[Bonita--]

I have a female cat who is 3 and a half years old. A few days ago she pooped in the hallway which is really unlike her. Then, this morning she was crying and scratching at the carpet for about five minutes and then she took a huge poo in the middle of the carpet. She has never done this before. I also noticed after she pooped she was licking herself a lot. She was also doing this last night, as if the area was irritating her. We have not changed her food or anything like that. My dad said that she brings in twigs from outside (she goes on the balcony) and she might be eating them and that's what is making her do this but I don't know. I'm going to wait and see if it happens again but I really cannot afford to take her to a vet, my dad isn't willing to pay and I don't have enough money but it would kill me if she is hurt and I can't do anything for her. Does anyone have any suggestions on what is going on and what can I do?

[madman81]

You need to call the vet tell them and set up an oppointment. If there is something wrong with her you need to take her. That cat relies on you to take vare of her. Not having money is unacceptable! Thanks!

[Bonita--]

I know that she relies on me and I feel horrible that I can't help her but my family can't really afford it right now. My dad recently lost his job, we struggle to buy food, let alone spend hundreds of dollars at the vet.

She is fine when she isn't going to the washroom. She's active and in a good mood. She isn't puking or anything like that but she does seem to have diarreha. Does anyone have any idea what might be going on? Is it possible she just ate something that upset her stomach? If this continues I'll contact the vet and see how much they will charge to look at her but for now I want to figure out if maybe it's something small and it will go away on it's own.

And trust me, if I had the money I would have brought her to the vet already. I work part-time for minimum wage, I don't make a lot of money. We didn't plan on my dad losing his job. So it may be "unacceptable" to you to not have money but we didn't ask for this to happen to our family, and right now there is not much we can do about it..

[morgaine300]

I totally agree that before you get a pet, you should be able to afford basic care. But I also think saying "having no money is unacceptable" is a little short-sighted and definitely useless. That's like telling me that it's unacceptable to not have a job. Well, yeah, but there's not much I could do about it until I get one, huh?

There are many times situations which arise after we've already got the pet. I had enough to properly take care of one of my cats when I got him, and later had difficulties with jobs and didn't have the money to take him to the vet, so I did the best I could. Later, I had more money again. Changes in life do happen and certain people seem to forget that. And my cat was most definitely better off staying with me during the bad money periods, and I suspect I still took better care of him than some people with a lot of money might have. (I can almost guarantee that.)

Going out and getting a new cat when you simply can't afford it is an entirely different matter. We can see here that a "situation" came about that was not expected and certainly not wished for. As she said, her dad didn't plan on losing his job. Before we know the circumstances, it's difficult to make comments.

While I feel pretty strongly that if you get a pet, you should be able to at least provide the basics, having situation changes is not in anyone's control, and a cat who is in a loving home is probably still better off than being dead, and certainly better off than a non-loving home.

So I do really get tired of hearing this BS. Excuse my rant, but I really do get tired of hearing it.

That said, it's also true that some things simply do require a vet and is the only way to solve something. And a lot of people do expect us to fix things for them when they can't afford the vet, when we can't. That is a different issue entirely.

[morgaine300]

Now that I'm done with my rant...

Bonita, a few questions. Is this the first time she's done anything like this? Has she always been good about using the box up until this incidence? If a cat is normally good about using their box and then does this as a one-time thing, something is going on. Whether it's physical or "psychological" is a different matter.

The crying and licking does make me wonder if there's an irritation or other similar problem. I don't know if it would be from eating twigs. Do you even know that she eats them? It could also be related to the anus itself or the anal glands.

Is there anything about that area of the carpet? Is there another cat? Anything lying there earlier she didn't like? Just think of anything at all.

You mentioned diarrhea. Is this just something that happened recently, or an on-going problem? (That could be food allgeries.)

If this was a first-time event, I think I would just wait and see if she does this again. And if she does, try to pay attention to other things, like what she has been doing, anything she's been eating, the behaviors of those in the household, etc. If this was not a one-time event, can you give more information?

EDIT: I just noticed you said this had never happened before. So just ignore that specific question.

