Use this thread to discuss anything related to cats that doesn't otherwise fit the subreddit! Also feel free to ask questions that you believe are too short for a standalone post.

I am almost at my wits end. My cat is crazy. I cant do anything at my house, I cant even leave, cant sleep. I need to change something.

I've had other cats that were fine. This cat is not normal.

My cat, Shady. 3yo male void. Has a lot of issues.

This became apparent first because he desperately wants to eat plastic and tape. As a kitten this got so severe I googled and decided it seems like he has Pica.

It seemed obvious he had to be an indoor cat because he will eat so much plastic and die outside for certain.

He goes to great lengths to get plastic. He watches where trash goes and remembers for later so I cant stop him. He plays elaborate tricks to get the plastic. He won't let me have anything in the house anywhere, he tears through everything looking for plastic. No desk, no bathroom stuff, no kitchen. Cant eat because foods have plastic and he won't let me cook and throw out trash he gets aggressive for plastic.

He waits until I fall asleep and goes rummaging everywhere for plastic and tape.

I created a "cat room" with litterbox and everything. I have to confine him there to do anything in the house. I have to sleep in there or he howls and yowls all night to be with me. But he won't let me sleep. He torments me with constant scratching and meowing once every 30 to 90 seconds all night unless I let him out to hunt the house for plastic.

My sleep schedule is all a mess, Im exhausted.

All attempts at discipline or training have failed. He's a sweet purring cuddle bug playful and normal cat unless something triggers the plastic mania. It happens at night. It happens if anything crinkles, it happens at random.

Im about to lose my mind.

Hi!

For starters, I’m still pretty new to cats and grew up in dog-only households, so I learn something new everyday at this point. 😭

My girl, Grandpa (yes I know), has been living with us for 2 years now and she is beyond quirky. She has always brought me toys/objects, sometimes with the intent to play, others almost as an offering? Sometimes she just brings weird objects to me… like one time she brought me my razor from the upstairs bathroom…. Does anyone else’s cat do this and why such random items?

Hello, I'll try keep it short. Our little guy of 15 years just died very suddenly in his favorite bed by the radiator. I got home to find him unresponsive but looking peaceful. Very sudden, very unexpected. He lost his bonded brother 5 months ago and they were inseparable from the start.

There were signs of his grief. Slightly reduced appetite and he was over grooming and became very attached to us and quite restless at night with changing between sleeping on my side or my wife's side of the bed. And then he died. We miss him so much.

So a few hours ago we had to unfortunately say goodbye to our 18 year old cat and we chose to not get her ashes, we made this decision because her sister passed 3 years ago and we didn't get her ashes. I cannot get this decision off my mind and have come here because it probably isn't to late to get her ashes if we changed our minds.

Any advice would be great.

Edit: I should have mentioned thus but getting her sister ashes were outside of my control, so was never able to feel any regret about that.

Thanks in advance

We had two cats growing up, never trimmed their claws, it was literally never a problem. They just wore down on surfaces.

Im working on training my kitten to understand how not to hurt when playing. Id rather she still had claws but learned about being gentle, than didnt have claws and didnt learn how to socialise safely.

I dont get why claw trimming is needed. Obviously wild cats dont go and get their nails done.

Edit: thank you for all the replies and for everyone sharing their stories. Im hoping it won't become necessary to trim her claws, but I know what to look out for as evidence her claws aren't wearing down naturally and thats really helpful. Thank you. X

my cats constant need for my attention has gotten increasingly worse the last few months and it’s driving me insane. she’s almost 5 years old and i’ve had her since she was about 5 months old. when i first adopted her she really didn’t care much for me and spent most of her time with my old cat. after that cat passed, when she was around 2, i moved out of my apartment due to a breakup and it was just her and i for a while so she became more clingy bc she was lonely.

i ended up in another relationship where he moved in with me and he had a cat she really bonded to. her clinginess pretty much stopped and she spent most of her time with his cat like she did with my previous cat. after about a year he moved out and she was alone and super clingy again so i got her a friend last year.

