u/escapingspirals

She’s laying down on her side on top of a fold-down window.

Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Straycats/s/7nLKnsi0p4

So this week has been extraordinary. Now that I put a deep layer of only outdoor soil in the litter box, she has been using it exclusively - no more peeing and pooping around the room. Looks like I bought the Dr Elsey’s for no reason 😂 (it hasn’t arrived yet). I guess I should say she has peed outside the little box once: it was to mark the chair that she has under her windowsill 🤦🏼‍♀️. Thankfully we don’t care about it and will toss it once she graduates from this room.

Kinga has also discovered treats and they make her so happy she headbutts for pets and will roll over to show her belly (I know it’s a trap 😁). The petting is still very much on her terms and she will smack my hand if she wants it to stop. I’m a little afraid of her for this reason so petting is sometimes awkward and jumpy for both of us.

Regardless, this is wonderful progress. No update on the derpy boyfriend - we saw him again but he ran and my dog ran after him (she loves to play chase with anyone and everyone) so he’s been avoiding us since. He does eat a little bit of the food I’ve been leaving out, though he eats surprisingly little.

Last picture is of the 3 blooms in a bouquet of local wildflowers.

Last post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Straycats/s/BV2iSq3EeR

So I think Kinga has progressed positively in a number of ways. For one, she just went 24 hours peeing only in the litter box, not anywhere else! The trick was switching all of the litter to outdoor soil. She even uses the litter box now, not the tray. Still open. However she hadn’t pooped in that time so I’m unsure where she will choose to put that.

A couple of times now, she ate out of the food bowl when I was holding it, as long as I stood still. Last night she ate a churu that I was holding. She still hisses, sometime only silently, but when I’m around sometimes she will do light biscuits where she is on the windowsill and the other day I extended my hand to her and she got awkward and rubbed her face and body pheromones all over the backrest of the chair she was standing on. A few times now, when I’ve reached for her bowl, she leans in to sniff my hand.

So good things!

Now for my question. Kinga’s boyfriend (the one I saw her mating with the most when she was a stray outside in heat - prior to trapping), has been hanging around the property. And this is 1 month after I stopped putting food out at night (that’s how long ago I trapped Kinga). He seems to be about her age (10-12 months) and a skinny little guy. He’s a lot less confident than she.
Kinga is FeLV positive. Since I saw them mate, I’m almost certain he is also FeLV positive. I’ve been considering trapping him and bringing him inside, too. I know two cats are better than one, but I don’t know what the dynamic will be like since they mated previously. Should I keep him and Kinga together, or will they hate each other after being spayed/neutered? I also have the possibility of someone else taking him, so I’m just weighing the options.

Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Straycats/s/K6c6Run6VN

I realized she was crying when she peed. I didn’t see this live, but I would hear her cry in her room and when I would go in there would be fresh pee. Vet decided it was one of three things: 1) inflammation from stress (very common in ferals), 2) uti, or 3) crystals. Without a urine sample, they decided to try treating for number 1 to see what happens. It’s been about a week of meds and I think that may have solved it. Only time I hear her cry / meow now is as it gets dark if she hasn’t been fed yet. I’m hoping the inflammation has passed and she doesn’t have a uti or crystals.

She continues to hiss whenever we are in the room but if I point to her bowl and ask if she’s hungry, she switches to meowing (sometimes interchanged back and forth with hissing but I’ll take it).

And she’s getting braver, too. Half the time lately she is not hiding in her box anymore (she’s been destroying them anyway) and is openly sitting on the windowsill when I come in the room. She will come toward the chair we have under the window to help her jump up and down post surgery and get on it sometimes.

Today I walked in to check for pee and poop (she’s still avoiding litter box) and she came off the windowsill completely and walked around the floor while I was walking around the room!

Just wanted to share this little win with everyone. I’m so happy to see progress in less than a month.

Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Straycats/s/xC6mADStw6

So it’s been a rough week (6 day since surgery).

If you didn’t see my previous post, Kinga tested Felv positive, so there’s that. I have no doubt bringing her inside and doing the spay abort is prolonging her life.

