<p>For the overfeeding/barfing cat, my brother puts golf balls in her kibble. Not sure it’s working, because she’s still fat. :)</p>
<p>Two of these cats I still consider my cats because they became part of the family before I moved out of my parents’ house. They are my buddies. </p>
<p>Mr. Kitty - A chubby orange tabby, about 5 years old. We don’t live in a great neighborhood and a couple streets down someone abandoned a litter of kittens when they moved. My dad almost stepped on him walking home from the store and brought him back to the house with him. He was exhausted and covered in fleas. We bathed him, fed him, and now he is a very sweet, mellow cat who is sometimes prone to seizures. </p>
<p>Little Dug - A chunky, sleek black cat weighing in at 14+ pounds, 2 years old. He is so named because he had the name Douglas at the shelter, which is also my dad’s name. Mr. Kitty was bored and lonely after my brother went to college, and Little Dug was a feisty but affectionate kitten at the shelter who wanted to be everyone’s buddy. Within two days of Little Dug coming home they were best buddies, and they play together a lot. </p>
<p>Mew - A flame point Himalayan, 6 years old. He is a total spoiled brat. He insists on drinking from the tub, and cries to be lovingly dribbled water from a cupped palm (I’m serious). My husband encourages this behavior because he thinks it’s cute. He loves to snuggle and has quite a purr, but he can turn on any moment. He begs loudly for everything he likes, including his wet food, treats, and people foods like chicken and ham. He was adopted a year ago with his “brother” Morgan, after their owner had died from cancer.</p>
<p>Morgan - A skinny, long-haired black and gray cat, about 6 years old. He is absolutely gorgeous and has a beard like a Maine coon. He is a talker and also a snuggler. Around 2AM every day he is possessed by a cat demon and tears around the house speaking in cat-tongues. Both he and his “brother” came with names that we did not change. (Though we considered renaming them Gimli and Renley.)</p>
<p>I received two $100 Amazon gift cards for my birthday, and thought I’d check out that product. Many reviews complaining that they had changed the formula for Petromalt and that their cats, who had once LOVED it, now refused to eat it. Allegedly the company was going to go back to the original formula in late 2012. But the new reviews state that the company lied. Mineral oil used to be 44% as per ingredients, but now is only 10%, with Petrolatum now listed as a new ingredient at 32.8%. Would sure rather give mineral oil rather than a petroleum product to my cat.</p>
<p>Anyone know anything about this?</p>
<p>By the way, my cat is Juliet, a black beauty with lime green eyes, 10 years old, and the sweetest, most affectionate and cuddly cat I’ve ever known. She coexists rather ambivalently with our 2 dogs. We usually just call her “Kitty,” and she comes when you say “want to eat?” or when we call out “Mow mow!” She hates her crate, complains loudly as you put her in it, but then stays quiet as a mouse during the 2 hour trip to our weekend place.</p>
<p>Cats barf for a variety of reasons. If she’s not coughing up a fur ball, she may be allergic or intolerant to her food. Try switching to one that says it’s easy on the digestion. (We buy Hill’s WD from our vet. It’s not cheap, but it is much better for cats because it is low in carbs (cats lack the enzymatic pathways to break down carbs, so if your cat food contains a lot of grain, that may be why your kitty is barfing so much.)</p>
<p>We have two cats, one of whom is very high strung (he’s orange and orange cats are much more likely to be high-strung) and very attached to my daughter, who just left for her freshman year. In anticipation of her departure, we decided to try a “calming collar,” which works like an old-fashioned flea collar but releases cat pheromones that mimic those of a cat’s mother. </p>
<p>It actually works. This cat used to roam the house yelling for our daughter whenever she was away (yes, he’s neutered), scratching up the furniture, and then psychotically running in circles. Now he’s so calm he’s an entirely different cat. DH says he’s stoned.</p>
<p>If only they made collars like this for my mother in law!</p>
<p>So Romani, what is your roommate planning to do with the two or more litters of kittens the two female unspayed cats will produce before they turn one year of age? Does she have seven or eight or ten or twelve homes lined up? Is she familiar with how to support a birthing queen, and then a nursing queen and her family? She has money saved up for the vet visits for the kittens?</p>
<p>My cat wouldn’t eat the fish flavored Petramalt, only the malt flavored one. Go figure. Be that as it may, the original formula, with more mineral oil, did seem to be more effective. I still believe that constant brushing, combined with Metamucil, reduces hair balls more than the hair ball ointment ever did.</p>
<p>CF, you’re preaching to the choir. I KNOW what she’s setting herself up for. I’m hoping their first vet visit will set her straight but there’s NOTHING I can do about it.</p>
<p>Our old kitty would ONLY eat dry cat food, and she was a very regular “up-chucker” of hair balls. After she died and before we got our two new kitties, I found something on-line that suggested that feeding cats canned food (vs. dry kibble) can help reduce the barfing because the high water content of the canned food supposedly helps move the cat hair through their digestive tract, instead of staying in their stomach in a clump. Whether this is actually true or not, I’m not sure.</p>
