PLEASE HELP ME, THIS MIGHT BE A LOT TO READ BUT IT HONESTLY IS AN EMERGANCY, IF YOU FEEL NECESSARY YOU CAN SKIP AROUND!! THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS!
I recently got an 8 month old kitten, and have had her for about 2 and a half months. I also have two very large dogs. I, myself, live in my parents unfinished basement. I wanted to keep her upstairs at first, but she doesn't get along with my biggest, and youngest, dog. My slightly smaller, older dog and her get along fine, however, but just the sight of the bigger, younger dog stresses her out horrendously. I couldn't bear to watch my social, and affection cat continueously be stressed out by this other dog, and I didn't want to continue to keep them together. The thought of them being together alone even made me anxious. So, I brought her down to the unfinished basement with me to live.
Now, before you panic that I brought my cat into a moldy, wet, dark basement as most people imagine when you say Unfinished Basement - as well as worried about my own living condition - this is not the case.
This home was recently built back in 2007 I believe, so it's really not an ancient home. It's very new, and my parents are constantly adding onto it or renovating it, which have led them away from ever finishing their basement.
The basement is huge, when I say huge, I mean large enough for a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and a living room once my parents finally finish it. I may not be around even, however, when they do. It is also quiet warm down here, so I happen to have a large box fan beside my bed. In the area that I live in, it is half carpeted, meaning the carpet really only stretches halfway across the basement. The carpet also, does not touch any of the three walls on my side of the basement, so their is an extra space in between the walls without carpet. Really to explain why this is, when they finished building the house they had a bunch of carpet left over so they left it to my parents to do as they please with it. They never had any reason to use it so, they kept it in their basement.
So now that you have this image of the size of the basement and how much carpet is in the basement. Let me continue.
My carpeted side of the basement has one twin sized bed I keep against the fathest wall. Beside the bed, a little ways, is a large wooden desk my mom keeps her desktop computer. Beside that desk, is a second desk, my desk, which holds my laptop and school things.
Mind you, I am a seventeen year old girl who is going into her Junior year this august.
Now there is a large open carpeted space I decided to make my cat, Sonia's, area. She has a large litter box, at the very end of the carpet because I wouldn't want it to be by any of her toys or food as cats are very clean animals. I have a mat under the litter box as well, and I clean it every night as well as vacuum the surrounding area. She has a cat condo and scratcher at the end of my bed. In front of the condo, a little ways, is where I keep her food and water. I feed her every early morning and early night, and throughout the day keep her water clean, and fresh --
-- as when I got her, because she was in uncaring conditions before and constantly had still, old water she got giardia. I treated her for a long time for this, which has caused me to be very finicky about her food and water and litter box, trying to keep her as clean as possible. That giardia also gave her IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, so I give her half a Fortiflora packet with almost every meal to keep her diarrhea under control. It has since been basically treated and I haven't seen her have diarrhea in a long while. Still, as I'm a girl with severe anxiety and paranoia I want her to finish up a couple more packets and then save the rest incase of another bowel attack. Shes had 50+ packets honestly and I have 30+ more left. While treating her for Giardia with panacure and fortiflora - she also had a cold which I again treated her for... As you can image all of these things for me were expensive. I work and pay for every single thing for my cat.
Well then, in the rest of the open carpeted area, I have a leather chair which I keep multiple blankets on, and she also sleeps on sometimes. Then I have cat toys such as feather strings attatched to scratchers, I have two of those, one of those ball spiners that you can put catnip in but I don't because she doesn't care for it, she has many plastic bell balls probably 8 of those, many ping pong balls, two tennis balls, a felt bell ball, two mouse toys, a large fish toy, a bird toy, and a plastic crunchy tunnel toy. She plays with every last one of these toys all day long, and I also play fetch with her throughout the basement and play with her with a laser toy. Honestly, when I'm not at work or at school, I'm with her constantly I don't want to leave her alone that would be very unfair. My younger sister also comes down to the basement to play and cuddle her, and occasionally my mother as well.
Other than her numerous amounts of toys, she has cardboard boxes I leave for her, a cat bed and pillow, and then other little blanket beds I made for her.
Now that you got what my side of basement looks like... Let's Move onto the next side.
Where there is no carpet and where the stairs are in the middle, there are plaster boxes, paint supplies, work tools for cars as my step father works as a car repair man and is top at his work so he does a lot more work at home as well, a large wooden bench where all these tools sit, and then multiple tables that hold more paint supplies for my mother and also hold wood from when they add onto the house constantly. There under the stairs as well, there are many more boxes, camping supplies, and suitcases for when they travel.
