Cat with loose stools - any help would be appreciated

Hi,

I haven't posted here in a while, but I could really use some advice.

I just adopted a cat from a shelter. He's about 8 months old and super friendly, but he's having some problems with loose stools. I'm trying to determine the cause of it so I can help him, but it is very frustrating.

A little information:

When he arrived at my house, he had just had a deworming and his last two booster vaccine shots. The woman from the shelter drove him to my house and said that he had loose stool at the shelter the day before she brought him to me.

I put the cat in his "safe room" and gave him the food they said they were feeding him at the shelter. It's purina one chicken and rice for adults. she told me to slowly mix the other cat's food in with the purina one to get him used to it, so I started doing that. The cat wouldn't touch the food that had my other cat's food mixed in, though (organix)

I tried to mix in a bit of kitten chow, too, but the cat wasn't having any of that, either.

She also gave me a can of seafood fancy feast. I was under the impression that they were feeding the cats this at the shelter, so I was giving him this at night. Apparently this was just a treat that she had given me and the cat wasn't eating this at the shelter, so I've stopped giving him this.

Anyway, we have another cat and my husband and i have been introducing them. The introductions seemed to be going well, there was a bit of growling, bu they mostly have tolerated each other. The younger cat is a little afraid of the older cat right now, but there hasn't even been any fighting.

On Sunday, the new cat, Diego, began to throw up. He would go into the litter and try to go and then throw up. He was farting a lot and his ... erm... poop smelled REALLY bad.

We thought he had a blockage, so we rushed him to the emergency vet and 290 dollars later, he had no blockage, but he was diagnosed with gastroenteritis. They did xrays and did a stool sample and everything came back normal, no worms or anything... with the exception of him having a lot of gas in his body. They told me to put him on a bland diet of chicken and rice and they gave him something to calm his stomach.

After he came back to the vet, he was absolutely starving. We gave him some of the chicken and rice and he gobbled it down in two seconds. They also gave us some probiotics (fortiflora) to help him with his tummy. We've been feeding him smaller meals of just chicken and rice since sunday.

At the emergency vet, he was given famotidine and cerenia to help him out.

His stool was starting to be sort of formed, but then last night, it was runny again. I fed him chicken and rice this morning and for lunch again, and he immediately went into the litter and had a light colored, loose stool.

He seems a bit lethargic today, sleeping a lot, but then again, he's a cat, so I have no idea if it's just him being a cat or if it's him being genuinely sick.

I'm kind of at my wit's end because I'm not really sure what to do or what could be causing it. I'm actually kind of afraid that it's the stress of being with the other cat. The woman at the vet rescue says she wants to take him back to the shelter if he's ill because she didn't want to adopt out an ill cat.

I'm just wondering what I can do. I just lost a cat back in January because he wasn't eating, so this is giving me bad flash backs of that. Any help that anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated.

It can take multiple fecal samples to get a diagnosis, depending on the shedding cycle of a parasite. There are also several parasite/bacteria infections that can NOT be tested for/found in house at the vet's office. These need a special test (a GI PCR panel) that is sent to an outside lab for diagnosis.

This PCR tests for Giardia (often missed in house,) Coccidia, Tritrichomonas, Campylobacter, Salmonella, Toxoplasmosis, and Corona Virus.

It might also be worth switching him to cooked Turkey in the event he has an allergy to chicken.

Hi @xkappax

@CatPack is correct, while an in-house fecal positive test is trustworthy, a neg result isn't if the cat continues to have diarrhea so the only way to rule out a parasite is through a PCR test which is sent out, and ruling out (or in) parasites will go a long way towards diagnosis.

Other causes could be stress diarrhea from the other cat and the move.  How is he doing with the resident cat and how is your first cat doing?

Another is that his gut got out of whack with new foods, the probiotic can help with this but if it and he old food doesn't, another way to go is get prescription Hills W/D food, it has lots of fiber to help absorb water along with a possible antibiotic to help control an bacterial imbalance.

If vets suspect a parasite they sometimes start treating prophylacticly in advance of PCR results.

