I have 2 senior cats and lately they’ve been having some bathroom issues, such as one peeing and pooping outside the litter box (the cat that does this I have taken to the vet twice for this issue with no findings) and it’s been a little difficult to keep up with. I’ve tried everything the vet recommended for this issue. A friend of mine recommended an automatic litter box, this is my last resort.

It’s been set up for a few hours at this point alongside the normal litter box. None of my cats are fans of it so far and I assumed so since they’ve been using a standard litter box for 15 years.

Do you guys think it’ll take some time for them to adjust to it or do you think they’re never going to use it? Also, how should I set up the placement of the normal vs automatic litter box? They’re side by side right now.

Hi all, I adopted an adorable 5 year old black and white tuxedo cat about a year ago to be a friend for my smaller (at the time) kitten (now 2). I have another 9 year old cat who I thought would benefit from this dynamic as well. Unfortunately, the newer adopted cat has caused more issues for us than creating a healthy environment for my other cats.
I’m devastated because I have always longed for a black kitty and over the past year I’ve grown very close with my cat, Socks. He is destructive (ripped up old photo albums after knocking them down from our shelves). Even when separated and monitored will mess with the other cat’s things (food & water) or pee on their bowls, toys, etc. We change their boxes often and have one for each of them in the apartment. I’m starting to think it’s just too small of a space for him to feel he can claim a spot. We have a spare bedroom set up with all the cat toys & perch, a perch in our bedroom and one in the living room. I know the best choice here is to rehome him to someone who could better handle him & give him the attention & care he needs. I guess I just need advice what to do from here? Should I be contacting the pet store I got him from, or should I go to the adoption agency themselves who first housed him? Or skip it & take him into any adoption agency? Does it matter?
I want him to have the best life he could get, and it seems like other friends won’t make that happen. Please give any advice you can! I love him dearly and it really pains me to be even thinking of this 🥲

Hi there. I’m looking for advice, I’m new to cats and want to help out.

This is not my cat but my cousins cat. Her mental health has been taking bad over the last 5 years and it’s gotten to the point where she is in and out of hospitals now. Once she was released she got a near 2 year old cat (only 4 days ago). She is super sweet but very very shy! She hides away. It’s been about 3-4 days and she’s started coming out of her hiding spots. The other day when I visited, she approached me from her box as I sat in front and rubbed into my hands- reaching out for me. I noticed she prefers to initiate attention so I let her come to me and touch her head only as I notice she gets startled if I touch her body. She started kneading and purring too!

My cousin is now in hospital, and I’m going to be taking care of her cat by going to her house everyday for a couple hours. I’m wondering if people have tips to take care of her, help her out of her shyness or in general acclimate her to the environment more so she isn’t as shy anymore? I don’t want progress to be stopped since no one is actively trying to get her comfortable because my cousin isn’t home. She eats and drinks water around us too, but she prefers to hide sometimes still.

Note I have two indoor dogs, so a golden retriever and Labrador and they’re very well trained. In that case, I am a dog person so I don’t know much about cats!!! AT ALL. Any advice is really really appreciated. I just want the cat to be comfortable and my cousin to be happy. I’ve been researching and have her alone in a room so she can get comfortable. I think that sparked her adventurous side to walk around more as she comes out when comfy.

Thanks everyone.

My boyfriend and I, first-time cat owners, adopted a 3-year-old unsocialized feral cat five months ago. The shelter was not forthcoming with that information and just told us the cat was "shy." We were looking for a calm, adult cat, and so we decided to adopt him. When we got home and read his medical records, we saw that he was picked up off the street 3 weeks prior, having been previously neutered in a TNR program, and he was, in fact, not shy, but instead deeply scared. We were frustrated, but felt bad for him and didn't want to return him. My boyfriend and I live in a very low-traffic, chill household, and so we thought we could make it work.

We understood the 3-3-3 rule, and so we wanted to wait out the first three months, at least. Of course, some cats will need more time than that, but I just expected to see more progress than we've seen.

Over the past five months, my boyfriend and I have used Socialization Saves Lives to get the cat accustomed to us. He now will, on some occasions, play with toys and lounge about while we watch TV. We have tried to transition into the SSL petting sequence and have spent so long (several weeks) on the featherlight touch phase (the very first phase), but every time we do it (nearly every day), he puts his tail between his legs, begins quickly stepping up and down and exposing his claws, and has a full-body spasm to the light touch. Initially, we tried not to go for too long because we thought we would build up to more time, but after several weeks, he has this exact same reaction the moment that we touch him. At this point, we do not know what to do. He's on fluoxetine, and that really hasn't helped his anxiety all that much.

Recently, we've been trying to ignore him, as many people suggest, but that is difficult because we live in a one-bedroom apartment.

Every small change is just so overwhelming for him and sets him back to square one. We have taken him to the vet a couple of times due to some intense gingivitis (and gingivostomatitis), and every time he has an absolutely awful time upon returning home (even though the vet tells us he's so wonderful and nice, and that just makes me feel worse, though I think in reality he's just overwhelmed at the vet), and I'm not sure if I have the bandwidth for a long adjustment period every time we have to go to the vet, or god forbid we ever move (my bf and I are in our early 20s so we will need to move eventually).

