I've noticed a lot of cat owners complaining about how difficult water fountains are to clean, especially when slime and buildup get into the pump and tiny corners.

I'm curious how everyone deals with this because it seems like a common frustration.

A few questions:

1. How often do you clean your cat's water fountain?
2. What's the most frustrating part of cleaning it?
3. Do you use vinegar, brushes, dish soap, or any special cleaning products?
4. Have you ever tried cleaning tablets specifically designed for pet water fountains?
5. If there were cleaning tablets that made the process easier and were proven safe for pet fountains when used as directed and thoroughly rinsed, would you consider using them? Or would you still prefer vinegar?
6. Would $20–$30 for a pack lasting several months seem reasonable, or too expensive?

I'm genuinely curious about people's experiences, especially if you've tried different cleaning methods. I'd love to hear what works and what doesn't!

My 6 month old kitten got into Lilly’s her numbers (kidney values) were at a 2.0 for the first 24 hours and then today at 48 hours the doctor said it went up to 7.0.

We are scared she had a neurological episode the first night but has been fine since and the doctor said she had never seen that from lily toxicity before.
We are keeping her there for another 24 hours to see how her numbers turn out. They’re doing the fluids, unsuccessfully tried to make her puke and did activated charcoal I’m really scared and feel so guilty. She is eating and peeing and she is awake and active. So far. Any words or explanations or anything honestly is appreciated me and my partner have been crying non stop for the past couple of days. What are the odds of her making it?

I hate this chair, but my cat adores jumping on top of it and using it as a scratcher. I think she really enjoys the balance component of jumping on a skinny tall thing. I’m moving Friday and throwing away this ugly chair that my mom gifted me many years ago. What could I buy her to get the same kind of enrichment? I’m open to builds and DIY cat furniture as well.

Has anyone had any luck with teaching a deaf cat to stop screaming? I’ve had my boy Lucifer for four years now. I got him when he was three so he’s 7 now. He is neutered (at least one testicle gone. They couldn’t find the other and just assumed he didn’t have two).
He is driving me and my s/o insane. We’ve tried ignoring him when he screams, we’ve tried going up to him to see if he wants attention (he does not), we’ve tried picking him up every time he screams (he doesn’t like being picked up so we thought maybe he would stop if he associated screaming with being picked up), we got another cat. They’re besties but it didn’t help. We’ve tried feliway, giving him puzzles, playing with him.

Literally nothing works and I feel myself getting more and more tired. We love him to bits but we’re so exhausted.

TLDR: deaf cat won’t stop screaming, even after 4 years of efforts.

We’re students but we can afford vets if we have to. But I can’t really see what the vet could help with atp.

Back story: my cat was a stray that we took in when he was about 1 year old. The neighbors across the street from us were taking care of him so he was pretty accustomed to people. But after he was wounded and they failed to get him any medical attention we claimed him. We got him vaccinated, neutered, and a flea treatment and at that point considered him ours. We let him inside and had him become an indoor cat.

About 40% of the time he was super sweet and snuggly, but the other 60% of the time he was a total menace. He was always stalking, hunting and attacking us, and the yelling would never end. He also was constantly trying to get into his cat feeder and knocking it over, which became problematic.

We moved about two years ago and these problems stopped for a little while, so we figured the issue was with the many stray cats that used to live around our old home. however, after a few months in our new house, the problems began again, and have been getting worse it seems. He attacks me quite frequently, to the point where walking around the first floor I feel on edge. We have to put 10 pound weights around his feeder to keep him from knocking it over (and yes, he gets fed enough, he is on a special diet after having a few urinary blockages last year, but is eating plenty.) today he scratched my eight month old across the face out of the blue, the baby didn’t even touch him. I’m really fed up. And the yelling has started again.

I’m not sure what to do, I’ve bought him new toys, he seems to get bored with them after a day and realizes they’re just toys. I have designated playtime with him, we have a catio, and we have a large house that he has free rein over. I’ve also tried the pheromone plug-ins, but those didn’t seem to change anything. The vet doesn’t think he’s sick or in pain either.

Rehoming isn’t really an option, I love him so much. He’s part of the family, but I have to get him to stop playing so aggressively with us. If it even is playing? At this point, I just feel a bit scared of him.

What would you do? What am I missing?

Hi,

I recently adopted a 3 month old kitten. He is thriving, playful, eating well, and very social. The only issue is that he frequently has small amounts of loose stool leaking from his butt, which gets on our clothes and furniture. When we adopted him, we were told that he had been having diarrhea due to being switched from dry to wet food. He has had multiple semi formed stools since then but continues to have small amounts of liquid leaking out. Is this still diarrhea from the wet food? We are in the process of transitioning him back to dry food.