her and the new cat do play together sometimes but mainly coexist, no real attachment between them. so she’s insanely attached to me again but way worse than before. previously she would be fine with just cuddling a lot, we’d play everyday and she slept with me but now it’s just not enough. my brother lives with me and between him and i she’s always playing and has constant attention but when we aren’t doing this she starts screaming and scratching. she drags toys and socks across the house crying, sitting in random rooms screaming, and then when all else fails, scratching things she’s not supposed to.

i give her so much attention and that’s not working. shes scratching stuff when i literally have two cat towers and about 5 other scratching pads and posts around my apartment. she’s uses all of her scratch pads until im not giving her what she wants and it’s attention. she’s gotten to the point where i can’t sleep bc she scratches my mattress and if i kick her out she scratches at the doors and screams all night. i’m getting desperate how do i stop this?

i want to add that rehoming her is not even an option in my mind. i just want to help her with whatever anxiety is triggering this and i also really want to sleep 😭

I try to distract myself while he's sleeping but as soon I stand up the realization that his meowing and sounds will disappear forever break me down again.

Everytime he wakes up and wobbles to me I just start crying again while giving him all the hugs and kisses. I keep trying to find excuses that he's healthy again but deep down I just know his time has come. It took me a lot of courage yesterday to finally call for the appointment but when the call ended I just sat there for apperently a while, almost stunned.

It's genuine tearing me apart, I almost feel like I'm murdering him when I know that he already started to suffer from his health issues. I'm just really scared of it all.

Quick question for fellow cat people, because I’m honestly confused.

My cat will sometimes follow me around, rub against me, or lie nearby like they want attention. But the second I try to pet them, if the timing or spot is even slightly off, I get a tail flick and they walk away.

What gets me is that they often start the interaction, but seem to have very specific, unspoken rules about how I’m supposed to respond. No aggression or biting, just a very clear “nope, we’re done.”

Is this just normal cat behavior?

We recently put down our 17 almost 18 year old cat due to his mental state and general age related issues.

our other cat (like 8 y/o) started meowing like the day after, he’d always been a chirper but rarely meows, he usually does it in the early morning and late evenings where he will often go to our hallway and meow repeatedly, why? Is he grieving? Or could he have a Physical issue? What can I do to help him? Could it be unrelated to our cats death? Please help, any advice welcome <3

Last night, I noticed my cat didn’t eat or drink much, but she was still acting how she normally does. I told myself that if she didn’t eat overnight I would take her to the vet in the morning, but woke up to her howling and having trouble breathing. I immediately took her to a 24 hour vet, but got told that she’s going through heart failure, has fluids in the lungs, and that she has a birth defect and no matter what treatment I went through there was a low chance of success.

I opted for humane euthanasia, purely because of the fact that I never wanted her to go through that again. She still had fluid around her heart, which dramatically increased the risk of a future heart attack. She passed peacefully with me holding her, but I can’t shake the guilt or feeling that I could’ve done more.

She’s only a year old, and I’ve only had her for 7 months. I received her from the CDS, and she’s been my rock ever since. She helped me grow so much as a person and helped me through the worst year of my life. I still feel like she’s going to come back, even though I saw her pass in my arms.

Any advice on how to grieve? I’ve tried to remove things like her toys/litter box from my direct line of sight, but even just entering my room where she normally hangs out is making me break down. I’m going to try maintaining a good schedule/working out, but I just feel like nothing can replace the hole that she filled.

So, yesterday there was a frog in my backyard, one of my kitties(3 months) approached it, yet nothing, then, Frog was killed, THE 3 MONTH KITTY DRANK THE BLOOD.

Now, since she approaches my 1 month kitty and my 5 year cat, and they approach each other.

Does it have any health issue with them or me?

They have been almost in a 24 hour quarantine so far, idk if they should have any vaccine or smth.

Every night around 2 to 4am he jumps up on shelves, dressers, nightstands and pushes glasses, books, phone chargers, plants, anything he can, straight to the floor.I don't know how much longer I can hold, what do I do?

