pet issues...

[luv2cook]

Boy, I am just having issues this month. First my dad, then my cat and my dogs again....

First off, 3 weeks ago, Twink, my 5 y/o black cat, decided that he would ramp up the peeing in the house. there had been a few episodes of pee, but I didn't know who it was. Finally one day, I caught him.
Took him to the vet, no physical issues. Sigh.....Vet put him prozac.

SO I bought a cat fence to put on my outside yard fence. It's not done yet but I have been letting him go outside bc it seemed to me the peeing really started once he stopped trying to get out. Everything had been find until today when I came upstairs to get my jacket I left in my office chair, and he was PEEING ON THE WINDOW!!!!!!! (He had peed on a dog bed twice and I took it away. Today he sniffed it but did not pee on it.)

Also, let me add that we built a kitty timeout room that's outside but screened in. We have been leaving him out there with his own litter box and when we let the other cats out there, I turn the box around so they can't use it and I leave the door open. SO he has that and I have that issue.

Next is my dog. Jake had lost 7 lbs between like July and November. He was throwing up and not eating and I thought he had an infected tick on his head. I didn't realize the 7 lbs until I took him to the vet. They ran bloodwork again and did an x-ray of his whole body. Nothing. They put him on acid medication. Fast forward. The acid med seemed to work but then my other dog decided she didn't want to eat all the time either. I bought new food. Fast forward some more. Last week Jake had 2 episodes of puking. Small amounts of digested food. He seems fine. Both dogs will eat people food and cat food at the drop of a hat. I am about to totally change BRands of food altogether. They have been on Nature's Recipe.

The next step would be an ultrasound which is $400 and they really didn't tell me what benefit it would be. He's gained some weight bc I am feeding him more food now and he appears in good spirits altho last night he was shivering in the house. The house had gotten unexpectedly cold for some reason. I turned up the heat. Keep in mind this is a Collie mix dog with all of his fur! He's about 12, 13-ish. Don't really know.

Does any of this sound like something anyone else has experienced? If so, what did you do about it? The cat fence should be done next weekend and I plan on having him spend the majority of his time outside....

[wallycat]

Sorry about all your issues.
No ideas about dogs.
I am no vet, but everything I have read (and the fact that you have already taken kitty to a vet to rule out UTI or other issues) sounds like marking or disapproval of a change that has occurred.

New food is always an issue (did you change for the cat too?).
Introduce it slowly and mixed in slowly.

Any new people or pets in the house? New schedule?
Cats do not like change.
I am assuming your cat has been fixed, but sometimes if there are new cats in the area, they can be marking...even fixed cats. Stress can also do this.
Can you think about anything new in your house/routine??

Good luck.

[Laurielee]

Oh boy, I can't help on the kitty but maybe the dog. I was dealing withthe same issues with my 14 year old dog Wylie. Vet did an ultrasound and diagnosed her with bile sludge in the gallbladder. They put her on an an expensive drug called Ursodiol. After that ran out I aded a good digstive enzyme of probiotics along with a fairly bald diet. Kibble is Natural balance sweet potato and vennison. mixed with cooked potatoes and rice. No dairy or eggs, not good for bile sludge. It has been almost a year and only an occasional throwup.

[mcgeiger]

Cat:
was a urinalysis done?
BW done?
was an xray taken?
prozac can work
litterboxes number of cats +1 is ideal (2 cats=3 boxes)
get a few litterboxes and put different litters (always try 1 unscented)
once you know favorite litter try different depths
have 1 litterbox per floor if possible
try covered and uncovered

Dog with intermittant/chronic vomiting:
BW done?
if BW normal and xray normal, ultrasound is a logical and useful next step if you want to know what's going on. Not all my clients with 13 year old dogs want to know though....

[mcgeiger]

whoops...meant to explain...
Xrays are like shadows. So if you took an xray of the car all you would see are outlines.
Ultrasound would like being able to see ALL the parts of the engine while the car in running

essentially you get realtime moving information and can see inside the liver, spleen, etc, not just the outlines....

