My cat, Tickle Cricket, is about a year and a half old.
I feel I need to provide some background information, as this really is turning to be quite the mystery.
Tickle was bought from a Pets Plus (or some place like that) as a kitten. Tickle has chronic diarrhea, though is very smart and always uses the litterbox. His problem was that he would sometimes step in it, and then crawl into bed with you, bringing some poop with him. The family that bought him returned him to the store saying he was a bad cat. My friend works at the store and saw him cowering from these people when they brought him back. My friend took him home, where I then met him, and I took Tickle as my own.
I am not sure how long Tickle has been sick, because it has been a very gradual process. Our house got mysteriously infected with fleas in the middle of the summer, and that was when I first noticed a problem. Tickle has always been thin, but has been losing weight, possibly even before the fleas. Tickle started to lose his energy and the fleas weren't going away (I was cleaning the house as well). He was also losing energy, sitting around and just staring. So I took him to the vet.
The vet looked him up and down and said he had a skin infection and gave him some sort of shot, gave me antibiotic pills to give him every day, and some new flea medication. I started to give him the pills and his health improved, and the fleas disappeared. The vet also ran blood work, tested for all the bad things (cancer, FIV, etc), it all came back clean and in good health.
SUDDENLY! Tickle loses his sense of balance. He's wobbling all over the place. He's acting normal, and happy, but has no balance. Falls off the couch, falls off the coffee table. I promptly freak out and research the antibiotic on the internet, find that one of the (rare) side effects is loss of balance, and I stop administering the medication. His balance comes back after a day or so.
Then Tickle seems well. But he slowly started whittling away again. Losing weight, losing energy. At this point I am upset with the vet AND getting ready to move because our lease was up. I continue to watch Tickle like a hawk, and suddenly, he stops eating and drinking. Obviously bad for any animal, but especially weird because Tickle is such a glutton.
So I take him to a new vet, who Tickle and I both like a lot more. He is shocked at the amount of medicine the past vet used on such an underweight cat at one time, runs bloodwork on Tickle (it all comes back clean, everything), except for a high white blood cell count. Everything else is normal. He prescribes some liquid antibiotic, 1mL twice a day, and tells me to call him if he doesn't eat, etc.
Tickle did start eating and drinking water, and he is getting better. He's gaining weight back, his fur looks nice again.
Here's the mystery.
1. Tickle has started gorging himself on food. He will eat the entire bowl straight through and then vomit afterwards because he ate too much. Every time. I now have to give him sized amounts every few hours.
2. When he is unable to have food before bed time (if I've fed him a few hours previously, etc), he will gorge himself on water. I will then wake up to water-vomit on the side of my bed (where he sleeps).
3. We are now living in a new house, and there is not another animal to keep him company. I think he is having dependency/lonliness issues with me. When I go outside, he screams at the door almost the entire time I'm gone. He also, sometimes...
4. ...will poop in the corner of my roommate's living room. He has started to poop in the shower too. Or my roommate's closet. But he still uses the litterbox. I got a new box for him that he likes, I changed to the litter that he likes, and he uses it almost exclusively. But he has peed on my carpet now, and my roommate's carpet, and it's so out of character for him. I have tried positive reinforcement as well as negative reinforcement and neither seems to work, and I feel if he does have a dependency issue, me scolding him and isolating him with his litterbox is not going to solve that problem. (Note: his litterbox is impeccably clean, I assure you.) I have also thoroughly cleaned and removed all stains and odors. He does not go in the same place twice, except the shower.
5. He meows and gets excited and dances around my legs, waiting for his antibiotic. It tastes HORRIBLE and I can tell he doesn't enjoy it, but I am almost entirely through the second (of three) bottles, and he comes every time he sees me prepping. Twice a day.
6. He has started to vomit occasionally, and he never vomits. It's usually watery (from too much water), or somewhere in the middle. Two days ago he vomited what looked like yellow snot mucus, a decent amount of it too. It was the grossest vomit I have ever seen.
If you AT LEAST have any suggestions on how to get him stop using my roommate's house as a toilet I would appreciate it so much... I am cleaning up some sort of mess before work every day, and immediately when I get home. I am truly baffled. The worst part is that I don't even know if we are treating his illness, only his symptoms, as we still don't know why he got sick. He is getting well, but these problems are so strange and out of character for him, that I am considering looking into a specialist to help him, even though I really don't have the money (I really don't).