[Bonita--]

Thank you morgaine300. That is pretty much what happened with us. When we first got her we weren't having any financial troubles, and as I said my dad lost his job and right now we don't have a lot of money. We love our cats and we treat them very good but the money situation is something we cannot control right now. We obviously want to help her but it's not like we have the money and we chose not to, it's that we literally don't have the money.

But yea... she has always been good using the litter box up until now.

I see her bring in the twigs from outside but I don't see her eat them, it was just something my dad suggested might be the reason. The area that she keeps going to the washroom in is right outside where the box is. She'll be crying and then she'll go to the hallway and do it there.

We have 2 other cats but they have always been here, one is her sister that she has been with since we got her. I've never seen her have diarrhea before. It started about Tuesday night when I came home I noticed she had pooped in the hallway and that one was brown and watery, now they are coming out greenish/yellowish and watery and it comes out in small puddles now. She has done it about four times in the past day. My dad is home all day and he said she was normal all day, playing like normal but once she had to poo she would cry and then go do it in the hallway. We have not recently changed her food or fed her anything different. The only thing I can think of is we feed our other 2 cats treats (temptations), she doesn't like to eat them and she never has before. I made a pile on the floor the other day for the other 2 cats but they didn't eat them all and there was some left on the floor. Maybe she ate some of the treats, I didn't see her do it though.

I think we will see how things go tomorrow and if she is still doing it all day then I'll see what my dad says because I don't have anywhere near enough money to bring her to the vet at this time.

[morgaine300]

Unfortunately a lot of things can cause diarrhea. You might check the ingredients on the Temptations and see if there's something different in that which is not in her regular food. They're full of garbage, and full of carbs and give a pancreas a sugar rush. (They aren't the best things in the world to be feeding any cat except here and there.) But dry food has most of the same garbage in it, so if that's what she is used to, I'm not sure the treats would bother her.

The greenish/yellowish thing is something I've never seen. Any I've seen has still been brown. I'm not sure if that means something specific. If it were me, I'd give it a couple of days and see what is happening. My cats have gotten short bouts of diarrhea before and it has amounted to nothing. When something like that continues I take them to the vet's.

The thing that makes me wonder is the crying, as though she's having pain. Just from my own personal experience, I know diarrhea can be irritating. So that may or may not mean anything. But given the lack of money, right now I think all you can do is wait it out and see what happens. There's a limited number of causes that will clear up on their own or that you could do something about yourself. Other things do require a vet and we can't fix that.

[s2tp]

Thank you Morgaine for that rant! I was irritated with that first post as well.. sometimes situations come upon us that we can not foresee... ignorance really irks me!

Bonita- have you tried looking for pet care programs in your area? I do not know how common it is, but I know when my parents dog got kicked by the horse and needed a full hip replacement that would cost 4K they were crippled with guilt of not being able to afford it. They gave the doc permission to put the dog down, but at the last minute the doc said he couldn't put down such a great dog and he said the vets office had a funding program. He ended up getting the price down to 1000 and then my parents could just make payments...

Of course your cats situation should be nothing like that, but just maybe there is a caring vet or a local program that cares enough to give your kitty a free if not cheap check up. They love animals too and would more likely want to just do a quick check up than to let your kitty suffer... just an idea =) I would call around and just say your kitty is having problems but you really cannot afford a $50-100 office visit... maybe they will help you out!!

Best wishes =)

[Bonita--]

Thank you both very much for your advice, but I have some good news... she seems to be OK now :) She didn't cry or have diarrhea once today, she was playing all day and seemed back to normal. I'm guessing she just ate something that upset her stomach, but I'm so happy she's OK, what a relief.

s2tp, I'm so glad to hear that your parent's dog got to live, what a nice vet you guys had!


Thanks again!

[morgaine300]

I'm glad to see she's doing better! Just keep an eye out and see if anything happens again any time soon.

[Bonita--]

Hey guys..

This is just an update. She started doing it again and she has been for a few days now. She obviously needs to go to the vet so I made an appointment for her tomorrow. Hopefully it's nothing too bad.