[luv2cook]

Oh boy, I can't help on the kitty but maybe the dog. I was dealing withthe same issues with my 14 year old dog Wylie. Vet did an ultrasound and diagnosed her with bile sludge in the gallbladder. They put her on an an expensive drug called Ursodiol. After that ran out I aded a good digstive enzyme of probiotics along with a fairly bald diet. Kibble is Natural balance sweet potato and vennison. mixed with cooked potatoes and rice. No dairy or eggs, not good for bile sludge. It has been almost a year and only an occasional throwup.

What kind of probiotics?

[luv2cook]

Cat:
was a urinalysis done? Yes
BW done? yes

was an xray taken? No.
rozac can work
(he's peed twice more since we started)
litterboxes number of cats +1 is ideal (2 cats=3 boxes)
get a few litterboxes and put different litters (always try 1 unscented) (ALL ARE UNSCENTED AND 2 DIFFERENT KINDS AND I HAVE 3 VERY LARGE - LIKE FROM TARGET STORAGE CONTAINER SIZES)
once you know favorite litter try different depths
have 1 litterbox per floor if possible (1 DOWNSTAIRS, 2 UPSTAIRS AND i AM WANTING HUBBY TO BUILD A FOURTH
try covered and uncovered. (HE HAS HIS PRIVATE TIME ON THE SOLARIUM WITH HIS OWN BOX AND HE USES IT)

Dog with intermittant/chronic vomiting:
BW done? YES - TWICE
if BW normal and xray normal, ultrasound is a logical and useful next step if you want to know what's going on. Not all my clients with 13 year old dogs want to know though....

SORRY I AM IN CAPS BUT I coudln't change the stupid color!

[luv2cook]

whoops...meant to explain...
Xrays are like shadows. So if you took an xray of the car all you would see are outlines.
Ultrasound would like being able to see ALL the parts of the engine while the car in running

essentially you get realtime moving information and can see inside the liver, spleen, etc, not just the outlines....

I can still see in my head my dog's cancer on her x-ray....and I routinely see my cat's heart on x-ray. She has cardiomyopathy with secondary congestive heart failure. Amazingly, tho, she is still alive. she will even play a little, too, but we are almost to our max of lasix. Her heart is HUGE. I don't know how she is alive and neither does my vet....but she's not in distress, she acts normal, eats normally....but I know that time is coming.....

[mcgeiger]

prozac/paxil can take up to 6 weeks to work (just like in people). It sounds like you're vet is on top of it though.....

[luv2cook]

at first he said a month but now he's saying 3 months. Our fence is almost done and then he can go outside. Maybe that will help.

Can you put grouchy cats on Prozac? My 15 y/o is such a bioch! She was even fighting with her favorite cat, my 17 y/o cat. She's just nasty. She has second stage kidney but is otherwise healthy.

[daisylover]

We discovered that our older cat was the peeing culprit in our house.

By the time we figured out it was him, it was 2 months since the smell started in the dining room and we'd even had someone come in to look for dead animals under the house.

So...Ruff is 11-13 years old (adopted him as an adult from a no kill shelter, so we can't be certain of his age). At the time he started peeing outside the litter box, there hadn't been any real changes.

As with you, our vet was able to rule out all physical problems. So, we went to behavioral issues. We already had 2 litter boxes, one upstairs and one down. We added a third to the dining room, since this is where he's been going.

He began to pee less in the dining room. Good news for us, but I should say that we've already decided to replace the flooring in there.

We also started cleaning out the litter boxes 2 times a day, especially the one he prefers. We thought that maybe he was simply more finicky about the cleanliness of the litter.

I also did some reading and asked my vet about Feliway, since I personally don't like the medication route. It's a plug in synthetic cat phermone, meant to mimic the one that cats deposit when they rub their faces on things. It is supposed to make them feel "safe." We plugged it in near the cat box downstairs.

So far, we think we see a difference. We've even removed the 3rd litter box. I can't say that the Feliway is the secret weapon or cleaning out the boxes more often, but we'll continue to do both. We had not changed anything in the house when he started using the dining room.

We did theorize that perhaps he had felt like the litter box wasn't as "safe" because it's in the downstairs bathroom. If he'd been interrupted in there at some point, he may have become annoyed, and this was his way of communicating it. We've also inserted a small cat door in the bathroom door so the door can stay shut and it feels more private.

If only cats could talk!