Any suggestions about anything at all would be tremendous, thank you.
I feel I need to provide some background information, as this really is turning to be quite the mystery.
Tickle was bought from a Pets Plus (or some place like that) as a kitten. Tickle has chronic diarrhea, though is very smart and always uses the litterbox. His problem was that he would sometimes step in it, and then crawl into bed with you, bringing some poop with him. The family that bought him returned him to the store saying he was a bad cat. My friend works at the store and saw him cowering from these people when they brought him back. My friend took him home, where I then met him, and I took Tickle as my own.
I am not sure how long Tickle has been sick, because it has been a very gradual process. Our house got mysteriously infected with fleas in the middle of the summer, and that was when I first noticed a problem. Tickle has always been thin, but has been losing weight, possibly even before the fleas. Tickle started to lose his energy and the fleas weren't going away (I was cleaning the house as well). He was also losing energy, sitting around and just staring. So I took him to the vet.
The vet looked him up and down and said he had a skin infection and gave him some sort of shot, gave me antibiotic pills to give him every day, and some new flea medication. I started to give him the pills and his health improved, and the fleas disappeared. The vet also ran blood work, tested for all the bad things (cancer, FIV, etc), it all came back clean and in good health.
SUDDENLY! Tickle loses his sense of balance. He's wobbling all over the place. He's acting normal, and happy, but has no balance. Falls off the couch, falls off the coffee table. I promptly freak out and research the antibiotic on the internet, find that one of the (rare) side effects is loss of balance, and I stop administering the medication. His balance comes back after a day or so.
Then Tickle seems well. But he slowly started whittling away again. Losing weight, losing energy. At this point I am upset with the vet AND getting ready to move because our lease was up. I continue to watch Tickle like a hawk, and suddenly, he stops eating and drinking. Obviously bad for any animal, but especially weird because Tickle is such a glutton.
So I take him to a new vet, who Tickle and I both like a lot more. He is shocked at the amount of medicine the past vet used on such an underweight cat at one time, runs bloodwork on Tickle (it all comes back clean, everything), except for a high white blood cell count. Everything else is normal. He prescribes some liquid antibiotic, 1mL twice a day, and tells me to call him if he doesn't eat, etc.
Tickle did start eating and drinking water, and he is getting better. He's gaining weight back, his fur looks nice again.
Here's the mystery.
1. Tickle has started gorging himself on food. He will eat the entire bowl straight through and then vomit afterwards because he ate too much. Every time. I now have to give him sized amounts every few hours.
2. When he is unable to have food before bed time (if I've fed him a few hours previously, etc), he will gorge himself on water. I will then wake up to water-vomit on the side of my bed (where he sleeps).
3. We are now living in a new house, and there is not another animal to keep him company. I think he is having dependency/lonliness issues with me. When I go outside, he screams at the door almost the entire time I'm gone. He also, sometimes...
4. ...will poop in the corner of my roommate's living room. He has started to poop in the shower too. Or my roommate's closet. But he still uses the litterbox. I got a new box for him that he likes, I changed to the litter that he likes, and he uses it almost exclusively. But he has peed on my carpet now, and my roommate's carpet, and it's so out of character for him. I have tried positive reinforcement as well as negative reinforcement and neither seems to work, and I feel if he does have a dependency issue, me scolding him and isolating him with his litterbox is not going to solve that problem. (Note: his litterbox is impeccably clean, I assure you.) I have also thoroughly cleaned and removed all stains and odors. He does not go in the same place twice, except the shower.
5. He meows and gets excited and dances around my legs, waiting for his antibiotic. It tastes HORRIBLE and I can tell he doesn't enjoy it, but I am almost entirely through the second (of three) bottles, and he comes every time he sees me prepping. Twice a day.
6. He has started to vomit occasionally, and he never vomits. It's usually watery (from too much water), or somewhere in the middle. Two days ago he vomited what looked like yellow snot mucus, a decent amount of it too. It was the grossest vomit I have ever seen.
If you AT LEAST have any suggestions on how to get him stop using my roommate's house as a toilet I would appreciate it so much... I am cleaning up some sort of mess before work every day, and immediately when I get home. I am truly baffled. The worst part is that I don't even know if we are treating his illness, only his symptoms, as we still don't know why he got sick. He is getting well, but these problems are so strange and out of character for him, that I am considering looking into a specialist to help him, even though I really don't have the money (I really don't).
Any suggestions about anything at all would be tremendous, thank you.