Cats do sleep a lot, and generally that's fine. The lethargy issue should be looked at when he's awake.  When he's awake how is his energy level?  Does he just sit around?  Does he move from one sleeping spot to another?  Can you interest him in playing with toys?  Is he what we call, BAR, Bright, Alert and Responsive? At his age he should have good energy when awake.  If not, he may also be dehydrated.  You can test this by pinching his neck between your thumb and forefinger and pulling the skin away from his neck until just taught, then release.  If it snaps back like a rubber band than he's fine. The slower it sinks back the more dehydrated he is (vet visit for fluids)  and if it doesn't slink back all the way then a vet visit is needed asap.

There are other possible causes of diarrhea with vomiting but these are probably secondary to all the above at the moment.  He needs continued vet care.

 
@CatPack is correct, while an in-house fecal positive test is trustworthy, a neg result isn't if the cat continues to have diarrhea so the only way to rule out a parasite is through a PCR test which is sent out, and ruling out (or in) parasites will go a long way towards diagnosis.

Other causes could be stress diarrhea from the other cat and the move.  How is he doing with the resident cat and how is your first cat doing?

Another is that his gut got out of whack with new foods, the probiotic can help with this but if it and he old food doesn't, another way to go is get prescription Hills W/D food, it has lots of fiber to help absorb water along with a possible antibiotic to help control an bacterial imbalance.

If vets suspect a parasite they sometimes start treating prophylacticly in advance of PCR results.

Cats do sleep a lot, and generally that's fine. The lethargy issue should be looked at when he's awake.  When he's awake how is his energy level?  Does he just sit around?  Does he move from one sleeping spot to another?  Can you interest him in playing with toys?  Is he what we call, BAR, Bright, Alert and Responsive? At his age he should have good energy when awake.  If not, he may also be dehydrated.  You can test this by pinching his neck between your thumb and forefinger and pulling the skin away from his neck until just taught, then release.  If it snaps back like a rubber band than he's fine. The slower it sinks back the more dehydrated he is (vet visit for fluids)  and if it doesn't slink back all the way then a vet visit is needed asap.

There are other possible causes of diarrhea with vomiting but these are probably secondary to all the above at the moment.  He needs continued vet care.

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He seems bright, alert and responsive, his third eyelids aren't showing. He's less active today than he was yesterday, though. He was CRAZY active when we got him, and his activity level has gone down a bit since then, that's the only thing that has worried me about this besides the loose stools.

He's not having diarrhea really, it's just loose, stinky stool. He'll go once a day, but it's the consistency of pudding.

I had him at the emergency clinic on Sunday and they didn't seem worried about his fluid levels. I will check in a little bit to see how quickly it snaps back.

As far as the thing with him and the other cat goes... my husband wanted to put the cats together asap, I did not. The  new cat seemed settled in, so we let them see one another and there was some growling. On Saturday, the growling got less, but they still growled when they saw one another. On Sunday, the cat was very ill, throwing up and the like. He was sleeping with the resident cat on the bed and wasn't interested in playing at all, that's why we took him to the vet.

After we got him to the vet, he was fine again, really hungry, alert, and awake.

I don't know what to think at this point. I don't know if it's me just worrying too much or if there's something up. The two cats were together last night and they were playing with each other, but we separated them before we went to bed. The growling was minimal and the younger cat was making cooing noises at the older cat, rather than any sort of growling or hissing.

I have them separated right now, though. My husband isn't here right now and I'm upstairs working and I can't really control any fights if they break out.

Oh, also: I have a feliway diffuser to kind of take the edge off of the introduction. Hopefully it's helping. I'm not sure, though. I tried one a long time ago with an introduction and it didn't work at all.

Anyway, thank you for your input so far.

So, are you still feeding him chicken and rice (human food), or HIS chicken and rice (Purina One)?  I ask because unless you are adding liver and some sort of calcium to what you are cooking for him, that is not nutritionally balanced, so you cannot feed him that for too long, especially since he is still technically a kitten.  I know feeding a bland diet is often done to help with diarrhea, but it just can't be done for done for too long. 

Has he had any more vomiting incidents, or just that once? 

How long was he at the shelter.  You said he was just dewormed the day before you got him.  I'm just wondering how he was prior to that?  I would seriously get as much history on him as possible to try to figure out what this could be.  Sounds like the shelter women is quite willing to work with you on this, so hopefully between the two of you you can get more information and maybe try to figure out if it might be food related or what.  Did the Vet think it's parasites or what. I'm not getting any feel for just WHAT they think it is.

