My 1st cat, adopted 1 week ago. please help us!

Ok, I will check the inside of his mouth for problems. But this is my first cat ever and I know almost nothing about dealing with cat heath problems and all this is overwhelming me. So, thank you all SO much for helping us both, and please be patient with my slow typing of replies.

Can you find another vet to get him to? Sometimes a 2nd opinion can find things the first vet missed....

OK, I just checked his mouth and his teeth look great all white and light pink gums and tongue. The dark brown spot on his bottom lip doesn't hurt him when I touch it but I can't tell if it should be there. I can't see any reason why he won't eat, but he does seem like he is feeling better now, he is more responsive. I just feed him 5 eye droppers of water. And I have been feeding him a high calorie dietary supplement. Tomorrow I am going to see if the shelter will help me with this.

That makes me believe the problem may be dehydration. Who knows what might be causing that? There's a limit how much you can get down him without causing vomiting, which is why a vet might go the sub-q route to get him going again. If you can, try giving him some more water.

Good luck tomorrow. Please keep us posted, OK?

You are doing a great job caring for him. Many that the shelter can help you tomorrow! And yes, be sure to let us know!!

I really feel for you, I know how awful it is when you have a sick kitty. I wish you all the best, you are doing the right thing with the vets. The shelter helped me when my kitty was sick, it was uri. My kitty had a bad uri, was sneezing blood. He seemed to be wanting to eat but couldn't and when vet examined him he had an ulcer on his tongue. Quite common if they have a uri apparently. Let us know how you get on, am thinking of you both

Any updates on this kitty and his problems? We're anxiously waiting...

With a black spot on his mouth and knowing that he couldn't pick up a treat when he tried is it possible that he chewed an electrical cord and shocked himself? I'd think he'd have other signs on his mouth though and you said that all looked good. I'd still ask the vet to look at his mouth too just to cover the bases.

It sounds like you're doing an excellent job with this kitty even though he's your first. Cat illness can be hard to spot because they hide it. Kudos to you for all the things you've done. Your instincts must be right on the money.

How is your kitty doing? Is he getting any better?

Could you post a picture of his mouth, especially the black spot? Since you said it didn't seem to hurt when you pressed on it, it's possible that it's just a part of his natural coloration. I have two brown tabby kittens with black on their noses and lips. One has a completely black nose and black most of the way around the lips. The other has a half black nose and black splotches on her lips.

i am thinking he may be depressed, poor little guy, just got thrown away
like he was hothing, he may miss home. if thats the case, time and love is the only thing that will help him. he may be feeling unloved and depressed
make sure he is eatting. and you really need to get another cat.
so he has a playmate. stuck in the house all day by his self.
we adopted 2 kitties at the same time. they are a joy to watch. and they are very close, when one goes to the vet, the other looks for him, till he comes back. then they run off togather ,like they are discussing what,who, where, and when. cats do get lonely

Any news?

My cat wouldn't eat when I first brought her home. I had to find out what food she was eating at the shelter (Iams) and go out and buy a bag so I could get her to eat and slowly switch her to a better food with quality ingredients.

Cats aren't naturally huge water drinkers, most of their water comes from their food. This is why wet food is so important. Try feeding a can of human tuna, it will give the cat water AND it is so smelly that it should want to eat it (sometimes if they can't smell food, they aren't interested in it). If it won't even touch the tuna, I would be very concerned.

You need to find out if it is dehydrated. I found this through google, "One sign of dehydration is loss of skin elasticity. When the skin along the back is picked up into a fold, it should spring back into place. In dehydration, the skin stays up in a ridge. Another sign is dryness of the mouth. The gums, which should be wet and glistening, are dry and tacky to the touch. The saliva is thick and tenacious. Late signs are sunken eyeballs and circulatory collapse (shock)."

It also said that "In mild cases without vomiting, fluids can be given by mouth. If the cat won't drink, give an electrolyte solution by bottle or syringe into the cheek pouch...Balanced electrolyte solutions for treating dehydration in children are available at drugstores. Ringer's lactate with 5 percent Dextrose in water and a solution called Pedialyte are suitable for cats. They are given at the rate of two to four millileters per pound body weight per hour, depending on the severity of the dehydration (or as directed by your veterinarian)."

Dehydration sounds like a possibility, but also Hepatic Lipidodis, a.k.a. Fatty Liver. Basically, because of stress or trauma, a cat gets depressed and stops eating. Their liver shuts down, the body goes into starvation mode and starts processing their fat reserves to stay alive. It has a very high fatality rate, especially of not treated early. The only real treatment is to force feed them and provide a comfortable, loving environment...I know it sounds cheesy, but essentially you want to give them a reason to live.

