Poor Little Guy.... Upset Tummy/Vomiting

I posted about my new foster in the behavior forum when I discovered his "pretend spraying" and didn't realize that cats did this....

Yesterday evening, my husband got home from work, and I excitedly dragged him upstairs to see our newest stow-away in the bathroom (where he is living temporarily). When I opened the door, the kitty was lounging peacefully on our bathroom counter, but below him.... on the bathroom floor.... was puke. Everywhere.

There was 6 or 7 piles of puke. Most were well formed piles of digested food, but one was pure liquid/bile-y water.

Between his neuter, stress of moving to new surroundings, fasting before his neuter, vaccinations, intros to a new food, and the fact that he scarfs his food, I really wasn't surprised.

The same thing when I got up this morning. Piles of urp, one puddley water. But this time the puddley one had a reddish tinge to it. It didn't *appear* to be blood, but I'm watching that very closely.

So today I have him on plain gerber baby food (chicken, no onion). I'm giving it to him a tablespoon or so at a time (every hour-ish) to make sure he doesn't scarf it, and to hopefully give his stomach time to relax. He is drinking water on his own, but I will be picking up some plain pedialyte at the store to mix with the baby food just in case.

Since nothing is staying down, he has had nothing coming out the back door. How long should he go with no poos before I start to worry? He did one very small pee yesterday early afternoon, but nothing since.

Is he keeping down the baby food? Is he dehydrated? You can check this by pinching the skin at the back of his neck and pulling up gently. If it drops back into place immediately when you let go, he's well hydrated. If it stays up or sink back slowly, he's dehydrated. I would at least call the vet to find out if you need to take him in.

So far he has kept the baby food down.

His skin does snap back quickly.

Unfortunately I don't make the call with this guy's vetting. I've left messages for the HS letting them know what's going on with him.

Sounds like you're doing everything you can for him. Just watch to make sure he starts peeing and pooping again, probably in the next 24 hours. The baby food is good for a few days, but it's not complete nutrition. You'll need to transition him back to regular kitten food soon. You might try a different food than he had before, just in case it's allergies. Of course, the whole thing could be stress related and he'll be fine once he gets over that.

Well, about two hours ago he threw up all the baby food he had eaten all morning.

I gave him an hour and a half to rest his tummy, and gave him a tiny (WEE tiny) bit of baby food. A finger-tip dollup, approximately.

In the time it took me to run downstairs, put the jar in the fridge, and grab the broom and go back upstairs, he had thrown it back up.

He has peed two more times since this morning. So *something* must be going through him....

As hard as it is, (cuz I know the poor guy is HUNGRY) I'm going to with hold his food til about 7 or 8. This will give him approx. 5-6 hours to relax his stomach, and we'll try a little bit then, see if he holds it til bed time.

He's still extremely affectionate, very active (a little nutso for a laser pen), and doesn't act like he has a care in the world, aside from being hungry.

Poor little guy. Wish they could talk.....

Make sure he's still getting something to drink even if you're not feeding him. Pedialyte would probably be better than plain water at this point. Have you heard back from the HS? Will they pay for the vet if you take him on your own, or do they have to approve it first? for your little guy. Hope he's feeling better soon.

Yes, he does still have water available even though I'm withholding food. I have seen him drink from his bowl twice in the past couple hours. He has kept that down.

No more puking since no food has been given.

No call from the HS. Frankly, I'm 'new' to fostering for them, but I'm not new to keeping cats, and I've 'fostered' many a cat on my own dime before volunteering for the HS. If this becomes an emergency, or kitty starts to fail quickly, I will take him in to the vet, pay the bill myself, and deal with the consequences later. (Since he is not mine, I'm not within my rights to make medical decisions for him, that is at the HS's descretion). I don't want to start off on the wrong foot but at the same time I won't jeopardize this little guy out of fear of "getting in trouble." Hopefully it won't come to that and I'll hear something one way or the other from them tonight or tomorrow.