Barf!

Imhotep is a little bulimic. He has a tendency to gorge occasionally and then barf it back up. Shadey, with his crazy long fur will cough up the occasional furball.

Now I can handle litter boxes NO problem, but barf? I gag and gag and may just end up barfing right along with them. That's where my BF, Dana, comes in. Thank GOODNESS I have a man with a strong stomach who takes care of his woman by cleaning up cat barf.

This is exactly why I don't want human children. Holland has puked maybe 3 times since I got her, I have no problem with it. Human puke? No freakin' way I'm cleaning that up...

I clean up cat puke at least once a week, and I only have 1 cat.. sigh.. Seemingly not due to overeating or certain food ingredients, we just don't know. But Genever certainly poops enough that we know enough food is getting through her system.

Anyway I don't mind cleaning up puke piles, I'm used to it unfortunately. I'm the one who usually finds it first so I just clean it. Sometimes I'm lucky enough that BF is home when it happens so he might clean it.

And BF got me a Bissell Little Green for xmas, so it's much easier and quicker!

Originally Posted by Mystik Spiral

This is exactly why I don't want human children. Holland has puked maybe 3 times since I got her, I have no problem with it. Human puke? No freakin' way I'm cleaning that up...

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I totally agree with that!! I don't know why, but animal 'business' is much less gross than people 'business'.

It doesn't bother me. I just sort of tune out - same as I do when scooping the litter box. Sometimes one of the cats will knock a piece of poo out of the litter box, I'll just pick it up and toss it in the trash. (DH gets all squeamish. ) Also, don't breathe through your nose when cleaning barf.

Any time one of the cats around here barfs instead of just cleaning it up, I'll double check to make sure there's nothing bad in it. I have three kittens... One of which did vomit earlier today. A piece of cardboard from the scratcher was in it.

And yes, animal vomit and poo is easier to deal with. They tend to only eat one or two things. Humans eat all sorts of things that can go wrong..

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Any time one of the cats around here barfs instead of just cleaning it up, I'll double check to make sure there's nothing bad in it. I have three kittens... One of which did vomit earlier today. A piece of cardboard from the scratcher was in it.

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Haha, I check too. Not like sifting through it but a quick smoosh around with the paper towel. Found a black thing that turned out to be just a small felt mouse eye the other day... Luckily, most times it's just food with the occasional hairball.

OK, enough grossing out the OP. Sorry!!

^Well, what doesn't kill you... I think a lot of us get desensitized to some degree. Nurses have to really get used to some rather gross stuff.

I used to be really grossed out by larvae. Not really sure why, but keeping reptiles that fixed that. Stuff about various types of parasites really creep me out, for some odd reason I'll still read and watch stuff about them. Maybe trying to desensitized myself.

I can deal with my kid puking, just don't ask me to clean it up, even though I have many times, I'm a single parent, he gets a trashcan with a wal mart bag in it when he's sick and I have to take the entire trashcan out to dump it after tying up the bag, I can't just carry the bag of puke. I can deal cleaning litter boxes, cleaning up animal barf, just don't ask me to pick up dog poop or make me deal with snot.

Taryn

Originally Posted by strange_wings

^Well, what doesn't kill you... I think a lot of us get desensitized to some degree. Nurses have to really get used to some rather gross stuff.

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My Mom is a nurse and trust me, they couldn't pay me ENOUGH to do what you do! I don't know what it's like there, but SHE certainly doesn't get paid enough to do what she does either. It takes a special person to be a nurse, and you certainly have my respect.

Originally Posted by Kailie

My Mom is a nurse and trust me, they couldn't pay me ENOUGH to do what you do! I don't know what it's like there, but SHE certainly doesn't get paid enough to do what she does either. It takes a special person to be a nurse, and you certainly have my respect.

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I'm not a nurse - though there are a lot on this site. I do have family members who were/are so I do know how nasty some of the stuff they deal with is.
My grandma was an LPN, towards the later part of her career (when she was still able to work) she worked at the town nursing home. There were horror stories of the residents that would finger paint their room walls with poo.

I can deal with puke, poo and pee... and I have a Bissell Little Green too.. actually belongs to my BF. Works great even on older stains.

I also ummm... "inspect" it. You can learn a lot about what is going on with kitty if you check this stuff.

My sister is a nurse, I don't know how she does it. She works in the neurological ward so she sees a lot of car accidents, bike accidents, head injuries, etc. She's had a woman curse her out and insist that she was the devil, she had a man kick her because he was convinced he needed to be somewhere at a certain time and wanted to get out of his room. She has poop and puke stories that I will be nice enough not to share with you. It was her calling, and I envy her that she always knew what she wanted to do. But I still don't know how she does it...

My 1 year old kitty is also bulimic. He eats WAAAY too fast. If you don't watch him, he'll eat a cupful in less than a minute. It's ridiculous. I have to watch him eat a few bites and feed him every 5 minutes or he barfs.

And the worst part... he likes to barf on the carpet. <_<

I find what helps, was transitioning him to a raw diet. When we give him bone-in meats, it takes him a while to tear the meat away, chew and swallow. So it's less hassle that way.