And that's it to the entire basement.
I think, I hope I didn't miss anything dire honestly, I'm just so exhausted while typing this.
So, here there are many, countless things for Sonia to play with and enjoy herself with and she also constantly goes through everything in the basement.
As I said about it being very warm in the summer, it is also very dry down here. In the winter, it goes cold but still dry as well but I use multiple heaters around the basement to replace my box fan.
It also can get a little dusty down here as well especially, if no one has been down here in awhile except for me.
There are only two windows on either side of the basement, they bring in bright lights yes, and she can hear the birds yes, However... The windows are designed to be very thick, and very dense, and you are unable to see a thing outside of them. For Sonia to have that feeling of watching birds while she sun bathes, I watch Bird videos on my Iphone 6 plus which has a nice enough display her brain can register what she's seeing - which causes her to pounce and claw my phone or dig at it. I don't mind its very cute and I like to watch the videos as well. I also do the same on my moms large desktop or my little laptop which have similar displays which see can see.
Anyhow........
Well will all of this, and with you understanding my living arrangements, the length of how long I've had my cat, and her also numerous conditions I've has to pah for and treat - let me get to you the reason why I'm here in a panic.
Just now, I was dead asleep. It's 4 in the morning as of now. I hear a disturbing, dry, wretching sound. I sit and beside me where my cat was stretched out before, she was now in the position of looking like she would have a hair ball or vomit. But instead she was lightly coughing, if you couldn't see her or weren't close enough to hear, you may have thought she was sneezing.
Suddenly, this sound became familiar to me. Randomly since I've had her, when shes out playing on her own or dead in the night I've heard this sound but, have never 'caught' her in the act. This frightened me a lot, as I was still dazed with sleep, and I turned on my lamp to watch but, she had stopped. I had only heard her less than a minute. But, I've heard this sound come from her about 4 times now if I can recall.
I looked online in a panic, and everything is saying feline asthma. Wouldn't suprise me at this point.
I watched a couple of youtube videos of cats having asthma attacks and it looks dead similar to how she sounded and looked. BUT, her's were much much much shorter, a fraction of those cat's attacks.
This still frightens me bad however, bc these little coughs could easily lead to feline asthma - right?
I've spent a lot of money on her, and I'm not planning to give up but... I know treatments are ridiculously expensive. I'm very low on cash as well, even as I work because I pay for all my own insurance as well and that's is also massively expensive. I also, recently, got in a car crash and owe 500 dollars. I'm barely having enough to save for that... But. I just. Want to know. What options to take?
Should I -
•wait it out
•call the vet right away [so expensive]
•force sonia to live upstairs from now own and force my dog and her to get along even if it causes them both massive stress
•get a humidifier or multiple
•treat her for asthma right away [still so expensive]
•go to my parents for money, which they are very stingy about
•go to a shelter for help possibily?
•or am I just a failed pet owner, should I surrender my cat after she's been so comfortable and attached to my hip and also treated for time and time again
Honest to god, even give me your own thoughts and opinions on this please, I'm begging you guys. I can't decide what action to take right now. It's 5:30 am right now for me and I'm exhausted and in tears that my cat might be suffering without my knowledge, and I've been up since 3:50 am when this happened. She's sound asleep now beside me and I'm ready to get some sleep myself... But, I also need to get this out there so I can wake up in the next 2 hrs or so to wake up and find help for my poor baby.
Thank you guys, again. I need multiple opinions on this, but if I only get one - that's okay too. Sorry for this, but thank you and god bless.
And good night. I'll return to look at my post when I awake in the next couple of hours.
Also, I apologize if I have in somehow broke any forum rules in my post. I am very new here, and this is my first ever post.
If the type of cat Sonia is helps also here is the best I know:
She is a medium haired mackerel tabby, slim and muscular, very big actually. Long legs, weighs about 8.5 lbs. She loves water, swimming, bathing, jumping in her water bowl. She also is a big talker and very affectionate. If she isn't sleeping, eating, relieving herself, or off on her own hiding toys - she is talking loudly and makes all sorts of different yowls and noises. She is also all over you, wants to be in you lap, getting all your attention and pets and rubs. She even likes to give a little endearing nip when you first greet her after you have been away. She is quiet the lover and is honestly my angel...
Thank you thank you I can't say thank you enough if you respond
I'll return... it is now currently 5:40 for me. Hopefully I get up in the next 3 hrs.
