My kitten has a sore mouth, and I’m really worried. Help!
Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: This seems pretty urgent to me! I got a wee kitten about 4 months ago. He’s about 6 and a half months old now, but I noticed yesterday his gums were bleeding right at the line of where his teeth come out. I thought perhaps he’d bitten a stick and it had just left a little cut, but now he’s barely eating anything and it’s clear it’s painful for him when he does. He tries to wipe his mouth and meows in a strange way that sounds as if he is very sore. When I look in his mouth (which he doesn’t let me do for long) it seems…
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My brother is terrorizing my cat! Help!
Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: HELP! My brother chases after my cat until he has nowhere to go and is trapped into corner. When he is trapped, he hisses and pees. Today, my brother chased him into a corner and my cat hissed. I ran over there and picked the cat up, and while I was walking he peed on me! This is the first time in five years that he’s ever done this. What do I do? Did he pee because he’s been scared for too long (four years) or because he was really, really scared? Please help me! What do I do? ~Seema Siouxsie: Well, Seema, it’s pretty clear to us that…
What’s wrong with my wobbly kitten?
Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: I ran a search for cats with Parkinson’s Disease and found this article on your site. I have a new litter of kittens on my farm and one of the three kittens has to have Parkinson’s. Since birth he shakes and wobbles uncontrollably at all times except for when he is sleeping. He can run pretty well, but walking is tough. Eating and drinking can also be challenging. His movements are identical to a human with severe or advanced Parkinson’s, and the fact that he is perfectly still as he sleeps is also typical of human Parkinson’s. If you have any comments I would love to hear them. ~Katy…
My cat always pees and poops next to the litterbox. What can I do about it?
Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: My 8-year-old cat stopped using the litterbox. I don’t know why. He always pees and poops beside the litterbox, which is in the unfinished part of the basement. I have three other cats and have no problems with them. I clean my four litterboxes twice a day. I don’t know what to try anymore. Is there hope for this one? He’s a healthy, loving, purring cat, but he’s overweight. ~Nadine
Book Review: “Dear Sparkle: Advice from One Cat to Another”
We let Mama write the review of this great book. For some reason, people seem to trust book reviews written by humans more than those written by cats. Go figure! And we decided we’d let her get away with saying “she” writes this column. We supposed that technically it’s true, since she does all the typing. As the editor (or rather, personal assistant) of the world-famous Paws and Effect Gang, I’m always curious to check out books written by other cat advice authorities, so when I got a chance to get a copy of Dear Sparkle, I took it. I’d read Sparkle’s online advice column, so I expected that her book would be as entertaining…
My elderly cat can’t keep any food down. Help!
Before we begin this week’s column, we’d like to give a giant Happy Birthday purr to our great-great auntie cat, Asti, who just turned 19 yesterday. That’s like 92 in human years! Many happy returns, Asti — and Mama sends lots of petties your way, too. Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties: I have a 19-year-old female cat who is unable to keep anything down that she is fed. Over the last year, we’ve tried everything — soft food, soft food that is ground to gravy, special dietary food for elderly cats, feeding her small amounts at a time. Nothing seems to work. In the last week, she has thrown up everything we feed her….