On the other hand, she seems to have gone backwards in feral behavior.

Peeing and Pooping:

Since her spay, she hasn’t touched her litter box once. In fact, it seems she actively avoids it and pees and poops anywhere but. She often pees and poops on the opposite side of the room from the windowsill where she hangs out. Often times she pees in like 5-6 places around the perimeter of the room. I read that cats feeling vulnerable after surgery may do this to make the area smell like them, but this feels insane. Makes me worry I’ll never get her litter box trained. For reference, I have three litter boxes for her:

1. one is a litter tray (literally a cookie sheet) filled with a mix of clay/outdoor soil - she used to at least pee in this consistently prior to spay but hasn’t since surgery despite me trying to put it on the windowsill where she hangs out, directly below the windowsill, and in the spots around the room where she has been peeing.
2. one is a litter box bottom with higher walls that has only clay litter (she’s never gone in there)
3. one is technically the litter box top flipped upside down and filled with pine pellets.

I mop the room every day with enzyme urine/feces cleaner meant for veterinarian clinics.

Hissing:

Prior to the spay, she only hissed at me 1-2x. Now it’s every time she sees me. She will do this despite yesterday starting to eat in front of me twice (she hasn’t done that since getting trapped a week and a half ago). Idk why she would associate me with the spay considering we had such a smooth gabapentin-dosing and capture in the carrier. I wasn’t around when they opened her carrier at the vet.

Damage:

Since shes not supposed to jump up and down much, but insists on being on the windowsill, I’ve started feeding her on the windowsill. This was ok for a while. However this weekend she started knocking everything off the windowsill — which means she’s broken several of my favorite ceramic food bowls. She also knocks over the box that she likes to hide in, and then is mad she has nowhere to hide on her windowsill when I come in and immediately hisses at me. 🤦🏼‍♀️ I’m like…girl, this is your own doing. She also attacks the cardboard box and has put holes in the corner and ripped up the edges. She also does this to the paper towel roll that I leave in her room due to her peeing/pooping habits. Most of the time when I go in the room there are bits of paper and cardboard everywhere. I realize she might be under-stimulated, however we’ve provided as many toys as we can and she still refuses to play with us, so idk what else to do. Blinds are always open so she can look out the window. Due to the crazy behavior (which happens mostly at night or when we’re not in the room), my husband suggested removing any toys that contain catnip, and we did. That seems to have helped a little. The feliway is still plugged in.

Overall, I get that it hasn’t been a lot of time since trapping. I also get that her hormones are all over the place from the spay abort and that she’s probably still in pain. I, too, have had a hysterectomy and I didn’t feel normal until several months later. But I’m just low on patience these days. I feel like she hates me. I don’t love being hissed at. The peeing and pooping habits have made me not want to sit in there with her and I’ve just been giving her space except when I feed her and mop the room. And I have a dog (in a different part of the house) who is living his last few months due to heart failure and I would rather be cuddling him these days.

Not sure if I need advice or if I just needed to vent. Picture is from tonight - only reason she was out of her box was because the mop accidentally tapped it and she probably got scared and stepped out of it.

Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Straycats/s/EGwkQcq7HG

So today was vet day for Kinga (the cat). Thankfully she ate the full dose of gabapentin that I gave her for breakfast and she even ran into the carrier to hide, which made it easy to catch her and close it. She kept trying to use her little murder mittens to break out of the carrier, but we made it to the vet. I played some screamo music for her in the car since it seemed to reflect how she was feeling. She got a little rowdy during the Black Parade, as one does, but Helena and Teenage Dirtbag seemed to calm her down. Her spay/abort of 3 kittens was successful and she’s now vaccinated, dewormed, treated for fleas/ticks and microchipped, so she’s officially ours. We’re back home now. She’s a little zonked out and just laying in the carrier (the first picture is not from today but from a day when I had the feliway plugged in).

Edit: thank you for the awards 🥰

Second update: I am sad to share that the vet called today with bloodwork results and Kinga is FeLV positive 😭 It breaks my heart knowing that I didn’t trap and save her in time to prevent this. Thankfully she is our only cat, so our plans to keep her and have her remain indoors full time is not changing. I just hope that her body can push the disease into regression so she can live a long and happy life with us.