-Mariah and her dear cat Sonia
I recently got an 8 month old kitten, and have had her for about 2 and a half months. I also have two very large dogs. I, myself, live in my parents unfinished basement. I wanted to keep her upstairs at first, but she doesn't get along with my biggest, and youngest, dog. My slightly smaller, older dog and her get along fine, however, but just the sight of the bigger, younger dog stresses her out horrendously. I couldn't bear to watch my social, and affection cat continueously be stressed out by this other dog, and I didn't want to continue to keep them together. The thought of them being together alone even made me anxious. So, I brought her down to the unfinished basement with me to live.
Now, before you panic that I brought my cat into a moldy, wet, dark basement as most people imagine when you say Unfinished Basement - as well as worried about my own living condition - this is not the case.
This home was recently built back in 2007 I believe, so it's really not an ancient home. It's very new, and my parents are constantly adding onto it or renovating it, which have led them away from ever finishing their basement.
The basement is huge, when I say huge, I mean large enough for a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and a living room once my parents finally finish it. I may not be around even, however, when they do. It is also quiet warm down here, so I happen to have a large box fan beside my bed. In the area that I live in, it is half carpeted, meaning the carpet really only stretches halfway across the basement. The carpet also, does not touch any of the three walls on my side of the basement, so their is an extra space in between the walls without carpet. Really to explain why this is, when they finished building the house they had a bunch of carpet left over so they left it to my parents to do as they please with it. They never had any reason to use it so, they kept it in their basement.
So now that you have this image of the size of the basement and how much carpet is in the basement. Let me continue.
My carpeted side of the basement has one twin sized bed I keep against the fathest wall. Beside the bed, a little ways, is a large wooden desk my mom keeps her desktop computer. Beside that desk, is a second desk, my desk, which holds my laptop and school things.
Mind you, I am a seventeen year old girl who is going into her Junior year this august.
Now there is a large open carpeted space I decided to make my cat, Sonia's, area. She has a large litter box, at the very end of the carpet because I wouldn't want it to be by any of her toys or food as cats are very clean animals. I have a mat under the litter box as well, and I clean it every night as well as vacuum the surrounding area. She has a cat condo and scratcher at the end of my bed. In front of the condo, a little ways, is where I keep her food and water. I feed her every early morning and early night, and throughout the day keep her water clean, and fresh --
-- as when I got her, because she was in uncaring conditions before and constantly had still, old water she got giardia. I treated her for a long time for this, which has caused me to be very finicky about her food and water and litter box, trying to keep her as clean as possible. That giardia also gave her IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, so I give her half a Fortiflora packet with almost every meal to keep her diarrhea under control. It has since been basically treated and I haven't seen her have diarrhea in a long while. Still, as I'm a girl with severe anxiety and paranoia I want her to finish up a couple more packets and then save the rest incase of another bowel attack. Shes had 50+ packets honestly and I have 30+ more left. While treating her for Giardia with panacure and fortiflora - she also had a cold which I again treated her for... As you can image all of these things for me were expensive. I work and pay for every single thing for my cat.
Well then, in the rest of the open carpeted area, I have a leather chair which I keep multiple blankets on, and she also sleeps on sometimes. Then I have cat toys such as feather strings attatched to scratchers, I have two of those, one of those ball spiners that you can put catnip in but I don't because she doesn't care for it, she has many plastic bell balls probably 8 of those, many ping pong balls, two tennis balls, a felt bell ball, two mouse toys, a large fish toy, a bird toy, and a plastic crunchy tunnel toy. She plays with every last one of these toys all day long, and I also play fetch with her throughout the basement and play with her with a laser toy. Honestly, when I'm not at work or at school, I'm with her constantly I don't want to leave her alone that would be very unfair. My younger sister also comes down to the basement to play and cuddle her, and occasionally my mother as well.
Other than her numerous amounts of toys, she has cardboard boxes I leave for her, a cat bed and pillow, and then other little blanket beds I made for her.
Now that you got what my side of basement looks like... Let's Move onto the next side.
Where there is no carpet and where the stairs are in the middle, there are plaster boxes, paint supplies, work tools for cars as my step father works as a car repair man and is top at his work so he does a lot more work at home as well, a large wooden bench where all these tools sit, and then multiple tables that hold more paint supplies for my mother and also hold wood from when they add onto the house constantly. There under the stairs as well, there are many more boxes, camping supplies, and suitcases for when they travel.