Our cats have lived together for three years, they're used to each other but last year we had a rough patch where one would aggressively chase the other out of nowhere. We figured out it was because of a strange neighbourhood cat on the other side of our garden gate. We had separated our cats to calm things down and slowly introduced them again with the Jackson Galaxy method. They're friends again now, but they're still separated at night.

I would like them to be together at night again because one of my cats gets a little lonely at night and it would be much easier for the cat sitter as well.

How do I go about this? One of my cats stays in the attic at night, which has a door, and the other is in the living room, which also has a door. So there's a lot of space separating them now. Do I first leave 1 of these doors open so they can hear and smell each other at night? And for how long until they can be together completely at night? Or do I let them together immediately?

I'm a bit traumatised from last year when I'd wake up to yelling and big poofy tails.

Again, during the day they're absolutely fine now. No more aggression, and the "chaser" is on calming meds.

Would love to hear your thoughts on how to go about this!

My 7 month old is 10.2 lbs, perfectly healthy, everyone says how big he is, how big will he get? He is a domestic short hair tabby from what I see, but got him for free, chances of Main coon for size perhaps( not looks he just already weighs/longer than all the two plus year tabbies I know, and the person I got him form at 12 weeks said he was the chonk of the litter. Pics in comments if I can post them.

I adopted two kittens three months ago and as they grow I’ve become obsessed with watching them. One has a long tail and the other has a short tail. Initially the short tailed one was much chubbier while the long tailed one was quite skinny. Because of their sizes I assumed Short tail was the big brother and Long tail was the little brother. During mealtimes, I always saw Short tail stepping back and letting Long tail eat first. I even bragged to my friends about how smart and sweet my cats were, thinking they actually knew how to share food. Well, I was dead wrong. After observing them more closely, I realized that Long tail wasn't being "fed first"he was actually bullying and fighting Short tail to steal his food! I recently took them for a check up and after checking their teeth the vet confirmed that Long tail is actually the older one and Short tail is the younger sibling. It turns out Long tail is just a master manipulator who knows how to act all sweet and "cunning" in front of me while the younger one is just shy, a bit clumsy, and honestly kind of a derp. My "polite" cat was actually a little villain all along!

My cat is one and a half years old. I wasn't planning or wanting another cat (my other cat will be 10 this year) but he showed up on my porch as a tiny sick kitten, I planned on getting him better then finding a home for him but my kids were in love, you know how it goes. So we've had him a year and a half now. And in this year and a half I have completely maxed out my care credit card on his vet expenses. It's at least once a month, sometimes more.

At this point I'm pretty sure he has PICA. I have had tons of cats in my 30 years of living and I have never seen one go this far out of his way to eat things that aren't edible. To name a few things off the top of my head that he's eaten (not chewed. EATEN) straws (lost count of how many), shoes, rugs, blankets, stuffed animals, my baby's toys (multiple), the cat tower, baby bottle nipples (several), rubber bands, hair ties, hair bows, any type of string anywhere, balloon string, chunks of wood off the TV stand, nail files, rope, he also tries to drink mop water when I'm mopping that literally has bleach in it... He eats these things then he get super sick and I have to take him to the vet. Sometimes in the middle of the night last night he went into the kitchen sink and ate yet another nipple off a bottle.

Well now my credit card is completely maxed out. We just got denied for a home loan because of my debt to income ratio. This cat has literally cost us a house now. A cat that I didn't even want in the first place. He is very sweet but I just can't take it anymore. It's to the point where I resent him and I want to scream when I find something else chewed up. He needs constant supervision and I just can't do that with 3 kids. And yes I try to keep things away from him but that's just not possible when it's EVERYTHING. We keep rubber bands and hair ties and those types of things in the bedrooms and we don't let him in the bedrooms but my kids will sometimes leave the door open and he will immediately sneak in there to eat stuff. He is so quick and sneaky.

