I Got My Feral In The House Today!

[walli]

You’re such a trooper! Sorry about your kitty! which cat was it? I think Joey has a chemical imbalance too. He’s weird I’m gonna keep trying though. I had Joey in the front yard for a few minutes and a passer by said oh what a beautiful cat and I’m thinking uh huh that’s on the outside only hee hee

 

[walli]

Thanks for the Gabapentin info I’m going to do it!

 

[shadowsrescue]

You’re such a trooper! Sorry about your kitty! which cat was it? I think Joey has a chemical imbalance too. He’s weird I’m gonna keep trying though. I had Joey in the front yard for a few minutes and a passer by said oh what a beautiful cat and I’m thinking uh huh that’s on the outside only hee hee

It was my kitty Jake. He had just turned 15. He was diagnosed last summer with lymphoma. He was doing a cocktail of meds to help keep him stable. He started declining in late April. We thought he was having another pancreatitis flare. My vet was uncertain so I took Jake to the ER vet. They found 2 tumors on his liver, a mass in his abdomen and fluid in his abdomen. It was heartbreaking. Losing a member of the pack has its challenges since I still have 6 other cats. Jake was king of the cats. So now there has to be another head kitty. That is still being decided!

My vet was so wonderful. He said his MIL had a cat very similar. He said we can try whatever is needed and he would support me in any decision I made. I know that Cisco will never mingle with the other cats. He likes the one cat he knows the best, my boy Marvin. He can still see the feral boys but I don't let him have any direct contact with them.

Jake didn't like my feral boys. He would never have hurt them, but he did chase them and it was enough to always scare them. We had a system where the feral boys were in sunroom that was attached to the main part of the house. It has 3 walls of windows and they loved it. At night Jake would be put in the basement and the feral boys would be able to be out and about. I tried so many times to get them all together. It just didn't happen. A few days after Jake passed, I started allowing the feral boys time out during the day. They are enjoying it. They still get scared with strange noises. I love that they have the sunroom for their safe space. They use it when Cisco is out. It works for us.

Please keep in contact and let us know how it goes with the vet and hopefully the gaba. Fingers crossed for you.

Oh, one more tip.... I get my gaba compounded into the correct dosage. If you start at 50 mg, there is a compounding pharmacy in California called Brava. They sell in 50 mg and 100 mg in tiny tabs. They are a small tablet that I can put into a pill pocket. I don't know how Joey does taking meds. Brava does not sell 75 mg so for now I am using Wedgewood Pharmacy. Be sure to NOT use the liquid. It is the most horrible stuff. Every cat I have given it to foams at the mouth. Do some research to see what is available. I love the microtabs, but Cisco is very easy to give meds to. If Joey is more challenging you will need to look.

 

[di and bob]

Thanks so much for the update!

 

[calicosrspecial]

Thank you for the update. A lot of great news in it!!!

Keep up the great work

 

[walli]

Thanks everybody!
I was wondering if it was jake. I will do the compound pharmacy I have done it before with Walli. Hopefully he will eat it!!

 

[Kwik]

shadowsrescue
I've been reading this thread on & off and enjoying the love,support,the progress reports,it's just wonderful

I do hope W walli doesn't mind ,I just had to give you a hug-Im so sorry for the loss of your Jake,truly

 

[shadowsrescue]

Thank you. Losing Jake has been so hard. Yet the rest of the pack is doing their best to move forward. Now working on establishing a new "top kitty"

 

[walli]

I Started another project, in Walli's room that goes out to the catio, We are "catifying it so Blacky and Sammy can live there too.
Walli, Sammy and Blacky can be in the Catio together and the shelter we built outside but that bedroom has a bottle neck
at the entrance, I have a bed in there that is going to be removed, we are opening it up with Large shelves for beds and we are going
to make various "highways" to move around the room at different levels, we got one wall side done, and we built a ramp to get to all 3 shelves and put faux sisal material on it, omg this faux sisal material from Home Depot is waay cheaper than Sisal Material
and do believe it is going to be just as good. I will post pics soon.
Blacky has been having stomach issues, He almost got put down, it took me a couple weeks to get him through this last one.
I even took him to the vet! 800 dollars later with no diagnosis except possible hair ball problem.
I had to syringe the gel laxatone hair ball because he would not lick it off his paw.
I actually don't know what is wrong with him, I can tell he doesn't feel well. there was one day that he was chasing after the ball.
which made me happy.
Sammy has come very far, he is less afraid of me, and I can even put him in my lap, altho he sits there like paralyzed and says
"Mom can I get down now" He is the nicest cat, it's almost like he does things cause He knows that is what I want.
Walli is the same, maybe a little bit less afraid, Blacky scares her a bit, but he never hurts her.
I have not ever touched her, couple times she swatted me when I was putting treats close to her, man her nails are so sharp.
That is why we are working on the room so she has room to move around and have distance from Blacky if needed.
Joey is still Joey, hates cats if it wasn't for him they would all be together.
Being exhausted from all these different situation has caused me to try and solve at least one situation.
I'm still putting Blacky and Sammy in the Garage every night, they have heated mats and I do turn on the heater for them
until I go to bed [sigh]
I lost my Mom in September, she had Alzheimers

