Cat Sitting in Poop

[Sleepy Siamese]

Hi everyone,
I have a wonderful 9 year old half Snowshoe ( half Siamese /half DSH) cat named Bo. I adopted him when he was four years old. He has always walked with his back legs “ bent at the knee” so to speak instead of fully extended. About six months ago he started not using his litter box and exhibiting anxiety when he had to go potty ( meowing, pacing). Xrays revealed advanced arthritis in his lower back. He went through an Adequan injection regimen which seems to have helped with the peeing ( he is using his box again) but after he squats to poop he doesn’t seem to have the strength to stand back up and he ends up sitting down in his poop. He steps in it and then gets it all over the floor . I end up having to bathe him and clean the floors almost daily. Does anyone have any suggestions about what I can do? The vet said there are no treatments for arthritis in cats other than the off label use of the adequan. I’ve also cut the sides of his litter box very low so he doesn’t have to lift his legs as much to get in it. I don’t really care that much about him pooping on the floor since I have laminate floors that are easy to clean, it’s him getting it all over himself that’s the big problem. He gets very stressed when I have to bathe him and it’s really not fun in the middle of the night either. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks very much

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. Does he have loose stools? Just wondering since he is getting his poo all over himself by sitting in it. Most solidly formed stools would not pose such an issue - not to say there wouldn't be some 'stuff' collected by sitting in it, but probably not to the point of what you are describing. If his stool is loose, talk to your vet about probiotics and other types of food supplements that could help firm it up.

If his arthritis is that severe, in addition to what is considered the standard quarterly Adequan injections, perhaps a very, very small dose of a pain med would help?

It is costly, but other treatments might help, such as: acupuncture, massage, hydrotherapy, and even laser therapy. These alternative methods carry minimal risks. The combination of medication and non-medical therapies can provide more effective pain relief for an arthritic cat.

As an interim solution, you can use a cardboard box lid and line it with puppy pee pads to see if that might help any.

 

[Sleepy Siamese]

Thanks for the reply. His stools are somewhat loose. He has pretty severe food allergies and only tolerates duck meat. I was having to cook it for him and add supplements. That worked for a while but then in addition to having suddenly developed constipation he didn’t like the food anymore. I’ve switched to Hound and Gatos canned duck food and he’s pooping on his own again but it is a little soft. I’ve tried adding psyllium husk and that helped firm it up for a couple days but then it was soft again. I’m now trying Firm Up pumpkin fiber but not much improved with that either. He wasn’t sitting in it as much when it was firmer but I’m not having any luck getting it there.

The vet won’t give him pain meds. She says they’re not safe in cats long term because their livers process them so slowly and FDA hasn’t approved any pain meds in cats for long term use.

I have tried the puppy pads... no difference. And he ends up peeing on his feet.

Any suggestions for what I could try to firm up the poop? I was giving him 3/16 tsp psyllium husk per day. Should I increase the dose?

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I thought psylium husk was more for constipation rather than for lose stools. Maybe it works both ways, kind of like pumpkin ?

Have you tried using probiotics along with the added fiber? Probiotics help with gut flora, which help keep their stools the correct consistency.

Is he allergic to rabbit? Seems like that is a "go to" for a lot of allergies in cats. Also, since you used to make his food, have you tried going to raw route? That produced very small, hard stools, so if he sat on them, it wouldn't be a problem. And when I say small, I mean about 1/4 the amount of cats fed regular cat food, and oftentimes it's every other day or so..

As far as pain meds not being safe for cats long term, many cats with arthritis that is really bad ARE on pain meds. I guess the question is, which is worse, living with really bad pain and living longer, or managing pain and risking a shorter lifespan. In other words, quality of life. Other than the poop issues, how is he? Does he act like he's in pain? Can he jump, etc or does he pretty much just lie around and do nothing? Just something to think about.

 

[Sleepy Siamese]

He had very loose stool years ago when he was on dry food and the psyllium husk made them normal. So I guess it can go both ways? I haven’t tried probiotics mostly out of fear that it would make things worse since his stomach is so sensitive.
I haven’t tried rabbit because I couldn’t really find a to buy it/ good way to cook it. I was cooking duck legs that I found at a Chinese supermarket in my pressure cooker. So that’s pretty manageable. He also has no teeth ( all removed due to stomatitis) so the food has to be puréed. I’m a bit squeamish about feeding him raw meat especially since it takes him a very long time to eat due to the lack of teeth and I have to spoon feed him.