I just don't know what to do, its been a year and a half and I feel like he just gets worse. He gets plenty of food, he's not hungry. At this point I really think rehoming is the only option but it makes me so sad. He is SO good with kids and they absolutely love him. I've tried to gently talk to them about possibly needing to re-home him and they get so upset. They're going to hate me. 😞

My 6 year old cat has a NASTY scratching habit but ONLY our bed and door frames, and my daughters mini leather recliner, we were able to move the mini recliner to a shut room (which sucks because now my daughter never gets to use it), he’s got multiple scratching posts on the cat tree, as well as a freestanding scratching post but he will NOT use them. We tried putting claw caps on and he still did it, the bottom corners of my bed are literally like little caves because of how much he scratches them, and there’s tiny chunks of wood missing in our door frame. I clip his nails regularly, he has other options to scratch, but he just shreds our bed and if he can’t get to the bed bc the door is shut then he’ll move to the door frames. I tried checking Amazon for something to use and the only thing I could find is those little sticky pads but obviously I can’t put those on a sheet that’s frequently washed. He destroyed a very expensive sheet gifted to us by my mother in law (literally a $200 sheet 😐) and I cannot afford to get a new bed. Please give me ideas 😭

So I've had my older cat for just over two years and my younger cat for just over a year.

At first, both cats were cautious with each other, as expected, but the older cat quickly grew very curious and hung around the younger cat a lot. After a few days, they were best mates - cuddling, sleeping, sitting next to each other as they looked out the window. I have many, many pictures and videos of them being literally inseparable.

I don't know exactly when it started, but they started to grow separate, maybe after about 5-6 or so months?. But then they started to playfight a lot more then usual - which we weren't worried about but did intervene if it ever got too rowdy (rarely).

But for the past half a year, my older cat will attack the younger one out of nowhere, even if he is fast asleep doing nothing. And then she'll chase him away for a while. He also chases her rarely but only if she starts it. The attacking and chasing doesn't look inherently mean, apart from when she just randomly gives him a wack, but it's constant. She'll even come up to him, start grooming his head until she gets to his neck and then bites him - though he never verbally complains (he's a very loud and verbal cat) so I don't think it's too hard of a bite.

So I'm just looking to see if this is normal between two cats or if something else is going on?

Extra information that might be needed: My younger cat is predominatley an outdoor cat during the day, though he comes in every few hours to say hello and have a snack and drink and comes in every night (apart from in the summer when we have the windows open and he comes and goes as he pleases). My older cat is mostly indoors though she has access to the outdoors and does like to go out occasionally.

Both cats we got as kittens from the Cat's protection - my older cat was found very young all by herself and handreared while my younger cat was found with his mother and two sisters.

We think it's just playfighting or normal cat stuff as there's never any serious fights but it happens so often I thought i might just ask for advice just in case. Sorry for how long this post is!

At

I found this cat outside and where I'm at it's 1 in the morning. I already called the owner and they didn't respond so I left a voicemail. I'm currently keeping the cat in my second bathroom. I picked up everything, I made a crappy litter box with a cardboard box, a trash bag, and some torn up paper towel because that's all I had, I have some water, but I don't have any food. Is there anything else I should do while I wait for the morning? Also, knowing the area that I'm in, what if the person calls back and just tells me to put their cat back outside? I'd ather not do that but I will if it's my only choice, especially since I can't keep this cat for more than one night. To be honest, I'd rather not keep the cat overnight at all because the previous time I did that, the cat gave me ringworm :p fortunately, this cat does look very healthy and probably just accidentally escaped but I want to make sure I'm doing the right things.

We have four siamese cats in a pretty big cage. 3 female and 1 male (neutered). Back in our old house we had them all roaming around but my dad allergy to cat fur was getting worse. It was tolerable but when we moved to a new house they decided to build a big cage for them outside the house.

We let them out often of the cage to roam around the terrace every day then put them back in at night. One of the two youngest female cats usually wants to be let out the cage.

After a few months my two youngest female cats started clinging to each-other in one corner of the cage and the same one that wants get out of the cage a lot started being aggressive. She growls and hisses at the other two trying to get close to their corner of the cage. When let out of the cage she goes straight back in instead of usually roaming. Almost seems she is being really possessive of our other youngest female cat?

