Losing too many cats in one area

These sad stories are slowly taking me down...

Two months ago a friend of mine found a stray kitten at her bar that just would't leave, she eventually started to feed him and contacted me as she knew I've lost mine a few months ago. Of course I agreed and took him back to my parent's home, a lovely place with a big house and garden and everything a cat would like... At the same time a neighbor's cat just had a litter and my dad also picked a kitten, so we would have two and they could have each other to play with. The first cat, Toby, was a few weeks bigger but he was a true gentleman with little Tina. They soon began to sleep together and share food and play all day long. Everything was perfect... until this Saturday... when my called me and gave me that terrible news again, he found the cats both dead...

I'm going crazy right now, I can't even cry no more and feel very angry but not sure on what. Why did they die? There is no apparent reason. Nothing. No sign of anything. They were fine the night before and that's all there is. They were closed up, no one could get to them. Toby got all his shots, but Tina I was told she had to grow a bit more. I'm feeling terrible for sentencing cats to death at that lovely place I call home. And again the same question, What have we done wrong? What was it? Unfortunately there is no vet in the area that would perform a necropsy, and we are left with absolutely no answer. As from description, all that the vets could tell was that it's probably some sort of poison. But no one has a clue what it could be.

The cat we had before died the same way, but we somehow blamed it on the car accident he had and that it might have been something the vet missed, that's the way I actually found him, a car hit him near my place and I rushed him to the vet. He got all better and I took to my parent;s place and after a few months we found him dead too, in front of our door, on his pillow. But now it's clear, it's the same symptomless death. Two cats before this simply disappeared, the first one after almost three years and the second one was about the celebrate a year when she just vanished. 

I'm seriously going crazy over this, I just can;t find out what it is. And if we can't find out we will never risk another life at that place. 

Another strange thing, after this happened, my mom was telling our neighbor the sad news and then he told her that another neighbor lost like 8 cats. I'm not sure if it's the same way, I hope I'll find out next weekend when I get back but it makes sense now that there might be some sort of poison somewhere. But where? and what kind? And Tina was way too little to be exploring around our neighbors places, just Toby would sometimes jump over the fence and make some visits, but no one ever complained, and almost all of our neighbors have some sort of animals, so I always thought it's not likely they would use poison, even for rodents, and some vets said that that kind of poison shows some symptoms on cats.

So what is it? What happened? What can we do about it? 

I can't really wrap my head around this and it's incredibly frustrating. I ruined two lives again. Two innocent kittens. What have we done?

If any of you who read this, might have a clue or an idea on what do to, please let me know, it's hard to believe that at the moment it seems like we have to give up cats. We always had cats, as far as I can remember. We have chickens too, and they are fine, our next door neighbor has a dog and his fine. Our other neighbors don't have anything since they are always on the road, but they used to have - so I don't believe that someone is doing the poisoning on purpose. My dad even asked around and no one uses stuff like that. But I keep thinking what is there is still something there but they don't know it... What could it be?

Please see my other post about the other kitties lost:  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/299777/im-so-sorry#post_3762891

Abziehbild said:

 
These sad stories are slowly taking me down...

Two months ago a friend of mine found a stray kitten at her bar that just would't leave, she eventually started to feed him and contacted me as she knew I've lost mine a few months ago. Of course I agreed and took him back to my parent's home, a lovely place with a big house and garden and everything a cat would like... At the same time a neighbor's cat just had a litter and my dad also picked a kitten, so we would have two and they could have each other to play with. The first cat, Toby, was a few weeks bigger but he was a true gentleman with little Tina. They soon began to sleep together and share food and play all day long. Everything was perfect... until this Saturday... when my called me and gave me that terrible news again, he found the cats both dead...

I'm going crazy right now, I can't even cry no more and feel very angry but not sure on what. Why did they die? There is no apparent reason. Nothing. No sign of anything. They were fine the night before and that's all there is. They were closed up, no one could get to them. Toby got all his shots, but Tina I was told she had to grow a bit more. I'm feeling terrible for sentencing cats to death at that lovely place I call home. And again the same question, What have we done wrong? What was it? Unfortunately there is no vet in the area that would perform a necropsy, and we are left with absolutely no answer. As from description, all that the vets could tell was that it's probably some sort of poison. But no one has a clue what it could be.