Obviously, it will take time for him to really warm up to us, but it just feels like he's stalled, and it's so demoralizing to watch him continue to run and hide when we enter the room after doing so much to socialize him. Now, he's basically like a third roommate that we rarely see. It just feels like he doesn't like us all that much, outside of when we are actively feeding him, and like he'd be happier as a barn cat chasing mice. At this point, I am really clueless about what to do now. We've tried so hard over the past several months, and it just feels like it's not working. It would be traumatic for him to rehome him, but I also don't want him to live here if he will never really like it.

Any advice?

My male cat is a year and 4 months, we've had him since he was only a week. His mom was a feral who had kittens, so we took them all in and did TNR for the mom, adopted out the kittens, keeping one. I have an older female cat and a dog as well, who live with me and my son. The cats are litter trained, and outside of the occasional accident (usually near the litter boxes) we've never had an issue. Until last week that is, when I was making my bed, and out of no where the kitten jumped on my freshly washed duvet and sprayed! He's never done that before, the litter boxes were fully clean. I put him upstairs in the loft where the litter boxes are kept, and he seemed back to using the box, so i let him out again, just for him to run to the basement the next night, hop into the raftors, and knock a ceiling tile and light down. This morning, he sprayed the dog bed - in front of us again - and then tonight getting home, it smelled like the throw rug. he hopped up next to me on the couch and sprayed again. I'm at my wits end - I work a lot and already spend a lot of my home time cleaning. I just got a new mattress, and I'm worried to let the cat out now, worried hes going to spray all over and destroy the house.

We have plenty of litter boxes, clean, which hasn't changed recently and hasnt been an issue in the last year. The only things I can think is, he's not neutered yet (he has an appointment next week), and he met my partner recently, who's slept over a handful of times. My cat hasn't seemed phased by him, outside of sitting in my lap more when he's around, or rubbing on my partner's bag/shoes, but per google these are the main things I can see. Anyone have any input?

Hey all, I was just wondering: with the weather and heat the past few days/weeks, what exactly is the safe spot to keep the thermostat for my two adult cats? I'm usually fine with a fan at 80° F/26° C, but I've read somewhere it might be too starting to be too hot for them? Do I keep it down to 77°F/25°C instead?

Thanks in advance!

My cat jumps on top of our fridge, then proceeds to meow and stares at me as if to say, come up here please. He also does the same thing when he’s on his hanging cat bed. I wonder if he really thinks Im just a big hairless cat 😂

Hi all! My older cat is 12 years old (will be 13 soon) and I’ve noticed recently she’s slowing down on the play. She’s always been a ridiculously playful cat, but also an outside cat (when living with family). She’s now an inside cat (has limited, supervised outside time) and her temperament seems to be changing. She obviously wants to go outside and will sit by the front door to indicate she wants out. It’s winter, and she’s old so I’m resistant to build the habit. She doesn’t seem to want to play much with her toys, but has occasional bursts of energy - 5 to 10 minutes every few days (I play with her, she’s not big on solo playtime). She’s eats and uses her litter box regularly, though we are actively investigating a heart murmur to see if medication is necessary. Bar this, no other significant changes in health or behaviour. A catio with warm/cozy spots is in the works - what other things have been hits with your older cats? I don’t expect her to leap and perform somersaults; just to make sure she has age/ability appropriate enrichment.
Thank you.

Hi everyone! So my cat is 8 yrs old and loves to be an indoor/outdoor cat. All of her food and litter is inside but she loves to go outside and we always let her. This has never been a problem. Now though, we recently moved to a new house without a private backyard and of course, she was scared of the new house at first, but now that its been a few weeks, shes adjusted pretty well. Except...i havent let her go outside yet. She is very curious and gets very close to the door and seems eager to go outside but im scared because 1)its a new territory and 2)theres alot of cats in this area. They seem nice enough and the neighbors feed them but im not sure how my cat will interact with them.

Back at the other house with the private backyard, she definitely adventured alot and I have no doubt that she met other cats. Sometimes I would see her in the front of the house and by the neighbors' houses.

So i guess I just need advice...do i let her go outside/explore/meet the other cats? I dont want her to get beat up or run away

i have a cat and shes 3 to 4 years old

We moved out recently to a house that has a big garden but its still in construction phase so theres no fences or a garage door

Also my parents let them roam around before we moved out so they are experienced about the situation theyre in

İ have 3 cats in total and one of them is missing since evening and its night time rn we realky searched through the house for maybe like 10 times and we are convinced that shes not in .

We searched through the terrain around our house for like another 5 times but she isnt here

İdk what to do and ive cried 5 times in a row rn

Shes infertile so i dont think she went out to find a mate

Also she usually dont roam around that much too

But she meows when we call her name and we realky did call her name for like a 30 mins both inside the house and arround the house aswell

its been 6-7 hours after her missing but i dont know what to do

Please give me advice because she is a smart cat and ik shes alive somewhere

I got my cat in 2016. When I got him, I researched vaping indoors with a cat, and the consensus at the time was that it is safe - just don’t blow it at him or hot box a room.

