A week or so ago, I took Cairo to the vet after was exhibiting some symptoms of a possible illness. The original post can be found here. Here’s what happened at the vet visit.
My robust cat was not having any of the poking and prodding for a urinalysis, but allowed for his blood to be drawn. A blood draw was key because some of his symptoms were consistent with feline diabetes. But, knowing he could hold it for hours and hours, I opted to board him for the night so they could get a… sample.
And you know what that chonker did? He refused.
I called in the morning and they were happy to report his blood levels were beautiful and he didn’t have diabetes. He may have a urinary tract infection, but still hadn’t given them a sample, and asked me when I was off work. They would work on him until I finished my shift.
By the time I arrived that afternoon, they had gone to the last resort of bladder expression to basically force him to pee. That sample revealed… nothing, he was fine.
While I felt a wave of relief that my senior cat was totally fine, no UTI, no diabetes, nothing wrong, I was also rolling my eyes that he was just being a stubborn puss.
The vet and I went over some reasons he might be “house soiling,” as the resources so politely put it. We went through possible reasons he may be peeing where he’s not supposed to, the way he is peeing, and methods to remedy it, including switching litter and moving the box.
The good news from all this is Cairo isn’t feeling territorial. He’s not peeing on anybody’s clothes or the dog’s toys or in my bed, nor is he trying to spray or pee up on the wall. There’s a possibility he just likes the way carpet feels against his fat, furry body as he releases the floodgates. Or maybe he just doesn’t like the litter in his box now - we are using a store brand, perhaps he feels it is beneath him.
So we’re going to try a new litter, I’ve got some fancy pet stain remover foam that claims to reduce chances of “resoiling,” and my parent’s carpet cleaner to attack this spot when the new litter and litter box I ordered arrive.
The moral of this story is: I’d rather find out my cat is just being pissy, both figuratively and literally, than the alternative. Was it an unnecessary expense? No, it really wasn’t, because I’d rather know my cat is fine and feel like I blew my frozen yogurt and impulse buys budget for a month or two than realize farther down the line that he was suffering and I didn’t help him.
Our pets rely on us to help them. They are merely animals, usually sweet and innocent, and need their humans to help them out once in a while. I agreed to help mine out once in a while (and feed them like clockwork) so while the frustration over money is understandable, I’ve forgotten about. I’d rather just celebrate that my cat doesn’t need insulin, he needs an attitude adjustment.