The cat we had before died the same way, but we somehow blamed it on the car accident he had and that it might have been something the vet missed, that's the way I actually found him, a car hit him near my place and I rushed him to the vet. He got all better and I took to my parent;s place and after a few months we found him dead too, in front of our door, on his pillow. But now it's clear, it's the same symptomless death. Two cats before this simply disappeared, the first one after almost three years and the second one was about the celebrate a year when she just vanished. 

I'm seriously going crazy over this, I just can;t find out what it is. And if we can't find out we will never risk another life at that place. 

Another strange thing, after this happened, my mom was telling our neighbor the sad news and then he told her that another neighbor lost like 8 cats. I'm not sure if it's the same way, I hope I'll find out next weekend when I get back but it makes sense now that there might be some sort of poison somewhere. But where? and what kind? And Tina was way too little to be exploring around our neighbors places, just Toby would sometimes jump over the fence and make some visits, but no one ever complained, and almost all of our neighbors have some sort of animals, so I always thought it's not likely they would use poison, even for rodents, and some vets said that that kind of poison shows some symptoms on cats.

So what is it? What happened? What can we do about it? 

I can't really wrap my head around this and it's incredibly frustrating. I ruined two lives again. Two innocent kittens. What have we done?

If any of you who read this, might have a clue or an idea on what do to, please let me know, it's hard to believe that at the moment it seems like we have to give up cats. We always had cats, as far as I can remember. We have chickens too, and they are fine, our next door neighbor has a dog and his fine. Our other neighbors don't have anything since they are always on the road, but they used to have - so I don't believe that someone is doing the poisoning on purpose. My dad even asked around and no one uses stuff like that. But I keep thinking what is there is still something there but they don't know it... What could it be?

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Oh, wow. I am so sorry. This is so tragic. I do find it very strange all the cats are dying just like that. Is there no one in the neighborhood that has cats and they die just like Toby and Tina did? Its very strange they had no symptoms just passed. Can you call and see if Tina's siblings are alright? Could it be possibly something in the food? Do you use rat or roach poison. I really don't have much else to say, this is so shocking and sad.

I'm sorry for your losses.  Do you parents have any other animals? Birds, gerbils?  I am guessing the cats are indoor outdoor, and would strongly recommend that if you parents want cats, they should consider INDOOR ONLY cats, at least until they find an answer to why these animals are dying.

I would also suggest that they begin to report each unexplained death.  While there is not much anyone will do about one pets death, it sounds like this is not just one...and not just your family.  You could have a serial killer in your midst.  Or perhaps someone is setting out poison trying to rid the area of feral cats and your family cats just aren't reading the warning label...

If they are spending much time indoors, I wonder if they are being exposed to Radon or some other type of gas leak or atmospheric condition that cats are more sensitive to?   How is your parent's health/.  any odd conditions?

If they are spending much time outdoors, are you certain all the neighbors are as okay with pets as you think they are?  With this many cats to be dead, it doesn't seem accidental.  When I used to work at a packing plant, we were always finding dead birds in the parking lot.  The packing plant blamed it on the chemicals farmers sprayed on their crops to deter insects... but I always secretly wondered if it had something to do with the groundwater out at the plant (all the cleaning chemicals, salt, etc. all went out into a wastewater treatment plant which is supposed to contain the toxins... but who really knows what all gets leached out into the soil and how far it spreads.  with pesticides, etc., if birds or animals are being infected and the cat is eating the birds or rodents, it could be residual, and coming from a bit farther than the cats are actually traveling.  When you put toxins out into the environment, they come back to haunt us.. .like all the eagles dying off.  The poisons didn't kill the eagles directly, but caused the egg shells to be so thin that most of the embreyos didn't make it to become hatchlings... Or of course there is the unlikely scenario that you have some sick b*st*rd living in your neighboorhood who on the outside acts all lovely dovely to his little fury friends, but secretly cannot stand them and is intentionally poisoning them and just acts nice because he doesn't want anyone to suspect him, or her.  The world is full of sick people.

I honestly don't think there is something in the food, they eat mostly cat food but also some cooked food my parents give them, like meat leftovers or cheese or mashed potatoes cause my mom makes them with lots of cream and milk and it's normal stuff and whenever Toby caught something, he came home and brought it on the doorstep, once there was a bird and the second time a fish, and we took both on them away since we had no idea how he caught them or where he got them since he was too small to be catching birds and there are no ponds in the neighborhood. Tina's siblings were all given away, but her mom was kinds sick last time my mother talked to the neighbor, she said she was vomiting but started to feel better already. I will check on her again when I get home this weekend. But the cats didn't interact since we got her, it was always just Tina and Toby in our yard. 