Hello All,

Our sweet boy Carrit has been diagnosed with severe anemia. He’s only 11 months old. 😢We have taken him to the vet and animal hospital. They ran multiple tests but unfortunately could not determine the cause of the anemia. We drove straight to the animal hospital following his vet appointment and the doctor explained what would need to happen to diagnose him. When the consultant returned with the estimate they told us they would need $6000 to get started and the bill could increase to over $20,000.

This was for a multitude of tests, hospital stay, transfusions, blood typing, sedation, etc. I was in shock and devastation as you could imagine. We absolutely can not afford care at that cost. They did prescribe doxycycline and prednisolone for him. He is still eating a bit, drinking water, urinating and having bowel movements. I have attached the results from his vet. This is our first cat and he’s brought so much love and joy to our family. We love him dearly and want to do all that we can for him. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!

shes a 3 year old from the shelter, indoor only and her records look clean. ive seen people say accident only is enough for indoor cats since they dont really get into trouble but illness seems like the bigger risk with cats from what ive read? already decided im getting a policy, just cant figure out which kind makes sense for a indoor cat

My female, 4.5 year old, 8.5LB, spayed DSH cat has been experiencing loose stool on and off since around april/may. I thought it may be due to stress (we had a car crash into my front apartment door, and things were stressful for a bit). It started to get bad (explosive diarrhea). In aug, we had an ultrasound done and i was told she had thickening in her small intestines and that it could be IBD or lymphoma. They suggested doing a biopsy but I just couldnt imagine putting her through something like that. She also seems too young to have lymphoma. We decided to try a hydrolyzed diet and it worked for about a month or so but it slowly stopped. We started prednisolone 2 weeks ago (still on the hydrolyzed diet) and its been helping her stools harden. We also started doing weekly B12 injections. Today we started the weening off stage of the steroid. Through all of this, I have noticed her losing fat/muscle and that she is losing a little bit of weight. Sept 21st, she was 8.9lbs. Oct 12th she was 8.7lbs. Oct 22 she was 8.5lbs. We have an appointment on the 27th so i am anxious to see what her weight will be. This seems concerning to me but apparently her vet does not think so. Ive tried hydrolyzed wet food, and a novel protein wet food (kangaroo) but she wont eat it. Im also hesitant with even trying new foods.

I wanted to include screenshots of her bloodwork that was done in July and also in sept. Not sure how to add a link. They couldn't tell me a reason for her slightly elevated GGT on both results. They said it could be a false reading. Im not sure what else to do at this point. I was hoping she'd start gaining weight while on the steroid. Any advice is appreciated.

Extra info:Chicago area. She hasnt had much of an issue with vomiting. Only a handful of times. It seemed to be mostly hairballs and she does have an issue with over grooming her arms/legs.

TLDR: I handled a sick cat, and I’m worried about getting my own cat sick. How do I prevent this?

Hello ! I have a very very sweet cat named lotus, today I went to visit my little brother for his birthday and found out he got his own cat. What I didn’t realize before handing, playing and petting with his new cat was that he seems to be sick, maybe an upper respiratory infection? Or possibly feline herpes I’m really not sure. I wanted advice on what I can do before goinf home tomorrow to prevent my own cat from getting sick. As for my brothers I’m going to talk to our dad tomorrow morning and urge them to take the poor guy to the vet:( hopefully he’s okay and it’s nothing bad! I’m very very concerned about getting my own cat sick any advice is appreciated, thank you so much in advance.

My cat is just under a year old and has started scooting and giving off a fishy smell twice recently. I’ve never dealt with anal gland issues before, so I called my vet to have them expressed.

The vet tech said it’s a little unusual for a cat this young and recommended trying Hill’s Gastro Biome plus a probiotic. After the expression, she mentioned one gland was fuller than the other but didn’t say they were severely impacted.

My question: Should I invest in the prescription food even though I’m not sure she has GI issues, or should I try adding fiber and a probiotic to her current food first? I want to help her, but I don’t want to spend a lot on prescription food if it’s not necessary.

She currently eats Fancy Feast Kitten (chicken/turkey).

Hi all! I recently got a rescue kitty! He's about 7ish years old we think. He's a long hair and I am finding that he mats sooooo easily. I'm training him to be better about brushing (He's doing so good!) And we brush at least twice a day. I noticed today that he is getting little mats around his neck where his collar is. I've taken his collar off but now I'm not sure how to demat that area.

Do you think he's just going to mat there no matter what? Does anyone have any brush recommendations? I'll include a photo of the adorable floofball - his name is Biscuit!

Hi!