He has never been a jumper but he used to hoist himself up on furniture by pulling himself up with his front paws. He doesn’t do that anymore. He has also stopped running around the house like he used to. I do think walking/ squatting basically using his legs causes him discomfort because he paces around meowing when he has to use the litter box,so I think he has anxiety about it probably due to discomfort of walking, squatting to use it. I would like to try some pain meds if possible but like I said the vet won’t prescribe them so I didn’t know that was even an option. She said she only prescribes them for dogs but not cats due to the liver thing I mentioned before. She said to try giving him CBD oil but the one she recommended didn’t get great reviews due to bad taste.

I guess I can try a different vet to get a second opinion? I’d say his quality of life has deteriorated quite a bit in the last year.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Gosh, my cat was given pain meds after having teeth pulled at his last dental, so I absolutely know cats can be given pain meds. Granted, his were for short term use, but I have read many thread here on arthritis and know that some of these cats were on long term pain meds. You did say your Vet discussed the use of Adequan. Have you tried it? Some people here have used it on their cats and found it to be very effective.

As to having no teeth, many cats still eat kibble with no teeth, but I do understand that trying to feed chunks of raw meat might be an issue. any raw feeders feed ground raw, including ground up bones. I happen to feed raw, but use freeze dried raw, so all I need to do is soak it in some warm water and voila, dinner is served. I can feed it either in chunks or like a pate, depending on what I want to do. It's really easy to crumble the stuff before soaking it, and that way it soaks up a whole lot more water, which I personally think is better to keep them hydrated. (I don't do that though because my cat still has teeth and I want him chewing on those chunks, which he does since they are kinda large) I do know that Stella and Chewy makes freeze dried rabbit for cats. OR, Rawz is actually a canned food that many people feed their cats with IBD because it has pretty much nothing "bad" in it. It also comes in other proteins. Have you tried just letting your cat eat on his own without you spoon feeding him? I'm sure he physically can do it without teeth. It may simply be a behavioral thing at this point, something he's grown accustomed to. I've accidentally done that with one of my guys. He's extremely picky so I kept putting some food in my hand to try to get him to eat. Now he simply won't eat unless it's in my hand and it's driving me nuts I've got to nip this in the bud - quickly!!

 

[daftcat75]

Chronic loose stools can be a sign of lymphoma. Is he maintaining his weight? If so, it's probably not lymphoma. But if he has IBD, there's always the chance that the IBD progresses to lymphoma. Buy a baby scale and weigh him no more often than once a week. But do keep an eye on his weight.

Rawz makes a rabbit pate food. Krista did well on it for her last toothless year.
Where to Buy | RAWZ

I did make her raw rabbit food using seaweed calcium in place of bones and grinding the meat using a manual grinder. It was very expensive. Not the grinder but the meat. She was very particular. She liked thigh meat. But saddle and loin were too rich for her. It took two fryer rabbits for a total of $75 to get 1 lbs of rabbit leg meat. Fossil Farms in New Jersey sells rabbit legs separately. But the shipping to California kills me. The price comes out the same and I don't get the liver and kidneys like I do with whole fryers. Krista absolutely loved the food though. But her IBD progressed to lymphoma. And I was hesitant to feed her raw while she was taking the immunosuppressing chemotherapy drug.

Adequan might take awhile to work. I don't know. We never tried it. We did try Cosequin and various other glucosamine preparations. They all souped her poops.

CBD might be an option for your guy. But it should be an either-or option. CBD, on its own, is very safe. But it has the potential to interfere or compete for resources in the liver making interactions tricky to downright dangerous. If your guy is on steroids, don't use CBD. Steroids (prednisilone) and CBD is an interaction you should avoid if you can help it. Because of its potential for interactions, I consider CBD an alternative or a last resort rather than something complimentary. In other words, if you're still evaluating Adequan, or other vet prescriptions, hold off on CBD until you've given up on those other options. I say this because you're likely to be on your own with CBD. Vets used to be forbidden from commenting on CBD because of its Schedule 1 status. That changed in recent years with legislation. But vets still don't have enough information on CBD and especially animal studies of CBD to provide meaningful guidance.

All of that said, I've heard, anecdotally, of CBD doing truly magical things for dogs and cats.

 

[Sleepy Siamese]

Gosh, my cat was given pain meds after having teeth pulled at his last dental, so I absolutely know cats can be given pain meds. Granted, his were for short term use, but I have read many thread here on arthritis and know that some of these cats were on long term pain meds. You did say your Vet discussed the use of Adequan. Have you tried it? Some people here have used it on their cats and found it to be very effective.