My cat is a shelter rescue, too and was in the shelter I volunteer at for about six months before he must have become depressed and got fatty liver. I won't go into the whole story, but it took about 10 weeks of force feeding him every day to get him to a healthy weight and for him to start eating on his own. It was horrible at the time, but he's fully recovered now and it was worth it.

If they haven't already, have your vet run his liver levels- they'll be able to tell if he's in liver failure.

If it is HL/FL, feel free to PM me for advice!

Here is my update on how Rusty is doing. I only had him 3 weeks and he never drank any water or milk since I first brought him home. At first he would only eat a tiny bite of canned food, then he stopped eating totally. He was completely calm, comfortable, and happy living with me, and he slept with me from day 1.

I tried all different kinds of food, he would meow and pester me for food, I give him food and he would immediately go to it but then turn away from it like I gave him an old shoe or something. sometimes he would walk on the food ??? (like maybe he didn't see it).

After the first week I took him to a vet for the second time. The morning I was to take him to the vet, one of his eyes pupil was opened larger than the other eye, when he stood up in my bed he fell off the bed and got wedged between the bed and the night stand, I had a tough time getting him back out. We went to the vet and did 2 different test which both showed OK, but his eyes pupils were not the same and he was NOT steady on his feet. Vet gave him a shot & antibiotics and gave me a $200 bill.

For the 2nd week I had Rusty I hand feed him, but I could not get enough food & water in him. I would put food in his mouth and he would chew but all the food would fall out onto me and the floor. So after the 2nd week I took him back to the humane society shelter where I adopted him to see if their vets could help fix him.

They could not get him to eat for the 5 days they keep him. So after 3 weeks of little eating and going from 13 Lbs to below 10 Lbs, I and them thought it be better that to stop Rusty from having to live a slow death.

Iâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]m 51, and this is the sadist thing that has ever happened to me. I donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t know what to think of it all. Is this part of God's plan? or did I cause it to happen?

Oh gosh I am so sorry this happened. You did nothing wrong, just the opposite. I don't know if its Gods plan, but things just happen like this sometimes, despite our best efforts and all the love we can give. That is no consolation I know, but it is life, and death. He had you there for him, and that means a lot.
Don't let this horrible experience sour you on opening your heart again to another animal.

I am so sorry about your cat.
It was not your fault it happened.

I'm so sorry you lost your Rusty. It definitely was not your fault. You gave him three weeks of love and care at the end of his life that he would not have had if you hadn't taken him home.

You need some time to grieve, but I highly recommend that you consider getting another kitty soon. You won't feel the same about him or her as you did about Rusty, but I can tell you from experience that it's possible to love more than one at a time.

When I got my first kitten a year and a half ago it was my intention to have only one. I now have six, three of them 7-week-old kittens. I need to find furever homes for them, but I'm going to have a really hard time letting them go.

I'm so sorry you've had bad luck with your first kitty. There could have been many things wrong with him. I'm thinking the poor boy may have had cancer to be losing weight that fast. I don't think it was anything you did wrong. You tried and you did give him love, even if it was for only a very short time.

I do hope that you will try again and adopt another cat when the time is right. And this time you'll have him a lot longer.

It sounds to me like there was nothing you could have done that would have changed the outcome. In fact, I think you went above and beyond the call of duty, putting yourself into your efforts to save this cat. I'm sorry it was a sad experience; we deal with it every day at the shelter. If I ran the shelter, I'd give you a replacement cat that I knew was in good health, just as a reward! We have great cats all the time, but without knowing everything about a cat, it's hard to know what the next week with them will bring.

Please do consider getting another cat. There is nothing like the purr of a warm body next to you to lower your blood pressure and make the day look better.

God's plan? How can any human know that? But it sounds like you learned a lot about love, as you showed this poor cat love in his last days. And that's not a bad thing, in the long run.

Gosh, I am so sorry for your loss of Rusty, it was very clear how much you loved him and tried to help him get better. I really feel for you, it must be hard as you didn't really have him long. I think it was obvious to us all how much you tried to get him well, it wasn't your fault. I think you gave a very sick kitty a lot of love and kindness in his last weeks and I hope that that can be a small comfort to you. With pets, at some point we will all have to come to terms with loss, I am just sorry that it happened so soon for you. You still have a lot of love to give so I do hope that at some point you are able to show the same to another kitty in need. Take care

I'm so sorry for your loss - our babies find their way into our hearts so quickly. It was nothing you did at all - unless it was God's plan that Rusty find love and tenderness to help him along the bridge and picked you to make sure Rusty had that. ?Bless you for your good heart.