A bit of context:

-I was a vet tech and kitten foster parent 20 years ago but it’s been a while

-just moved into this house and found this baby wandering around my property. My guess is she’s no more than 6 months old. Just had a heat 10 days ago

-she has never let me touch her

-after feeding her for weeks, I trapped her last night and brought her inside. She is stressed.

-She’s in an empty room with empty cardboard boxes, food, water, litter tray with clay litter/soil mix, and open litter box with pine pellet litter.

-she’s been hiding in the boxes all day. She has not used the litter box or tray yet, but she peed in the cardboard box last night and I gently removed that box today. Outside she wa not burying her poop.

-feliway cartridge is coming tomorrow. She’s been shivering occasionally when I’m in the room. It’s 100 degrees outside but relatively cool inside and she has a fan on in her room pointed away from her (no AC but it’s a stone house with very thick walls that retain the cool air)

-didn’t eat last night, but she ate this morning and when I brought food again tonight, she meowed at me twice (first time I’ve heard her meow) and I saw her go to it after I left the room. What do the meows mean?

-vet appointment is Wednesday morning to get her vaccinated, chipped, spayed, and get flea/tick meds (her tail is covered in ticks). I have a capsule of gabapentin the vet has given me the green light to give her before the appointment in order to get her in the carrier and for the visit itself, however I’m worried she will reject food with the meds sprinkled in due to how bitter it is. Considering skipping her Tuesday night meal so that she’ll be ravenous on Wednesday morning and gobble it up without hesitation. I have wet food of course and I also bought some canned tuna in water in order to hide the meds. I am not willing to try to pill her, especially since I can’t even touch her yet without her scaling a wall to avoid it. Plus she’s not vaccinated and there are plenty of other animals around (cats, bats, foxes, etc).

First time working with a stray, so any advice regarding making her comfortable and warm up to us, getting her in the carrier on Wednesday, getting her to use the litter box, or other subjects is welcome. Also curious how much to feed her - I give her a mix of wet and dry. The dry food days 55g a day, but the wet food just says a “3” under amount with no units. I assume it’s not grams but rather they are saying to feed 3 packets of wet food a day? That seems high but maybe that’s just because I’m also feeding her dry food on top of the wet food.

Located in Poland. Her name is Kinga. Thanks in advance.

At least I think it’s Flammentanz. Just moved into this house a few weeks ago and this baby has been blooming like crazy. Pretty battered by aphids, but has an absurdly long vase life. The petals start to look more magenta after a long time in a vase. Has handled being smacked around by a garden gate really well. No fragrance.

I’m in a new house with beautiful established rose bushes. I know they each have different pruning needs so hoping for some ID help (or pruning advice based on the type of rose I’d a positive ID can’t be made. For reference, in I’m Poland and the previous owners lived here for 40 years. I believe the cream one is Frederyk Chopin due to its popularity here.
The red/pink one is relatively thornless when compared to the bright pink one which is hard to handle, but it’s the only one that’s fragrant!

Dog tax at the end.

This beautiful rose bush was tied down on a metal frame. Not a since spent rose in sight. Everything bursting into bloom. Goals for sure. It’s a shame they weren’t fragrant, but they were so gorgeous.

I don’t know the variety!

Long time lurker, first time poster. Just listened to this episode and it was a good starting point for those who don’t know where to begin. Covers the different kinds of prepping, what to have in a bug out bag, and how to prep if you live in a small apartment.

They mentioned the bug out bag should have 3 days of food and water for everyone in your family (including pets). Not sure how I’m going to accomplish that AND be able to carry it. Looks like I need to start working out more. It talks about that, too, as well as the psychological prepping you should do.

If you don’t use Apple Podcasts, you can find the episode elsewhere. It was called “Prepping for Doomsday (or Tuesday)” from Today Explained/Vox.

I am not affiliated with the show - just sitting on a plane at the moment and listening through my list of downloaded shows.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/today-explained/id1346207297?i=1000768246174