My little guy’s name : Claude 🤎
Age : 11 years old
Country : Canada
Vet visit : Yesterday, October 25th.
He is neutered and primarily an indoor cat. He only goes outside with us in our backyard, never for more than 10 minutes at a time and we follow his every move like absolute crazy parents.

Claude has always been a REALLY vocal cat, always making sure we hear him loud and clear.

And then, seemingly overnight, on October 23th, he completely lost his voice.

He still tries to meow, but either no sound comes out or we can barely hear a really tiny faint sound.

He has no other symptoms. No coughing, sneezing or nasal discharge. The only difference I might have noticed is that he seems a little calmer than usual.

We don’t play with his health, so we took him to the emergency vet yesterday (the 25th). They ran several tests, including x-rays of his abdomen, chest, and throat, a full senior bloodwork panel, and a general physical examination. Everything came back completely normal.

We were sent home with medications for the next 5 days :
–• Sucralfate suspension : 1 ml every 8 hours, given 1 hour before meals and at least 2 hours apart from any other medications
–• Omeprazole : 5 mg pill, every 12 hours.

He received his 1st dose late yesterday evening. I know it’s still very early to notice any improvements, but it’s just so strange and heartbreaking to see my little chatty guy suddenly becoming completely silent…

Has anyone experienced anything similar with their cat, especially with no other symptoms?
How long did it take for their voice to come back?
Did you ever find out what caused it?!

I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences.
Thank you so much in advance! 🤎

Hi, I want to start by saying I have an appointment with my cat’s vet tomorrow morning at 7:30am.

Last night I noticed my ~3 year old female cat Daisy had been making extra visits to the litter box. Some where just to dig for a few seconds and walk away, some were digging angrily for a minute and rolling around, some just involved sitting in the box (could not tell if she was trying to use the bathroom as her normal “squatting” is just sitting and looking at me or the wall).

This morning she had left a large clump of pee in the box either from late the night before or early this morning that looked like what she normally does, so I called the vet and made the appointment (tomorrow was the earliest I could get her in). However, I noticed on my pet camera that starting at 2:00pm today, she was making those frequent trips to the bathroom (probably around 6 visits). When I got home from work at 4:30, I checked the box and there was only 1 donut-hole sized clump of pee in there after all those trips.

Since then, she has done 2 more of the donut-hole clumps at 5:00 and 7:00. This was after feeding her wet food mixed with A LOT of water since she sleeps most of the day and only seems to drink water at night (she drinks a good amount but is most active at night and sleeps usually the whole 8 hours that I am at work).

I had her on a diet of 50/50 dry and wet cat food (Hills for dry and Tiki Cat or Weruva for wet). Wet is always mixed with a good amount of water. However, yesterday and today its been all wet food/water and a few dry treats (using them for training for clipping her nails and getting her used to being picked up). Stomach is soft and squishy, all other behavior normal. Chirps at me when leaving the box sometimes, but she is ALWAYS talkative when she sees me and I have been spending a lot of time near her box watching so not sure if thats the cause of the chirping.

Sorry for the long post, but vet said the visit tomorrow morning was a good time. Just want to make sure I don’t need to take her to the ER tonight. Thank you!

The first 2 pictures are him today, then 3 kitten/old pictures showing he hasn’t always had the mark, after that the mark appears and seems to grow. It’s been present for over a year but recently seems to be getting worse? He isn’t bothered by it and he doesn’t mind us touching it so I don’t think it’s painful. He’s a little over 5 years old, neutered male. We’re located in England if that’s helpful at all :)

Last photo is just cat tax btw!

Hi everyone, I’m adopting a 15 year old cat soon and had a question on the possibility of him having rabies. **He shows no signs but the volunteer at the shelter picked up from the street.** She said due to his age, he can’t get vaccinations or that it’s risky. Should I worry about rabies because of that?

**He’s been in her care for 5 weeks now** and is eating well, peeing like normal. He is also FIV+ if that’s worth taking note of.

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT in the States.

Is that a good brand to keep too? I used it for my cats ears and want to note it for future.

is adding something to water for dental health good idea or mainly a scam? I haven’t had any problems with it but would like to make sure they stay that way

My cat usually throws up hairballs, and goes about her day but this morning she was playing with thermocol, we were sleeping so I don't know how much she indigested, after I woke up this morning mom said she didn't eat any food nor had any water but threw up liquid, in the afternoon I gave a very small amount of coconut oil to help with the hairball, but she threw up liquid again, after that she has just been sleeping, idk if I should go to the vet, I recently had our other cat sick and he's now recovered, I can't afford it

Rn she's refusing to drink water too

She just threw up blood like vomit, I'm so scared there's no vet office open