 

[shadowsrescue]

Always great to hear from you!!! You have done so much for all of these cats!!! I always find it's never ending....

Have you tried any probiotics with Blacky? One of my feral boys had terrible stomach issues. He would vomit and diarrhea continuously. I found with lots of trial and error that probiotics really helped heal his gut.

I have a cat just like Joey. He lives in 2 bedrooms connected by a large bathroom. He just cannot get along with any of the other cats. They also stress him out and he has urinary retention that leads to him blocking when he is stressed. He takes gabapentin daily just to keep him calm and stress free. He comes downstairs for 5 hours each day. The other cats get put away. It's a routine that works for us.
Oh boy, nail trimming. I used some gabapentin on one of my feral boys a few weeks ago so I could trim his nails. His nails were so long they were snagging on the carpet. My DH wrapped him in a towel and held him tight while I quickly clipped all 4 paws!! He is so much happier now and is even using a scratcher.

I am so sorry to hear about your Mom. Alzheimers is such is a terrible disease.

Do post pictures when you get a chance!

 

[walli]

Blacky gets probiotics every day-fortiflora also He gets Blue blissful belly dry food along with canned food.
Your situation actually makes more sense, Joey has the run of the house and he is the one that needs to make friends.
The last time he went to the vet, the dr said blacky had FIP which is really bad. I had been giving him the Pro Pectalin.
it stops diarrhea, if anyone wants to know how I give this to a feral let me know.
so anyway this last vet visit I am told he does not have FIP so I stopped giving him the Pro Pectalin
and then it was a big freakout to help Blacky, I was trying so much, I probably didn't help the situation.
altho in my defense I did get him past a really bad time, I think it was the laxatone gel that helped but I'm
not 100% sure yet. I did buy the Capilex, I was told they would just eat it, NOPE!
I think I would have to melt it and syringe it If I had to use that stuff. thankfully I am able to scruff Blacky and
give him stuff that way!
Walli was really stressed out at one time and had severe urinary issues, I got her that prescription urinary food
that seemed to get her through it, it's a dry food as Walli doesn't eat that much canned food.
sheesh what we do for these guys!! let me know what probiotic you use. Thanks!!!
How are you all adjusting to the Loss of Jake? who is the top cat now?

 

[white shadow]

.
Hi W walli !

A suggestion for you for Blacky........if you were to start a new thread in the "Health" Forum/section, we could look carefully at the details of what has happened and perhaps help figure out what's going on.

If you could write out the history/details as it unfolded so we can understand the nitty-gritty of what he's gone through and how he's presenting today, maybe we could narrow things down and zero in on the problem.
.

 

[shadowsrescue]

I have used Pro Pectalin too, but my cats hate it. I did use the probiotic made by them called Proviable DC. It worked well. I then switched to Nexabiotic ( I used the human version). Amazon.com I would give it 4x a week and then other 3 days I gave Natural Factors. Amazon.com

This was a really winning combination. He had been on it for about 3 years. I heard it's best to change probiotics every so often. So I switched him to Adored Beast Healthy Gut Healthy Gut | Digestive Enzyme / Pre & Probiotic He is doing really well on this. Adored Beast has awesome products. I am going to try the Felix Flora next Felix's Flora | Species Specific Probiotic

It has been so hard without Jake. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him and miss him. It appears my newest and youngest boy, Oliver is top cat. Yet is he much more subtle than King Jake! My other boys are all just too scared to be top kitty!!

Btw, how do you give Pro Pectalin to a feral? Is this the paste? I just mix the powdered probitoic into wet food and my cats all eat it. I don't feed hardly any dry as my boy with urinary issues must have water water water. I actually switched to raw food when Jake was sick. I do a combo of canned food and raw. My cats seem to like it.

