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I sure hope I can find some advice here. Thank you for caring enough to read this.......
I have two cats. Bosco will be 17 years old this spring, Scout will be 15. They're both indoor/outdoor cats and have been healthy all their lives, until recently......
A year ago Bosco began exhibiting strange behavior while eating. He would suddenly leap up as if jolted by electric shock, yelp, hiss, spit and run away. Then with his head turned to the side, grind his jaw with a loud clacking noise. I had just switched dry cat food brands, and being sort of an older cat, I thought maybe the new brand was too hard for his teeth. I began soaking the dry food in water and buying canned pate food, but his problems continued, so I took him to the vet. The vet said maybe he didn't like the food and some other answers that didn't seem right. She did an oral exam under anesthesia, removed some teeth, put him on antibiotics, but none of it made any difference whatsoever and Bosco still exhibited the exact same symptoms. So I took him to a second vet, who did a complete blood work up, but found nothing wrong with him.
Then Scout began exhibiting very similar symptoms! Not quite as bad, but walking away from the bowl shaking her head and grinding her teeth. I took her to the first vet, who looked in her mouth and said she had an oral cancer that would probably kill her in a year or two, and put her on antibiotics. I was skeptical about the oral cancer diagnosis, given that both cats had such similar symptoms.
Meanwhlle, their potty habits were getting worse and worse. I'm self-employed and live in a wooded suburban area, so the deal from the start was, the cats were to meow by the door when they needed to go out. More and more frequently they were going downstairs and peeing and pooping on the living room carpet. My house has an open floor plan, so I've had to block the stairs with a board, and put duct tape sticky side up on the balcony so they'd learn not to jump up to get around the board. It's the first thing you see when you enter the house and looks terrible, but it effectively keeps them from going downstairs. I also put a large kitty litter box in the only place where there's room......the bathtub.
Occasionally they'd use the litter box, but now mostly peeing and pooping on the carpet upstairs. I put duct tape wherever this happened, but they'd just go on the carpet somewhere else. I'd have to cover the entire floor with duct tape. If it was summer I could just put them outside. But being winter and given their age, not so much. So I started keeping Bosco in the bathroom. Even there, he uses the litter box to pee, but poops on the floor 2-3 feet from the box! And if the litter box has been used even once, he won't use it until it's pristine again. He even pooped into the bathroom floor vent. Scout refuses to be relegated to the bathroom and hides. She can't get to the litter box, even if she wanted, when the bathroom door is closed to keep Bosco in. She can jump over a gate. It's awful knowing she's loose in the house. The whole house reeks of cat pee I can't exactly locate. Every day I have to clean poop off the bathroom floor. It's so awful here now, it's hard to believe there was a time when I used to have people over to visit.
Another of their symptoms has been uncontrollable drooling, and their saliva is indescribably stinky. Googling that symptom, I finally discovered stomatitis! I'm almost certain that explains their eating fits. From everything I've read it seems it's incurable and the best that can be done would be removal of all their teeth. I'm not sure I could afford that.
But it's obvious both cats go through terrible pain, mostly while eating. Bosco especially. He yelps and thrashes around, and it's heartbreaking to witness. I alternate feeding them canned pate food with water added and mashed into a mush, or mush made of soaked dry food. It seems to help, and despite all, both have maintained healthy appetites. But today Bosco hardly ate a thing. It's like he's giving up. They both hate being locked in the bathroom and seem depressed. It's awful for all of us.
If you've read this far.....you must be a saint. This is the most dismal situation. What would you do?
Thanks for any help you can offer.......
creekgirl
I have two cats. Bosco will be 17 years old this spring, Scout will be 15. They're both indoor/outdoor cats and have been healthy all their lives, until recently......
A year ago Bosco began exhibiting strange behavior while eating. He would suddenly leap up as if jolted by electric shock, yelp, hiss, spit and run away. Then with his head turned to the side, grind his jaw with a loud clacking noise. I had just switched dry cat food brands, and being sort of an older cat, I thought maybe the new brand was too hard for his teeth. I began soaking the dry food in water and buying canned pate food, but his problems continued, so I took him to the vet. The vet said maybe he didn't like the food and some other answers that didn't seem right. She did an oral exam under anesthesia, removed some teeth, put him on antibiotics, but none of it made any difference whatsoever and Bosco still exhibited the exact same symptoms. So I took him to a second vet, who did a complete blood work up, but found nothing wrong with him.
Then Scout began exhibiting very similar symptoms! Not quite as bad, but walking away from the bowl shaking her head and grinding her teeth. I took her to the first vet, who looked in her mouth and said she had an oral cancer that would probably kill her in a year or two, and put her on antibiotics. I was skeptical about the oral cancer diagnosis, given that both cats had such similar symptoms.
Meanwhlle, their potty habits were getting worse and worse. I'm self-employed and live in a wooded suburban area, so the deal from the start was, the cats were to meow by the door when they needed to go out. More and more frequently they were going downstairs and peeing and pooping on the living room carpet. My house has an open floor plan, so I've had to block the stairs with a board, and put duct tape sticky side up on the balcony so they'd learn not to jump up to get around the board. It's the first thing you see when you enter the house and looks terrible, but it effectively keeps them from going downstairs. I also put a large kitty litter box in the only place where there's room......the bathtub.
Occasionally they'd use the litter box, but now mostly peeing and pooping on the carpet upstairs. I put duct tape wherever this happened, but they'd just go on the carpet somewhere else. I'd have to cover the entire floor with duct tape. If it was summer I could just put them outside. But being winter and given their age, not so much. So I started keeping Bosco in the bathroom. Even there, he uses the litter box to pee, but poops on the floor 2-3 feet from the box! And if the litter box has been used even once, he won't use it until it's pristine again. He even pooped into the bathroom floor vent. Scout refuses to be relegated to the bathroom and hides. She can't get to the litter box, even if she wanted, when the bathroom door is closed to keep Bosco in. She can jump over a gate. It's awful knowing she's loose in the house. The whole house reeks of cat pee I can't exactly locate. Every day I have to clean poop off the bathroom floor. It's so awful here now, it's hard to believe there was a time when I used to have people over to visit.
Another of their symptoms has been uncontrollable drooling, and their saliva is indescribably stinky. Googling that symptom, I finally discovered stomatitis! I'm almost certain that explains their eating fits. From everything I've read it seems it's incurable and the best that can be done would be removal of all their teeth. I'm not sure I could afford that.
But it's obvious both cats go through terrible pain, mostly while eating. Bosco especially. He yelps and thrashes around, and it's heartbreaking to witness. I alternate feeding them canned pate food with water added and mashed into a mush, or mush made of soaked dry food. It seems to help, and despite all, both have maintained healthy appetites. But today Bosco hardly ate a thing. It's like he's giving up. They both hate being locked in the bathroom and seem depressed. It's awful for all of us.
If you've read this far.....you must be a saint. This is the most dismal situation. What would you do?
Thanks for any help you can offer.......
creekgirl