Hi all,
I have a 14 year old cat, Thomasina. She has never had a health problem in her life until a few months ago. We came home one day and she was walking around, but holding her back legs very stiffly, kind of bouncing on them when she moved. We took her to the vet, who gave us medication for something to do with inflammation. It seemed to help her quite a bit, and some days she was almost back to normal. Recently she had gotten pretty agile again, and started trying to jump onto things, i.e the coffee table, recliners, beds, etc. She would make it up, but when she jumped down would sometimes do a somersault forward when she hit the ground.
Last night my mom went in to feed her, and she crawled out from under the bed like usual, but then just sat there. Then when she tried to move, she had to drag herself because apparently her hind legs have stopped working. She came out and ate and drank, and just stretches out and purrs when anyone pets her. Today she is still dragging, but is not stretched out. She sits up and basically walks normally except for having to drag the back legs. It looks like she is able to move one of her hips, which i did not see her doing yesterday. She also seems to have feeling in them, she turns her head and watches when i touch them.
She has also attempted to get onto the bed (again). I came in and she was hanging onto the bedspread and had almost pulled herself up. I put her the rest of the way up, and I'm watching to make sure she doesn't try to get down by herself. At the moment she is just napping in a sunny spot.
Does anyone have any ideas what might have happened?
We do have two dogs, a German Shepherd and a Shiba Inu. The Shepherd is best of friends with her, but sometimes can play a little roughly with her big feet. We are thinking that the initial injury was something caused by the dog, and that she has just aggravated it by insisting on jumping and playing normally.
She is acting entirely normal, except for staying in "her" room and the living room right next to it. That's understandable, since it must be tiring to have to drag your back end around. My dad is trying to convince me that her quality of life is not going to be good, and to put her down, but I am refusing as she is acting normal otherwise, and this might improve itself like it has the other times. She has been with me since i was about a year old and I know that she would not want to die.
I really do not want to have to stress her out by taking her to the vet again, she is not good with being put in kennels or going to strange places with strange people, so I am thinking of just asking him for another bottle of the medication that helped the last two times.
I apologize for the length and that it might not be in a totally understandable order, thank you for taking the time to read if you did. Any suggestions or ideas that I could do at home would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much,
Jenn and Thomasina
I have a 14 year old cat, Thomasina. She has never had a health problem in her life until a few months ago. We came home one day and she was walking around, but holding her back legs very stiffly, kind of bouncing on them when she moved. We took her to the vet, who gave us medication for something to do with inflammation. It seemed to help her quite a bit, and some days she was almost back to normal. Recently she had gotten pretty agile again, and started trying to jump onto things, i.e the coffee table, recliners, beds, etc. She would make it up, but when she jumped down would sometimes do a somersault forward when she hit the ground.
Last night my mom went in to feed her, and she crawled out from under the bed like usual, but then just sat there. Then when she tried to move, she had to drag herself because apparently her hind legs have stopped working. She came out and ate and drank, and just stretches out and purrs when anyone pets her. Today she is still dragging, but is not stretched out. She sits up and basically walks normally except for having to drag the back legs. It looks like she is able to move one of her hips, which i did not see her doing yesterday. She also seems to have feeling in them, she turns her head and watches when i touch them.
She has also attempted to get onto the bed (again). I came in and she was hanging onto the bedspread and had almost pulled herself up. I put her the rest of the way up, and I'm watching to make sure she doesn't try to get down by herself. At the moment she is just napping in a sunny spot.
Does anyone have any ideas what might have happened?
We do have two dogs, a German Shepherd and a Shiba Inu. The Shepherd is best of friends with her, but sometimes can play a little roughly with her big feet. We are thinking that the initial injury was something caused by the dog, and that she has just aggravated it by insisting on jumping and playing normally.
She is acting entirely normal, except for staying in "her" room and the living room right next to it. That's understandable, since it must be tiring to have to drag your back end around. My dad is trying to convince me that her quality of life is not going to be good, and to put her down, but I am refusing as she is acting normal otherwise, and this might improve itself like it has the other times. She has been with me since i was about a year old and I know that she would not want to die.
I really do not want to have to stress her out by taking her to the vet again, she is not good with being put in kennels or going to strange places with strange people, so I am thinking of just asking him for another bottle of the medication that helped the last two times.
I apologize for the length and that it might not be in a totally understandable order, thank you for taking the time to read if you did. Any suggestions or ideas that I could do at home would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much,
Jenn and Thomasina