 

[walli]

I will post blackys episode in the Health thread as soon as I can. Omg that is good info on the probiotics. I did not know that, so the way that I got him to eat the pro pectalin was the dry tablets, as I couldn’t give him the paste I didn’t try to come up with a trick but I’m sure I could’ve. so what I did was I crushed up the tablets using a food processor and I only used a quarter teaspoon and mixed with a quarter teaspoon of pumpkin and some pet friendly chicken broth I start with a quarter teaspoon but you can tell if it needs more and then I mix some forti flora in there. About an eighth of a teaspoon I put that on top of their canned food and I mix some Flora with some broth, again the pet friendly broth and I put a little bit of that on top of the mixture. He was eating it every night, for I’m thinking almost a year, that is such good info on the probiotics. It kind of makes sense. I’m gonna try a new one. You might be able to do this with the paste too. I know I wasn’t doing a full dose of the pro pectalin but what I was doing was working

 

[walli]

It actually ends up closer to a half a teaspoon of the broth.
I get the broth from chewy and I make ice cubes out of it and just use a few at a time a couple times a week

 

[trudy1]

We must be kindred spirits! I have 7. All rescues. Three are in the garage. Morti my black bobtail, tigger a yellow male. Both scared of their own shadows. I’ve had them almost 7 years. Sweetie is the tortie female…best cat in the world. Still can’t pick mortie up, tigger finally with much reluctance, will let me and sweetie just wants me all the time. To show you how bad yesterday I was dispensing treats and cleared throat. Both mortie and tigger ran and hid, still, after 7 years.

my other 4 are the parking lot rescue gracie who bites you in the day and sleeps on your lap at night, gentle molly who came from a ups delivery truck, dolly the barn rescu

and henry, a huge male who just showed up one night. But my dynamics are similar. Gracie jumps molly and dolly to make them squeal…they are older. Henry we have to put out In catcatraz every night because he gets mean with dolly and Molly at night. When it’s too cold Henry has to go in his own catcatraz in the basement with Morty, tigger and Sweety, but separated. Now that upsets tigger and he throws up. All looks calm but it’s not

see what I mean. Every night for 6-7 years. Wow,who owns who?

 

[walli]

Wow! Beautiful cats! I know it must be hard with the separate situations thank you for taking care of them. That’s the reason I had brought them into my yard and now house I couldn’t do the outdoor Feral Cat thing anymore. Life got too hard. I have coyote rollers and netting in my yard so blacky and Sammy, pretty much live in the yard and then at night I bring them in the garage they have a little vent they can get into the garage. So I’m working on getting them into the room with Walli. Thanks for posting that Trudy nice to meet you!

 

[tabbytom]

I Started another project, in Walli's room that goes out to the catio, We are "catifying it so Blacky and Sammy can live there too.
Walli, Sammy and Blacky can be in the Catio together and the shelter we built outside but that bedroom has a bottle neck
at the entrance, I have a bed in there that is going to be removed, we are opening it up with Large shelves for beds and we are going
to make various "highways" to move around the room at different levels, we got one wall side done, and we built a ramp to get to all 3 shelves and put faux sisal material on it, omg this faux sisal material from Home Depot is waay cheaper than Sisal Material
and do believe it is going to be just as good. I will post pics soon.

Great to hear from you! Yes, photos please.

 

[shadowsrescue]

Wow! Beautiful cats! I know it must be hard with the separate situations thank you for taking care of them. That’s the reason I had brought them into my yard and now house I couldn’t do the outdoor Feral Cat thing anymore. Life got too hard. I have coyote rollers and netting in my yard so blacky and Sammy, pretty much live in the yard and then at night I bring them in the garage they have a little vent they can get into the garage. So I’m working on getting them into the room with Walli. Thanks for posting that Trudy nice to meet you!

I moved almost 6 years ago. I had 3 indoor boys ( 2 former feral boys and 1 Humane Society rescue) and 3 outside feral boys. When I moved, I knew that I did not want to do the outside care any longer. It was just so hard. I live in Ohio and winters are hard. We also had a pack of 6 coyotes that frequented our yard in the winter. I woke every day hoping they were all safe.

Now 6 year later, the 3 feral boys are doing well. Still skittish and vet care is very very limited. Yet they are safe, warm and loved. I do have the crazy boy who is separate, but we manage. I love them all so much just as we all do.

 

[trudy1]

I built a two story catcatraz for the basement with cat door window and a three story in the garage with cat door for mortie and besties . Even an occasional opossum stops by when it’s cold.

people ( relatives) say it looks like Peter tumbledown place from the road…but anything for cats, right