And that's it to the entire basement.
I think, I hope I didn't miss anything dire honestly, I'm just so exhausted while typing this.
So, here there are many, countless things for Sonia to play with and enjoy herself with and she also constantly goes through everything in the basement.
As I said about it being very warm in the summer, it is also very dry down here. In the winter, it goes cold but still dry as well but I use multiple heaters around the basement to replace my box fan.
It also can get a little dusty down here as well especially, if no one has been down here in awhile except for me.
There are only two windows on either side of the basement, they bring in bright lights yes, and she can hear the birds yes, However... The windows are designed to be very thick, and very dense, and you are unable to see a thing outside of them. For Sonia to have that feeling of watching birds while she sun bathes, I watch Bird videos on my Iphone 6 plus which has a nice enough display her brain can register what she's seeing - which causes her to pounce and claw my phone or dig at it. I don't mind its very cute and I like to watch the videos as well. I also do the same on my moms large desktop or my little laptop which have similar displays which see can see.
Anyhow........
Well will all of this, and with you understanding my living arrangements, the length of how long I've had my cat, and her also numerous conditions I've has to pah for and treat - let me get to you the reason why I'm here in a panic.
Just now, I was dead asleep. It's 4 in the morning as of now. I hear a disturbing, dry, wretching sound. I sit and beside me where my cat was stretched out before, she was now in the position of looking like she would have a hair ball or vomit. But instead she was lightly coughing, if you couldn't see her or weren't close enough to hear, you may have thought she was sneezing.
Suddenly, this sound became familiar to me. Randomly since I've had her, when shes out playing on her own or dead in the night I've heard this sound but, have never 'caught' her in the act. This frightened me a lot, as I was still dazed with sleep, and I turned on my lamp to watch but, she had stopped. I had only heard her less than a minute. But, I've heard this sound come from her about 4 times now if I can recall.
I looked online in a panic, and everything is saying feline asthma. Wouldn't suprise me at this point.
I watched a couple of youtube videos of cats having asthma attacks and it looks dead similar to how she sounded and looked. BUT, her's were much much much shorter, a fraction of those cat's attacks.
This still frightens me bad however, bc these little coughs could easily lead to feline asthma - right?
I've spent a lot of money on her, and I'm not planning to give up but... I know treatments are ridiculously expensive. I'm very low on cash as well, even as I work because I pay for all my own insurance as well and that's is also massively expensive. I also, recently, got in a car crash and owe 500 dollars. I'm barely having enough to save for that... But. I just. Want to know. What options to take?
Should I -
•wait it out
•call the vet right away [so expensive]
•force sonia to live upstairs from now own and force my dog and her to get along even if it causes them both massive stress
•get a humidifier or multiple
•treat her for asthma right away [still so expensive]
•go to my parents for money, which they are very stingy about
•go to a shelter for help possibily?
•or am I just a failed pet owner, should I surrender my cat after she's been so comfortable and attached to my hip and also treated for time and time again
Honest to god, even give me your own thoughts and opinions on this please, I'm begging you guys. I can't decide what action to take right now. It's 5:30 am right now for me and I'm exhausted and in tears that my cat might be suffering without my knowledge, and I've been up since 3:50 am when this happened. She's sound asleep now beside me and I'm ready to get some sleep myself... But, I also need to get this out there so I can wake up in the next 2 hrs or so to wake up and find help for my poor baby.
Thank you guys, again. I need multiple opinions on this, but if I only get one - that's okay too. Sorry for this, but thank you and god bless.
And good night. I'll return to look at my post when I awake in the next couple of hours.
Also, I apologize if I have in somehow broke any forum rules in my post. I am very new here, and this is my first ever post.
If the type of cat Sonia is helps also here is the best I know:
She is a medium haired mackerel tabby, slim and muscular, very big actually. Long legs, weighs about 8.5 lbs. She loves water, swimming, bathing, jumping in her water bowl. She also is a big talker and very affectionate. If she isn't sleeping, eating, relieving herself, or off on her own hiding toys - she is talking loudly and makes all sorts of different yowls and noises. She is also all over you, wants to be in you lap, getting all your attention and pets and rubs. She even likes to give a little endearing nip when you first greet her after you have been away. She is quiet the lover and is honestly my angel...
Thank you thank you I can't say thank you enough if you respond
I'll return... it is now currently 5:40 for me. Hopefully I get up in the next 3 hrs.
-Mariah and her dear cat Sonia
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