As to having no teeth, many cats still eat kibble with no teeth, but I do understand that trying to feed chunks of raw meat might be an issue. any raw feeders feed ground raw, including ground up bones. I happen to feed raw, but use freeze dried raw, so all I need to do is soak it in some warm water and voila, dinner is served. I can feed it either in chunks or like a pate, depending on what I want to do. It's really easy to crumble the stuff before soaking it, and that way it soaks up a whole lot more water, which I personally think is better to keep them hydrated. (I don't do that though because my cat still has teeth and I want him chewing on those chunks, which he does since they are kinda large) I do know that Stella and Chewy makes freeze dried rabbit for cats. OR, Rawz is actually a canned food that many people feed their cats with IBD because it has pretty much nothing "bad" in it. It also comes in other proteins. Have you tried just letting your cat eat on his own without you spoon feeding him? I'm sure he physically can do it without teeth. It may simply be a behavioral thing at this point, something he's grown accustomed to. I've accidentally done that with one of my guys. He's extremely picky so I kept putting some food in my hand to try to get him to eat. Now he simply won't eat unless it's in my hand and it's driving me nuts I've got to nip this in the bud - quickly!!

Thanks very much for the reply. He used to eat kibble on his own but then he got diabetes about a year ago and the vet said to take him off kibble because of the high carb content. Thankfully once he got on wet food the diabetes went into remission. He was eating the cooked duck I was making for him on his own but it was taking him a long time and I didn’t have time to wait an hour for him to finish ( between face cleaning breaks and short walks around the house) since I had to go to work. So I started spoon feeding him and he ate that faster. I think now he’s trained to only eat if spoon fed ( I created a little monster ).
I will give the freeze dried rabbit a try if I don’t have any luck with the psyllium husk firming up his poop. Thanks very much

 

[Sleepy Siamese]

Chronic loose stools can be a sign of lymphoma. Is he maintaining his weight? If so, it's probably not lymphoma. But if he has IBD, there's always the chance that the IBD progresses to lymphoma. Buy a baby scale and weigh him no more often than once a week. But do keep an eye on his weight.

Rawz makes a rabbit pate food. Krista did well on it for her last toothless year.
Where to Buy | RAWZ

I did make her raw rabbit food using seaweed calcium in place of bones and grinding the meat using a manual grinder. It was very expensive. Not the grinder but the meat. She was very particular. She liked thigh meat. But saddle and loin were too rich for her. It took two fryer rabbits for a total of $75 to get 1 lbs of rabbit leg meat. Fossil Farms in New Jersey sells rabbit legs separately. But the shipping to California kills me. The price comes out the same and I don't get the liver and kidneys like I do with whole fryers. Krista absolutely loved the food though. But her IBD progressed to lymphoma. And I was hesitant to feed her raw while she was taking the immunosuppressing chemotherapy drug.

Adequan might take awhile to work. I don't know. We never tried it. We did try Cosequin and various other glucosamine preparations. They all souped her poops.

CBD might be an option for your guy. But it should be an either-or option. CBD, on its own, is very safe. But it has the potential to interfere or compete for resources in the liver making interactions tricky to downright dangerous. If your guy is on steroids, don't use CBD. Steroids (prednisilone) and CBD is an interaction you should avoid if you can help it. Because of its potential for interactions, I consider CBD an alternative or a last resort rather than something complimentary. In other words, if you're still evaluating Adequan, or other vet prescriptions, hold off on CBD until you've given up on those other options. I say this because you're likely to be on your own with CBD. Vets used to be forbidden from commenting on CBD because of its Schedule 1 status. That changed in recent years with legislation. But vets still don't have enough information on CBD and especially animal studies of CBD to provide meaningful guidance.

All of that said, I've heard, anecdotally, of CBD doing truly magical things for dogs and cats.

Thanks very much for the reply. I have tried the Adequan. He was getting 2 shots per week for four weeks and now he’s on a maintenance dose of one shot every other week. I think it helped somewhat because he is peeing in his box again. He was peeing on the floor before the shots. He still poops on the floor but at least we’ve made some progress with the peeing. He is still in pain based on the pacing and whining when he had to use the litter box but he seems to walk a little easier and he is using it.
Thanks very much for the cbd warning. I was hesitant to try it because of his very sensitive stomach and having read some reviews online from people saying it made their animals very sick. I also didn’t know that IBD can cause lymphoma . I do weigh him regularly and he has maintained his 12 lb weight but good to know. He’s not on steroids because it could bring his diabetes back.