Oh, and I also wonder if the shelter might be willing to pick up some of the Vet expenses you have incurred so far? 

In the meantime, have you ever tried slippery elm bark to sooth digestive issues?  It seems to work well for both "ends".  If you search it up at the top of the page, you'll get lots of threads about it. 

I'm still feeding him the chicken and rice (human food) right now, but that's only been going on since sunday. i don't want to do that much longer. I want to try to switch him back to the chicken and rice purina one that they were giving him at the shelter. i'm going to talk to my husband about us trying to do that tonight. Neither of us want him on the human food for too long.

He only threw up that once, it was early sunday, and it was after he ate ALOT of the fish flavored fancy feast. That was the thing they weren't feeding him at the shelter, but I thought they were.

He was only at the shelter two weeks. He was fine before the deworming as far as the people at the shelter know. The vet didn't seem to think it was parasites, they just seemed to think he had a lot of gas that could have been stress related or it could have been food related. If I suspect anything right now, it's the fancy feast.

I'm kind of afraid to ask the shelter lady to pick up any of the expenses, but it was like 290 bucks, so I don't know how to proceed with that sort of thing. It's a delicate situation. When she calls on wednesday, I'm just going to tell her where I'm at with the whole thing I guess.

I went downstairs and did the test for dehydration, his neck skin snapped right back. He seems healthy and happy otherwise, his stools are just loose and yesterday he was so hungry that he pushed the other cat out of the way to get food. The poor thing seems starving, even though he is eating a lot. And he's been like that since the moment I got him, and he was also like that at the shelter. He seems to not be able to control himself around wet food.

OK, so he does like wet food then.  That's actually good, IMHO.  Normally you can switch cats to wet food without causing too much digestive distress, unlike switching up dry foods.  The issue, though, is since dry food is....drying, it can actually "help" with loose stools by drying them out.  Because of this, some people say wet food gives their cats diarrhea.  That's not really what's happening. 

So...the Fancy Feast probably caused vomiting.  We've been having some issues with FF lately...there's even a thread about it.  One of my cats eats it (she's sick so she gets away with eating FF ) and she threw up one of the beef flavors the other day .   I'm thinking perhaps you could try feeding him a GOOD, low carb canned food for a little while and see what happens.  Also try mixing in a GOOD probiotic (something better than FortiFlora) and see if that helps.  Many of us use this one:    or this one  .  You could put 1/2 capsule in his morning feeding and 1/2 in his evening feeding.   And you could try adding some slippery elm bark to his food as well (but not in dry form...it needs to be made into a syrup!) 

I don't think "like" is the word for what he feels for wet food, lol. He goes completely insane. It's cute and also really sad because I feel like maybe he had a really tough life before the shelter.

What's a good low carb food? I go to the pet store to look for foods and i just get really sad because there are so many to choose from and I don't know what I'm doing, to be honest.

I fed my cat Shady healthful life for most of his life and he died at age 10. I don't want that to happen again, so ... you know... I am really trying hard but I want to make the right decision.

I was feeding my other cat, Ghost, Organix, but Wegmans supermarket just out of the blue stopped carrying it. Also, Diego seems to hate the organix, he won't go near it. I don't know if this cat is finicky, he doesn't seem to be about wet food, but, like I said... I want to get him on at least some dry and supplement it with wet. I do that with Ghost and he seems to be doing very good like that.

OK good that he's hydrated, thanks for checking!  And it sounds like he's doing fairly well with your resident cat so that's good.

One good low carb food Is Halo Spot's Stew and MrsGreenJeans probably has more suggestions but I don't think either of us would recommend a switch while he has the diarrhea.  The human chicken and rice is very easy on his stomach so if you can keep on that for a little bit longer that would be good but @mrsgreenjeens is correct it isn't balanced for proper nutrition in the long run.  Going back to his shelter food is a reasonable thing to do for now.

As far as the shelter picking up expenses, it would be nice if they would, and they might, but most shelters will enforce their written policy whatever that may be.  You should have a medical policy in writing.  Look at your adoption contract and see what it says.

