once she's over her infection.
She seems a lot more perky today and has some new toys (including a laser pointer) to cheer her up... And her owners have been advised not to display their concern quite so openly as cats can pick up on emotions

luckat

Feliway is good.

Letting her out will allow her to find her own place in the neighbourhood cat hierarchy, but for the first while, that too will be stressful - she'll have to meet and face down a bunch of different cats, and basically make the case that the garden is hers, and then find a patrol route that will avoid other cats' timings for their own routes.

The best way to destress her at home, though (apart from the Feliway) is to ignore her unless she comes to you, and then be very calm with her. No loud noises or in-your-faceness or trampling around. Be very Zen.

You'll be able to gradually return to normal after a bit.

BlackCat2008

Here's the name of the tablets, they have an anti inflmmatory property and help with the string in the urine, take the hole name down and take it to the health shop, New Era, Biochemic Tissue salts, Ferr. Phos. no.4, just make sure you check with your vet before using them encase they may intrefere with the meds he has him on, we worked it out that you can give up to about five a day when they are bad and one to two a day when they are recovering till you think they are ok, they are only about 5 euro. http://www.nourish.ie you can just pop them in their mouths and they will melt or crush them and put them in his food.

Jack B. Badd

Thanks BlackCat. I'll see if the vet thinks they're ok to use and see if I can get them over here.
Eve's a lot calmer today - no scratching at the bedroom door at half 6 (for the first time in a fortnight), no crying to get out. She may have decided the novelty of outside isn't so great after she got taken to the vet in lashing rain and it was snowing last night too

BlackCat2008

No fare I want snow

I'm glad to hear she is doing better, sorry don't know why I kept figuring she was a he.

There's other things you can do, like making sure she has some fresh meat mixed with pulses or carrots (Mashed into the meat) even make up soup from left over meat 50%, some wholegrain rice 5%-10%,veg&pulses 10%-20% and make the stock up from big bones that can be removed buy small containers and freeze one for every day of the week, one of the biggest problems with cats is taking in water and no matter how much fresh water they drink it's not enough they need to take in water from wet food, soup or fresh meat with some veg or pulses is a great way and they love it served warm, have a word with the vet about other ways for her to get water in to her, I don't recommend canned or sacha as it's mainly full of sugar and bad for their teeth, I've been searching for some time now and have found nothing good.

You can also buy a powder form of cranberry in the chemist and shake a small bit in her water through out he day(one sacha a day, sprinkled in the water in small amounts so she can't taste it) even when she's better you can still do this for a few days a month one after the other to try to prevent it happening again. Better than vet bills and good for her even when she's in good health.

She sounds like she on the mend and has a caring owner so she should be just fine but once they get it, she can continue to get it through out her life so always keep an eye out for blood in the urine and not going in the litter tray, they'll even go in the sink and the weirdest places if she those this try to get some tissue under her to help with telling you if there is blood in the urine, it's very painful on them and best treated early.

http://www.ivillage.petside.com this is a site run by vets and people involved with pet health, you should get some great tips on it.

Jack B. Badd

Gah! Everything was fine up to today and now Eve's straining to urinate around the apartment again
She's calmed down a good bit and has been using her litter trays fine (still is) and has a nice mix of wet and dry food so I don't think she's dehydrated. The only thing I can think of is that she's stressed over the fireworks last night (bloody Guy Fawkes messing up my cat :mad:)
I haven't tried the cranberry juice/tablets yet but I will pick up some tomorrow and she if she'll take it in her food. Might see if a bland diet of boiled chicken would help for the moment...

On an annoying note, it also looks like this won't be covered by our pet insurance from now on. We got a month's free insurance with PetPlan because we adopted her from a shelter (first 2 weeks not covered of course :rolleyes:). It was heavily implied, if not specifically stated, that any policy we took out within the month would continue on from that free month. However, when we rang them to continue the policy tonight we were told that as her cystitis occurred within the first free month (not the first 2 weeks though) it wouldn't be covered by any continuing policy... I'm not entirely happy about this to say the least :mad:

The Sweeper

That's crap on behalf of PetPlan. Whats the point of insurance if it doesn't cover a newly arising condition?!

Jack B. Badd

That's what I'm thinking. On the other hand, the nice (if a bit dim) lady on the phone didn't have fantastic English so maybe she just didn't understand what we were saying - like she had to check with her manager to see if we could insure an adopted cat...
If that is the case though, then we would have been way better off just signing up to a proper policy straight away instead of taking on the free month. It strikes me as extremely disengenuous. Will be attempting to find someone in PetPlan who knows what they're talking about in the morning.

Jack B. Badd

Well, I have decided To Hell With PetPlan, we're going with Halifax (Axa) instead. The premium is better, the cover is better, all their policies are continuous cover, you don't have to trade your first born for a full copy of their policy terms and they're up front about their arbitration/dispute process - all unlike PetPlan.

Eve seems to be feeling much better today after a change of diet and most of the weekend spent in the garden - hurray for the healing properties of cranberry juice and fresh air