One of the reasons I wanted to switch him to canned food was because buying duck meat for him was so expensive. Before finding it at the Chinese supermarket I was having to buy it from a duck farm so I can relate to the expense of having meat shipped . I tried duck because the vet recommended it. She said duck and rabbit is easiest for cats to digest. Initially I was giving him ground duck breast which he liked but his blood work revealed high creatinine levels so the vet said he’s getting too much protein. I switched to duck legs since they have less protein and more fat and his creatinine went down but he became constipated ( like to the point where he wouldn’t poop at all without lactulose) and didn’t like it very much. So I pretty much have given up on cooking for him. He’s now pooping ( too soft) on the canned duck but at least he’s pooping on his own? ( yay? ) I will check out the Rawz. Maybe he’d do better with rabbit. I think it’s the agar agar that’s making him poop in the canned duck. It’s hard to find canned food that doesn’t have a bunch of stuff other than the meat and supplements in it. I tried tiki cat also since it had no thickeners and his stomach was fine but he developed a rash on his nose ( fur was falling off in patches). It grew back after I stopped giving it to him so I assume he’s allergic to fish

 

[daftcat75]

Definitely try Rawz. I have heard that they will send you samples if you write them. That’s helpful since they are a pain in the butt to find in stores. Even online, there’s only a handful of sellers that carry the rabbit. But it’s the best rabbit recipe outside of homemade. You can also get the rabbit with pumpkin pate. I mixed both together because the pumpkin variety was easier to find locally and online. The non pumpkin version kept running out. So I started mixing the two to conserve the non pumpkin I had in case I ran into shortages again. The carb content of the pumpkin vs non pumpkin is negligent.

Agar agar can definitely be causing him issues. It used to double Krista over in discomfort. The loaf of pain. I had such a hard time finding her food that didn’t have poultry, eggs, or just about any of the gums. Guar gum was okay with her. Agar agar caused her discomfort/pain and xanthan gum ran right through her. It’s used in smooth foods like Tiki Cat Velvet Mousse. With the xanthan gum, that was mousse in and mousse out with her.

Rawz isn’t cheap or easy to find. But compared to blood tests and ultrasounds, the cost of good food is always worth it.

 

[nanniecat]

Chronic loose stools can be a sign of lymphoma. Is he maintaining his weight? If so, it's probably not lymphoma. But if he has IBD, there's always the chance that the IBD progresses to lymphoma. Buy a baby scale and weigh him no more often than once a week. But do keep an eye on his weight.

Rawz makes a rabbit pate food. Krista did well on it for her last toothless year.
Where to Buy | RAWZ

I did make her raw rabbit food using seaweed calcium in place of bones and grinding the meat using a manual grinder. It was very expensive. Not the grinder but the meat. She was very particular. She liked thigh meat. But saddle and loin were too rich for her. It took two fryer rabbits for a total of $75 to get 1 lbs of rabbit leg meat. Fossil Farms in New Jersey sells rabbit legs separately. But the shipping to California kills me. The price comes out the same and I don't get the liver and kidneys like I do with whole fryers. Krista absolutely loved the food though. But her IBD progressed to lymphoma. And I was hesitant to feed her raw while she was taking the immunosuppressing chemotherapy drug.

Adequan might take awhile to work. I don't know. We never tried it. We did try Cosequin and various other glucosamine preparations. They all souped her poops.

CBD might be an option for your guy. But it should be an either-or option. CBD, on its own, is very safe. But it has the potential to interfere or compete for resources in the liver making interactions tricky to downright dangerous. If your guy is on steroids, don't use CBD. Steroids (prednisilone) and CBD is an interaction you should avoid if you can help it. Because of its potential for interactions, I consider CBD an alternative or a last resort rather than something complimentary. In other words, if you're still evaluating Adequan, or other vet prescriptions, hold off on CBD until you've given up on those other options. I say this because you're likely to be on your own with CBD. Vets used to be forbidden from commenting on CBD because of its Schedule 1 status. That changed in recent years with legislation. But vets still don't have enough information on CBD and especially animal studies of CBD to provide meaningful guidance.

All of that said, I've heard, anecdotally, of CBD doing truly magical things for dogs and cats.

my cat had surgery for FGESF 4 yrs ago and the episodes of explosive diarrhea off and on were a challenge. i could not pill her and could not get her to vets offc twice a day to do it. her onco rec Visbiome to try. it is a probiotic rx. i found one vet that had it. not cheap but it worked overnight! stools tightened up and i give her 1 capsule in food daily. i think it is used in ibd kitties?