You are going to get him through this!

Just throwing this out there...
IBD or a malabsorption/cobalamin disorder can cause diarrhea. IBD can be triggered by stress. B12 injections help with malabsorption.

If the diarrhea doesn't start showing some improvement, I do suggest trying another protein, like turkey.

Some other good quality food suggestions:
Nature's Variety Instinct
Wellness/Wellness CORE

CatPack said:

Just throwing this out there...
IBD or a malabsorption/cobalamin disorder can cause diarrhea. IBD can be triggered by stress. B12 injections help with malabsorption.

If the diarrhea doesn't start showing some improvement, I do suggest trying another protein, like turkey.

Some other good quality food suggestions:
Nature's Variety Instinct
Wellness/Wellness CORE

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IBD is *possible* but given that the cat is a) only 8 months old and b) came from a shelter where GI issues from parasites etc are often epidemic I think the owner is correct to focus on these causes for now, but his vet will obviously guide him on this.

I'm a little bit worried about my resident cat, too, because while they're not attacking one another, my resident cat is deaf and he's a little scared of the newcomer. He threw up a little bit today, too, but it was mostly undigested food and wet stuff. I don't know if maybe he was having a hairball or something and coughed up some food...

This is just all turning into a really big mess quite quickly. :/

Thank you for all of your help and advice. I'm going to try to get him back on the food they were giving him at the shelter.

Once things settle down, you can use this food chart to help find a good canned food for him.  It actually shows the carb percentage .  The only problem with this chart is, it's a little old, so there are lots of newer foods out there that aren't on it, and/or manufacturer's have since changed their formula's so the percentage has changed.  But it's a starting point.  And never fear, we've got something to help you figure out the carbs yourself .  Actually, according to the chart, Organix canned food is very low carb! 

Here's the chart:  http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf  (I always look at the Dry Matter % columns)

Now here's the article on how to figure out the carbs yourself, with a nifty calculator included in the article:  http://www.thecatsite.com/a/how-to-compare-cat-foods-calculate-carbs-dry-matter-basis

As far as Organix, if Wegmans stopped carrying it, can you see if maybe they can special order it for you? Sometimes grocery stores will do that.  Or see if another store in town carries it?

He threw up this morning and now isn't even eating the bland  mixture. This is an absolute nightmare. I think I'm probably going to end up taking him to the vet today to see what's going on... it seems like it's some sort of food allergy, but I have no idea what it is to... the most likely suspect is the chicken and rice purina. I tried to mix some of that into his food last night and that's when the throwing up started.

Hi there.

Sorry to read that your kitty is still experiencing difficulties with vomiting and diarrhea. Usually the causes for this are parasites, diet or could be malabsorption as CatPack mentioned. If malabsorption, your kitty may be missing some digestive enzymes that are needed to digest certain proteins. That said, switching foods too quickly, or feeding rich foods like fish-based canned, can also bring on these problems. There has certainly been a lot of things going on from getting the vaccines and worming, to coming home with you to a different place, so some stress could be a factor here as well.

mrsgreenjeans mentioned slippery elm which might be helpful at this point. It works by coating the intestinal tract to alleviate both diarrhea and constipation. A good probiotic can also be beneficial, but I am inclined to think that what is needed at this time is for this kitty's digestion to settle down. Is the chicken and rice purina a dry food or wet? If dry food, I would suggest not feeding this for awhile until things get sorted out with the diarrhea and vomiting. Dry food is denser and harder on the digestion.

If you are going to the vet's, you could ask about Royal Canin Sensitivity VR wet canned food. This is a prescription food that contains a novel protein which is Venison in this case. This is what you are looking for : http://www.royalcanin.ca/index.php/...inary-Therapeutic-Formulas/Sensitivity-VR-Wet. This wet canned is formulated for gastrointenstinal upset issues but does not contain a lot of extra ingredients making it a good bland food which might help to straighten him out.

Hope your kitty can start to feel better real soon.

Thank you. I'm going to take him to the vet today, most likely, and I'll see what they say.

Thank you all for helping me through this and helping me with your kind words. I don't know what's going to happen, but I appreciate all of your input. It's helping me through this.