Sick Kitty

Min and Shane make for a chatty pair. They're going to be cute pair growing up together...

...if Min makes it.

The Friday Nana, Pop, and Jama visited Min peed in a drawer full of Shane's underwear and socks.

All hands were lost.

If you've ever smelled cat pee, you know it's unmistakable. Cats may be little, but they are potent.

At first, Carrie and I were pissed. The following Sunday, Min walked up next to me and peed on a towel. I thought she was sitting down, or I would have stopped her sooner. I gave her a light swat on the rump and chased her off, but that was a mistake.

Cats don't associate consequences with actions like a person or a dog would. If a dog pees and you scold him, he thinks "I was scolded because I peed." If a cat pees and you scold her, she thinks "He must be a dick, because he scolded me." They tend to associate the consequence with the person/environment instead of the action ( I know all of this from my Google PhD in Cat Psychology).

Back to the inappropriate peeing.

My first thought was that Min was acting out. She liked to spend time in the basement, but I started shutting the door to prevent Shane from running amok. Min also liked to drink from the goldfish tank, so I suspected she may be playing "survival cat:" drinking aquarium water and sneaking into our crawlspace to dig in the dirt and pee. Carrie and I picked up all the clothes, blankets, and anything that looked 'diggable.' We figured if there was nowhere desirable for Min to go than the cat pot, she'd go right back to using it like she always had.

We were wrong. Min started peeing on playing cards that Shane left in a rarely used chair. She got a few deposits in over the week until we noticed. It never occurred to us that she'd pee on paper. Carrie went to clean it up and noticed that the urine was darker than expected.

Carrie's dual Google PhD in Cat Biology and Veterinary Messageboard Science told us that inappropriate peeing is one of the first symptoms a cat is ill. A Urinary Tract Infection was the mostly likely culprit.

If it hurts a cat to pee, they start associating the pain with their litter box instead of the act of peeing. They start trying to pee in new places, because they don't have any memories of being hurt there.

Min and Max immediately went into kitty lockdown. They've mostly been locked in the sun room with food, water, and liter for the past week. Carrie took Min to the vet on Monday and they found blood in her urine. They did not find any signs of bacteria and wanted $400 to run xrays.

If it was a person, I wouldn't have batted an eye. For a cat that's not showing any symptoms other than making a mess, that's a lot of money.

When Carrie was a vet tech at an emergency hospital, she said that they would immediately treat blood in the urine as a UTI. Bacteria present or not. They do the same thing with people, I believe. Once the antibiotics begin, everyone keeps looking for confirmation of what's causing the symptoms, but it's a good starting point.

Carrie called me after work to tell me all this, and then said "I trust you" and left me with the final decision. I called the vet and started asking questions. Then I mentioned that $400 was a lot of money. To my surprise the vet said "We can do whatever you're comfortable with. You tell me what you want to do."

I paused. I believe that sometimes doctors and vets can be overcautious. I don't blame them for it, though. Americans are liability and lawsuit happy and an extra test or two usually doesn't hurt and brings in some income.

"Could we start treating Min for a UTI and see what happens from there? I know it's a gamble, but she's not showing any symptoms other than the peeing. If things don't get better, I can bring her back in." I said.

The vet basically said that would be fine. If there was a lot of risk or he was worried, I assumed he would have made a stronger case for xrays. I was surprised by how unassertive he was. I bet it's a different world for veterinarians since most of their customers don't have health insurance like doctor patient's do. Maybe the vet was used to people turning down his suggestions.

I decided my plan was worth the risk. I signed Min up to take $20 worth of antibiotics for about a week to treat the most likely culprit and hopefully avoid $400 to tell me the antibiotics were a good idea all along.

The kitties have been in kitty jail since. I've let them out a couple of times, but I stalk Min around the house. I let her out of my site for 3 minutes on Tuesday and she peed in a box under a chair in the kitchen I didn't notice. I followed her around for 20 minutes after Shane went to bed tonight, but there were no accidents. I was ready to pounce whenever she stopped to smell anything.

If the antibiotics do work, it'll take a while for Carrie and I to trust Min to walk around freely again. If they don't work I'll cross when it arrives.

Stay tuned!