We don't use any kind of poison around the house. We do sometimes have mice in the garage but my dad bought some sort of ultrasound thing, I'm not sure how to call it, which is supposed to make some noise only rodents can hear and makes them go away. I don't think other neighbors use poison since they all had pets and my dad really asked and talked with them about this but no one used anything.

I will again go ask around the neighborhood when I get home. There is nothing else I can think of what I could do.

The cats were mostly outdoor, since my mom wasn't allowed to be near them, after chemo her immune system was destroyed and was told to avoid any contact with any kind of animal. But they still had access to the part of the house where we had a kitchen and was my dad's working place (working as simply handy work, nothing special, no chemicals), but they had their place there with beds and sand box and everything.

I can't think what I would do if there was really a neighbor that does all this, probably set his house on fire. There are too many lives lost. I'm not sure how and where to report all this, it's Romania and there are no real laws for animals, a few volunteers here and there are doing everything they can, but I couldn't even get a necropsy in that town. If we knew it was really poison and what kind, would have been maybe a step closer. 

All neighbors seem nice and know us since my grandparents used to live there, again they had cats all the time, but they all died of old age, something like this never happened before.

This is really killing me on the inside... not knowing what we did wrong or what really happened.

Toby bringing home something 2x does not mean that is everything he caught.  It is normal for a cat to bring a "gift" to thank you for everything you do, but he could also be catching lots of other stuf and eating it himself.  If you don't have a pond nearby, do any neighbors have a Koi pond in their yard.  A lot of people like to make outdcoor sanctuarys to attract wildlife, unforntuantely that also attracts animals that pray on the wildlife they are trying to attract.

If the cat has seen the vet, and the priorly deceased cats were treated by a vet, then you should know or have been informed if they were carrying something highly contagious like parvo or distemper or something like that, but if its the neighbor who has also lost several cats, you might ask if they were creamated or buried in the yard... I am not real wise about what you have to do to make sure the deceased pets are not infecting the ground and being contagious to the well pets.

Good luck on figuring it out...

No one has a pond in the area, but there is a small lake up the hill, like a 20-30 minutes walk from our place and we thought that maybe a fisherman passed by, saw the kitty and threw him the small fish. At least that was our very optimistic guess at the moment.

Toby had all his shots and Tina was about to, since she was a bit smaller the vet said to wait another month or so. And the neighbor that lost the other cats, her husband is a vet, but as far as my mother told me he might not be specialized in small animals since some time ago she asked him something about chickens and he said he doesn't know or something like that. I will check more of their story once I get to talk to them. But odds are that they knew how to take care of their cats

The vets I talked to said they don't know of any disease to kill this fast and with no symptoms at all, they all suggested poisoning, but what kind and from where, was beyond them. 

I just was reading over your posts, two poisons come to mind, mouse bait and antifreeze. I don't know if Tina was allowed outdoors, was she?

Yes, they were both allowed outdoors. I will check again with my dad, but he said the antifreeze is always locked up in the garage, in a closet with other car stuff. But I'm no car expert so I'm thinking now what if it leaked somehow out of the car? Do cats really eat it like this?  

My mom kept our cats outside when I was growing up.

I lost 3 or 4 cats at one time to antifreeze poisoning when I was a child. The cats lap the stuff up because it's sweet and it cuts their kidneys up. One of the cats we thought we could save and rushed her to the vet, but it was too late for her. 

My cats now, as an adult, are not allowed outdoors, unless they're on a leash and harness and I'm walking with them. I've already had a lifetime's share of heartache from all my cats that suffered violent and premature deaths when I was a kid.

Is it possible for antifreeze to kill this fast? I mean they were fine in the evening, my dad check on them at about 11 pm and then in the morning, not even 12 hours later, he found them both dead. 

Cats go into kidney failure within 12-24 hours of ingesting antifreeze.

The fact that they were both dead at the same time likely points to some sort of poisoning. The odds of them dying simultaneously otherwise are pretty minimal.

Another thought as to source: not all poisonings are accidental. Some unscrupulous people will deliberate poison cats and dogs.

