We've had a small setback

gingersmom

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
8,028
Purraise
22
Ferris has been coming along SO well - the other day, after I scritched him a bit, then moved my hand away and ignored him, he moved forward and pushed his little head under my hand for more loves!
I've been thrilled with his continuing progress - at times it's hard to remember he's a feral baby!

However, yesterday morning, as I was getting ready to head out of the house, from across the room, I noticed something dark under his tail. Got on my hands and knees, trying to peek under his butt without scaring him, and sure enough: poopies all over his behind!

So I had to catch him, and because he kept tucking his tail between his legs and under his body - not to mention trying to bunny kick me - I had to wrap him in a towel, and put one over his head so he'd stay calm enough for me to do what I had to do.

Well, the kitty wipes couldn't do the trick - it was all tangled in his bum fur, so I had to get a small pair of scissors, and very, VERY carefully snip all the poopy fur off from around his butt and his boy bits. I was nervous I'd snip wrong - but fortunately, all went well. For ME, anyway. Ferris was NOT happy.

I gave him some chicken baby food from my finger afterward, and apologized to him (I'd been explaining what I was doing and why, but he wasn't having it, lol.) However, 24 hours later, he still hasn't forgiven me. He hid from me all last night, bolting from the room as soon as he saw me, and he gave me a VERY wide berth this morning.

Poor little guy - the indignity!!!


I'm hoping it doesn't take TOO long to get back to where we were. Sigh...the responsibilities of meowmyhood...
 

larke

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jul 9, 2005
Messages
2,278
Purraise
6
Location
SE Canada
Sometimes it helps to first wet a (paper?) towel with warm water and just hold it over the area to soften things up, then use a fat toothed comb to very gently comb things out, disgusting as it may be!
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #4

gingersmom

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
8,028
Purraise
22
Originally Posted by Larke

Sometimes it helps to first wet a (paper?) towel with warm water and just hold it over the area to soften things up, then use a fat toothed comb to very gently comb things out, disgusting as it may be!
Thank you, but that would have taken much too long, and he was very stressed out about the whole thing, so I wanted the cleaning to be as brief as possible. Remember, he's a feral baby still in the process of being tamed, so I didn't want to traumatize him any more than I had to.

Plus he is a longhair, so rather than just clean it off, I figured lets just give him a nice little trim around his bits so this will be less likely to happen again in the near future. And, from a selfish standpoint, I was in a hurry as I had to be somewhere at a certain time and had noticed it literally as I was getting ready to leave.

He is having slightly loose stools, half regular, half loose within the same movement, and I know that the food changes are affecting him. I've read up on "loose stool" threads, and figured this could take a while to clear up. He has been vetted and wormed, and I was told he's not infected.

I am keeping an eye on his movements, though, just in case, and am watching what he eats as best as I can, now that I've switched Ginger back to kitten dry as well. From what I can tell, the last two times his stool was the loosest was on days when I'd given him a different type of wet food than I'm usually giving him. (I've been giving him mostly Nutro pouches or Proplan canned kitten, both seafood, all leftovers from when I'd stocked up just before Ginger decided she hated those flavors.)

After eating ProPlan Chicken & Liver kitten formula, and Triumph seafood kitten formula (which he SCARFED,) he had the loosest stools yet, so no more of those two brands/flavors for him!
 
Top