It’s been a little over two years since my last Grandpaw update, so I figured this post was well overdue. For those of you who don’t know, Grandpaw is our 4.5 year old tuxedo cat who we adopted in January 2021. To recap for new readers, Grandpaw was diagnosed with arthritis before we adopted him, and was being given pain medication by the rescue. About a month after we adopted him, he started wheezing, and was diagnosed with asthma and started on an inhaler. It’s now been two years and seven months since we brought him home, so let’s add some pages to our cat adoption story!
FLUTD
Back in March of this year, we woke up one morning and noticed that Grandpaw wasn’t acting like himself. He also didn’t seem to be using the litter box and he was shivering when he laid down. We rushed him to urgent care, as the vet was closed on the weekend. They called us into a room pretty quickly, but then took him to the back to be examined, and left us alone in the room for 3 hours with no update. Long story short, the urgent care vet wasn’t very helpful, but did confirm that Grandpaw was not in any immediate danger. We decided to take Grandpaw home, and call his vet on Monday, where we felt he would get better care.
His vet squeezed us in for an emergency appointment, where they diagnosed him with FLUTD. (It’s probably a bit complicated for me to explain well, so here’s a link I found with some information about FLUTD.) They prescribed a course of antibiotics and a medication to relax the urethra, and recommended a prescription diet specifically for urinary care. From the list of suggested prescription diet products, we decided to go with “Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Diets UR St/Ox Urinary Dry Cat Food.” We were told that FLUTD is common in male cats, and will probably happen again, and we should monitor for any accidents outside the litter box. Since then, Grandpaw has finished his medications, his symptoms have resolved, and he’s been enjoying his new prescription dry food.
Avoiding the Litter Box
Then recently we noticed Grandpaw was urinating on the carpet in a corner of the basement. This was different from the accidents he would have before he was diagnosed with FLUTD, which would occur randomly and at random places in the house. These appeared intentional, and were always in the same spot in the basement.
So we added another litter box to the basement, in the exact spot where he was urinating on the carpet. I had read multiple articles about the various reasons cats might start avoiding the litter box. Out of all of them, we thought the two most probable reasons were that he has developed an aversion to his usual litter, or he has developed a preference for keeping urine and feces in separate litter boxes.
I proceeded to read more articles about different kinds of litter, and found that silica gel crystals are good for cats with arthritis and asthma, and who are prone to UTIs. So we bought a small bag of silica gel crystal litter to fill the new litter box in the basement, and kept the old litter in the old box.
After observing him for one to two weeks now, we’ve noticed that Grandpaw does seem to have a preference for keeping urine and feces separate. The only time he’ll do both in the same box is if he has to do both back to back, in which case he uses the old litter and box. Otherwise, if he has to do one or the other, it’s urine in the new setup and feces in the old setup. In terms of litter preference, it’s not abundantly clear that he has a preference, as he still uses both litter boxes.
We thought we had solved the problem, until Grandpaw urinated on the carpet next to the new litter box this morning. We’re not totally back to square one, since we at least learned that he prefers multiple litter boxes to keep his urine and feces separate. However, we now need to figure out what else we need to change, in addition to the extra litter box.
Throwing Up After Eating
Lastly, Grandpaw’s most recent ordeal was a couple incidences of throwing up all his food immediately after eating dinner. So – Grampy lives to eat. He has a hearty appetite and knows no limits when it comes to food. Basically, we figured out that in his excitement for dinner time, Grandpaw wolfs down his food too fast, which causes him to throw up right after.
Grandpaw normally gets a little bit of wet food and a little bit of dry food per meal. In the colder months, we put his wet food in a bowl, and his dry food in a meal-dispensing toy ball. Since he has arthritis, he’s not as active as the average cat, so the ball is to help him get a little exercise. In the warmer months, we have to swap out the ball for a bowl, as we’ve discovered that for some reason ants are attracted to his toy ball, but not his food bowl.
We think that when we give Grandpaw his dry food in the ball, it naturally helps to slow down his eating since he has to work for the food. To help him pace himself when his dry food is in a bowl, we’ve started setting a timer for 30 minutes between his wet food and dry food. It’s now been a month with no incidences!
So that’s pretty much all the major updates to our cat adoption story! Other than that, Grandpaw’s just been a happy lap cat, who is loved so much more than he knows.
If you’d like to read the two previous posts in our cat adoption story, visit these links below!
Meet My Cat | Our Adoption Story
Cat Adoption: 3 Month Grandpaw Update
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