This is them... I still can't believe they're not going be there when I get home... Toby was like 4-5 months old and Tina about 3. It was the first time we took in two cats, thinking it might be better to have each other to play with.


There are mostly elderly people in our neighborhood and most of them have pets too. I can't imagine one of them being a cold serial killer and that's why my plan is to simply talk to them, maybe someone really did have an antifreeze leakage or I don't know... probably did something they were not aware of. Or maybe the neighbor that lost 8 of them might know more. I can hardly wait to get there and get some answers.

What were the details of the neighbor that lost so many cats? Did they make any mention of the possible cause of death?

Also, it doesn't take much antifreeze to poison a cat. If I'm remembering right, as little as one teaspoon can poison them.

I will talk to the neighbors when I get home this Saturday. I don't know any details, except that she had one of the cats for several years and he used to visit us from time to time but was really shy and he wasn't neutered, then they got another cat and had a litter of kittens soon after, as far as I know I used to still see the first cat around our garden this spring, but I will know more once I talk to them. 

My parents did notice that starting this year, cats wouldn't come around anymore, we used to think that it's because we got some cats of our own and it was their territory now, but worst case scenario, there is something in our area that is killing them. 

Ok, so I just talked to the neighbor that lost those 8 cats and told me that just one died of poisoning and the rest were hit by cars. They didn't find out what poison it was, neither they found the people that ran them over. They still have some cats left but those are some of the kittens they had this summer. Other neighbors with cats, never had any incidents like this. I am only left to believe that our next door neighbor might use mice/rat poison to get rid of these, he did complain once to my dad that he couldn't get rid of mice with the same device my dad uses, something with ultrasounds that annoy the rodents. But we did ask him if he used any and he denied. My parents won't believe this theory since we are pretty close with the neighbors, like we both have the keys of the other house and the vets said that most mice/rat poison that is found in stores doesn't act this fast, the cats would have felt sick for days maybe. 

I don't know what else to believe. The neighbor to our right is this one, the second neighbor to the right gave us one of the cats and still has cats that are ok and never had any case of poisoning, the neighbor to the left has a dog, the second neighbor to the left is the one that lost the 8 cats. The neighbors across the road, one loves cats and comes over to play with them since she won't have any more because she feels too old to properly take care of them, another neighbor has also two dogs and the next one also had dogs, maybe they still do, but is also a vet. And the neighbors above us, also have cats. and pigs and cows and chicken and ducks and geese. 

My family and I talked it over and somehow want to give it another try the next spring, and bring two other kittens. My mom, at first wouldn't agree to keeping two cats, cried her heart out now they're gone.

We will try and feed them only special cat food, so maybe they'll be like my brother's cat which acts insulted if you give her meat so anything else. Maybe this way they won't be interested in eating mice or other dangerous things. 

It will probably be our last try.

If you have any other suggestions please let me know. 

We can't make them only indoor cats, my parent's don't agree to that mainly because of my mom's health issues. 

My suggestion is to consider postponing getting cats until you are able to keep them indoors full time. Sadly, the experiences in your neighborhood with losing outdoor cats seem to be the norm rather than the exception.

Outdoor cats are at constant risk and typically live much shorter lives than indoor cats.

Based on my own experience (losing lots of cats to poisoning, predators, etc.) I would never have an outdoor cat again. I will never forget the heartbreak and horror of seeing a cat ripped apart by a vicious free roaming dog right in front of me. I still have mental images of it and that's been well over 20 years ago.

I once had a friend who stated what should be obvious. The nicest people can do the worst things. Sounds like someone doesn't like cats. It's also important to realize that if your pets roam they may go to homes where there are not pets and inadvertently get into something.

I had a dog chew the Tom Cat bait trap off a fencepost . I hope it took it home and dropped it on their living room floor.

Crazy4Strays I had a cat ripped literally in half in front of me. It was one of the feral cats here that was curled up 3 feet from me in the sun. Two dogs ran around the house and just launched an attack. My husband got one of them and a neighbor put the other dog down a few days later. It was attacking his small dog. In his yard. It was after that I started trapping and removing cats that take up residence here. I hate the thought of them being put down. But the idea that they die so often like what I witness first hand is incomprehensible to me. After shredding the cat the two dogs went off to find other fun leaving the remains laying feet from me. I have zero tolerance for any roaming pet now.