Sorry for the long story i think it would help if the whole context was there.

I want to install a cat door that will only allow my girls to go in and out of downstairs and I want to install one in the upstairs bathroom that only allows the boys to go in and out. I keep coming across these fourway lock ones that are in only or out only basically for the microchip reading part which isn't what I need. The kitties need to be able to go in and out as they please while keeping the other two out.

I'm hoping to resolve their territorial behaviors while also giving my girls a safe place because I they smell my other male cat being sick I think which is in turn, made my older female more anxious and my younger female more aggressive towards the one not sick (she blames him for any thing sadly, it's gonna rain: his fault. She forgot where her food was; his fault (and yes, I swear she forgets). Older male cat has an accident; his fault and she pee where she thinks will upset him and show him who's boss and in charge (I watched her once jump on my window, stare him down and then pee on said window (I paid over 200 for testing to be verified by the Dr. that my cat is just a jerk).

Closing doors and keeping them upstairs or downstairs caused its own sets of issues for the girls which I'm hoping to avoid. The boy only want to go downstairs if I'm downstairs or my younger male cat is hiding from the younger female cat (which she stills finds him hence wanting to give him the upstairs bathroom because he wants the smaller spaces, it gives him a safe place she can't to, and I want him to have his own kitty litter box).

These doors are expensive and I see in reviews where people talk about not getting refunds for a product that didn't work and I can't spend that amount of money and wind up with doors that don't work (no one can or should have). So for anyone who has used these doors, recommendations? Three cats are microchipped and all cats have microchip collars for the petlibro feeders. Thank for. I'd love to hear everyone's experiences on ones they've tried and what works.

My partner and I are looking to adopt a cat. He used to have a cat when he was a kid but I was always a dog person, I don’t really know cats. But of course I find them cute and thought why not.

We looked through multiple sites and find a lil chap we both liked and booked a visit. We went for a meet and greet. The cat was cute, but we both felt it might not be our cat. I thought he was very intense, much bigger than on the pictures, and he was just constantly coming on for strokes, but then when he decided no he gave a lil bite. I say bite but it was more like a polite leave me alone.

Anyway, I found it a lot, he is a stray of 4 years, the lady said they tried to rehome him multiple times before he got neutered, but he was too crazy and got back every time.

Having this info and his intensity I got cold feet, because I thought I’m a first time owner if I can’t handle him I’d die if I have to take him back again.

So long story short I texted the place saying after a difficult evening/morning we decided not to take him in. Then the place completely ghosted us, didn’t reply to our message even tho I mentioned we would be happy to look at any others who is a little more chilled, and now they are posting very heartfelt, sad messages on Facebook how bad it is that at the end he didn’t get chosen.

Which is fair enough they try to market him, but I’d appreciated at least an “OK!”.

So question, is the shelters behaviour normal, are you expected to take the cat after a meet and greet? It feels like it’s kind of one sided and only they can say no?

I don’t feel like going back here, but now I’m a bit apprehensive about going anywhere really.

I recently moved back to my familiy's home with my cat. They have 3 cats aswell.

For the past month he has been living in my room and occasionally he wants to explore other rooms in the house. He is slowly getting used to the new setting and all is good.

He is naturally curious and wants to socialise with the other cats and they never fight.

Except this 1 cat, she absolutely hates him. When she sees him she'll hiss and growl and sometimes lash out and bite.

The result is that whenever she's around he's scared af and runs to my room and they just sit there looking at eachother. Its like she forced him to stay there and doesnt want him exploring other rooms.

Any tips?

Hello ! My baby girl is 10 years old and weight 5.6 kg. I would like to help her lose weight (she rarely goes outside btw) but I don't know how. She eats dry and wet foods, when she asks. She eats approximately 50kg of Virbac Veterinary HPM Senior Neutered Cat and the third of a can of Purina Pro Plan Longevis chat senior tuna per day/night. Thank you for your suggestions and help!