<p>But…we’ve had our two new kitties for one and a half years, and we feed them Wellness brand canned cat food. (They love it, but it’s pricey.) If you can believe it, in all this time, we’ve only have one cat bring up a hairball ONE time! </p>
<p>And if anyone is wondering about the screen name - I don’t counsel cats. I’m a counselor…and I love cats! : )</p>
<p>Romani, I wasn’t blaming you, just ranting about idiots who irresponsibly don’t spay/neuter their pets. I hope the vet knows some tricks to persuade people to spay/neuter.</p>
<p>On my favorite kitten cam and other kitten cams I hear about, the moms are typically young pet cats who got pregnant and were then abandoned by their owners. Shelters find foster parents who take care of cat and kittens until they are old enough to be adopted out. The shelters don’t adopt out the mama and the kittens until they are spayed/neutered. And shelters are full of unwanted kittens.</p>
<p>My DD’s cat is Chocolate Pudding Elaine (we call him Chuckie), and he has spent the last 14 years trying to prove his manhood. In all fairness, DD was only 6 when we got him, and wanted him to have her middle name. He’s mostly retired now, but in his prime he was quite the mouser.</p>
<p>He has always been a “wool sucker” which is a nursing like behavior, and has gotten particularly needy in recent years. He gazes into my eyes and chews on my neck. Weird, but endearing. DD is annoyed that he always leaves her lap for mine when I sit down. Of course, I don’t leave him for months at a time, either ;)</p>
<p>I probably spend $200/month now to keep him alive, between insulin, syringes, prescription kibble and vet visits. And I’m grateful for every single day he is in my life! My kids strongly suspect I like him best.</p>
<p>Anyway, I just talked to my dad, our landlord, and he said that there are to be NO cats. So I guess it’s a moot point. I’m angry because our third roommate said he got the OK and now I feel I’m going to be stuck in the middle. But at least I don’t have to worry about adding to the cat population. Grumble. </p>
<p>My last cat’s name was Smokey. He was oxygen deprived during birth and had neurological disorders his whole life. Weird cat, but our cat. He was BEAUTIFUL. Long grey and white fur and blue eyes.</p>
<p>My D used to volunteer at the Human Society shelter in our city. Dangerous, I know. But, we somehow managed to limit the adoptions to one. So far.</p>
<p>Two years ago our eleven year old cat Opal passed away. After a couple months, we stopped by the shelter “just to see”. Yeah, right. Next thing I knew, Betsy chose me - not the other way around. She was four months old with ears twice the size of her body. She and her brother Bobby (you have to say it with a British accent: Betsy and Bobby) were flipping and wrestling and rolling around in their cage entertaining the whole room. Bobby was adopted by a young couple at the same time I was adopting Betsy.</p>
<p>Betsy’s claim to fame is chewing through iPhone cords. No other cords, just iPhone cords. This morning she chewed #6. I had it charging on the bathroom counter, got in the shower, and as soon as the glass shower doors steamed up, she was on the counter chomping away. She knows she’s in the doghouse right now. </p>
<p>Betsy and I have an empty nest, now that my youngest D has left for college. It’s interesting how the dynamics have changed.</p>
<p>We adopted an indoor adult cat from a CL post. His owners named him Scout, so for lack of imagination we still call him that. He’s about 11 years old now, gray with 4 white paws and a white chest, very handsome. He’s outwardly a curmudgeon but slips up sometimes and becomes a purring lap kitty. We chose him because his former owners had a big dog, and we had 2 dogs at the time so we wanted a cat who would be comfortable with dogs. Scout has trained our one remaining dog to give him his space.</p>
<p>Earlier this year we adopted two 2-year-old feral cats, Lizzie and P r o w l e r from the shelter where I volunteer. The adoption counselor insisted that they go together because they were bonded, and she was right. We kept them in a large dog crate outside for a month to acclimate in the yard. They spent the first 5 days pretty freaked out, huddled together in the back, not eating or drinking. Eventually they relaxed, began to eat, and started showing their goofy sides with toys in the crate. We brought Scout out for supervised visitations and they reached their paws through the side of the crate to try to get him to come closer. Releasing them in the yard was a bit of a leap of faith because we weren’t 100% sure they’d be anchored. To our relief they stayed around and they’ve been a wonderful addition to our family. </p>
<p>When Scout is out to visit, the female is completely ecstatic to see him - she is such an over-the-top flirt that we’ve renamed her Coquette and call her Coco for short. P r o w l e r is very social with Scout too. I credit Scout with helping to tame them because gradually I’ve been able to come closer without being hissed at, and most recently I’ve been able to pet them while giving them their food.</p>
<p>Watching the kitty cam, I’ve become convinced that kittens are better off adopted in pairs. One kitten can get bored and bother the adult cats of the household (if any) or wreak havoc in the house, but two kittens entertain each other.</p>
<p>OTOH, I adopted my own late cat as a kitten and she was fine. My husband is allergic to cats, but she was grandfathered in when we got married. When we finally lost her at the ripe old age of 20, we didn’t get a replacement because of the allergies. But now Mr. Fang’s doctor says we might be able to get a cat! So when I get back from a three-week trip next month, we’re going to go to shelters and see if we can find a young cat that doesn’t seem to trigger Mr. Fang.</p>