So yes I'm working on getting one or both cats to the vet, but I'm bad (or is that good?) at procrastinating, and just now that I'm finally at yes we need to go, one of us will be out of town the next few days (we usually both go to vet with the cats). So I either will have to take them myself on Saturday or wait until Tuesday or later. (Not usually too difficult to get an appointment, although the Saturday hours got shorter recently so that might not work anyway.)
At issue is Poppet, the smaller of the two black cats. Seems to me that she's always had a little eye discharge and I didn't think it was anything. But her eyes have maybe gotten runnier in recent weeks. Add to this a little increased sneezing and a little, I don't know, an action that sounds a little like she's going to hack something up but nothing comes up. Maybe that would be termed a cough, but it comes in fits of several and is generally not heard again for days. That has happened 2 or 3 times that I am aware of, over a period of a number of days (not sure how long but haven't heard it more than a couple times in the last week). Her sister Widget has none of these symptoms, though, and I have no particular way that I should have communicated a URI to Poppet that I can think of, unless it could somehow transmit from my shoes which may have walked where some feral cat walked outside the house. The humans have had no direct contact with another cat recently. The cats have been home for over a year and a half so they haven't had any contact with another cat either. The cats are 100% indoors.
I mean, these kinda seem like URI symptoms, but if it was a URI, wouldn't the other cat be infected? So if not a URI, what else might this be?
Additionally, Poppet is not showing signs of being unwell. Regular appetite, regular activity, regular interaction with us, she hasn't had any stretches of time where she ate less or seemed lethargic or otherwise gave indication that she was feeling poorly.
She does seem to be scratching some, hasn't exactly struck me as more than usual, but I noticed a little sore by her ear yesterday.
I'm not sure what else I should be looking for. Allergy?
Both cats are known to be coronavirus positive, FWIW, although as usual it seems unlikely that this is really of too much consequence. They are about 6 years old.
I guess I'm just kinda thinking out loud here and wondering what else you might come up with.
At issue is Poppet, the smaller of the two black cats. Seems to me that she's always had a little eye discharge and I didn't think it was anything. But her eyes have maybe gotten runnier in recent weeks. Add to this a little increased sneezing and a little, I don't know, an action that sounds a little like she's going to hack something up but nothing comes up. Maybe that would be termed a cough, but it comes in fits of several and is generally not heard again for days. That has happened 2 or 3 times that I am aware of, over a period of a number of days (not sure how long but haven't heard it more than a couple times in the last week). Her sister Widget has none of these symptoms, though, and I have no particular way that I should have communicated a URI to Poppet that I can think of, unless it could somehow transmit from my shoes which may have walked where some feral cat walked outside the house. The humans have had no direct contact with another cat recently. The cats have been home for over a year and a half so they haven't had any contact with another cat either. The cats are 100% indoors.
I mean, these kinda seem like URI symptoms, but if it was a URI, wouldn't the other cat be infected? So if not a URI, what else might this be?
Additionally, Poppet is not showing signs of being unwell. Regular appetite, regular activity, regular interaction with us, she hasn't had any stretches of time where she ate less or seemed lethargic or otherwise gave indication that she was feeling poorly.
She does seem to be scratching some, hasn't exactly struck me as more than usual, but I noticed a little sore by her ear yesterday.
I'm not sure what else I should be looking for. Allergy?
Both cats are known to be coronavirus positive, FWIW, although as usual it seems unlikely that this is really of too much consequence. They are about 6 years old.
I guess I'm just kinda thinking out loud here and wondering what else you might come up with.
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