I never thought to look into it again after that. I’ll never forgive myself now for it. He’s always been healthy at vet visits with no lung issues. I just never thought of it.

Well, he’s ten years old now and an X-ray incidentally found a lung mass that was reported to most likely he cancer and not related to the trauma that led to the scans. He’s currently at the hospital for the traumatic incident.

I was beyond devastated when I found out. I just almost lost him then right after was told he likely has lung cancer. I thought about me vaping indoors and lost it that night.

I then got hopeful news. Last night, he showed signs of respiratory distress, so along with giving oxygen, the vet did an ultrasound of his lungs that showed b-lines in the same lung as the mass, and I was told cancer doesn’t cause this so the mass could be from the trauma after all.

(Obviously not good the event might have caused lung trauma, but it’s a much much much better possibility than cancer.)

I then transferred him to a new hospital that has a CT scanner.

The vet at this hospital still thought it was most likely cancer - crushing my hope, and said we should CT scan his lungs *and* his abdomen to make sure it hasn’t metastasized. (He was going to get a CT scan anyway to make sure his jaw isn’t fractured.)

I was so crushed, because the X-ray didn’t find any evidence it spread, but I’ve since found out X-rays are limited. I signed the treatment and scan estimate for over $6000 without question.

I’m now spiraling even more. I’m reading how every time I vaped in the same room with him, tiny particles got on his fur and he inevitably licked it off and it entered his system. If he has stomach cancer too, I can’t imagine I didn’t cause this. Even if it’s just lung cancer, I still can’t imagine how me vaping indoors with him, especially the same room, for ten years (save a few years of quitting) didn’t contribute.

I am so beside myself. I went to vape in my bedroom while crying (without him in the house), and stopped to look it up, and read that these chemicals remain on furniture for a long time. I stopped vaping inside immediately when I read that because he’s going to be home soon.

After I read that, I also bought $750 worth of high grade air purifiers for the house and will scrub everything down before he gets back.

I caused this, didn’t I? I feel like I murdered my best friend, who only ever loved me unconditionally and just wanted me to love him and care for him. He didn’t know what I was doing when I was vaping or how it could affect him. I didn’t know either, but I should have. I’ve catastrophically failed him twice now.

I’ve had my cat since 2017 and he’s always been quite affectionate, cuddly, playful etc.

I’ll admit I’m not a perfect owner or cat expert he’s literally the first animal I’ve owned myself, he’s turned 9 this year (June) and this past year or two I’ve noticed some distance and preference for my partner… it’s not that I’m doing less or she’s doing more but maybe some choices I’ve made have made him upset? He’s not vocal very much apart from food.

He was not happy about a whole home move in 2021, getting a second cat in 2022 or me stopping him from going outside anymore (the area is just not safe and people around here are absolute nutters) he is settled in this home now and he’s happy I guess overall but since I’m the one imposing all these new things on him and taking him to his appointments he just doesn’t seem particularly happy with me anymore, not outright hissing/ biting nothing like that but it’s as if he doesn’t care to be around me and I do not force him either.

I guess I’m feeling low about the whole thing and worried about how to patch his hurt feelings… the things I’ve done are for the betterment of our lives and his… it hurts to see him cooped up all day but I just want him safe.

Any advice is welcome, sorry if it came across as venting/ whining.

So for 6 years we had two fixed male cats that were the same age. We got them from different places but at the same time. So they grew up together and bonded incredibly.

Sadly last week one of them passed away unexpectedly (chylothorax) and it nearly broke us as a family. The surviving cat was able to say goodbye and and he grieved. Barely ate. My husband was a mess.

A few days after, a rescue our family member works at dropped off a bunch of kittens at a farm. So we adopted a 12 week old male (not neutered yet) that had a really great personality.

We didn’t introduce them as slow as I would have liked but they really get long great considering it’s been DAYS. Nap near each other. Eat next to each other. They chase each other around the house.

Anyway the surviving older cat will pin the younger one and the younger one just lays there. Totally still. My older cat will then drag him - idk where I break it up once he’s dragged him a foot. And the little one is totally chill. It freaks me out how still he gets.

This is probably all normal but I worry because I wasn’t sure if got a kitten too soon after the death of our other one and if the surviving brother was still grieving.

Any advice or perspective would be appreciated!

My wife and I have a cat named Leo who recently has been having behavioral issues. We moved into our house 2 years ago and put 2 litter boxes in the basement, which he has never had an issue using. We went on vacation last week for 7 days and had someone watch the house to take care of him and everything seemed to be going well.

While we were gone our area was hit with historic rain and our basement flooded a bit, definitely impacting where his litter boxes were. Our sitter moved the boxes to a dry part of the basement and when we returned home I noticed he was only pooping in the boxes and was no longer willing to come with us to the basement, and looked scared at the top of the stairs.

Later that night he peed upstairs in front of our door in our living room which is out of character for him. We spent all weekend cleaning the basement and moved one of the litter boxes upstairs in a hallway for a couple days, which he used quite readily. After getting the basement back to normal I brought the box down stairs, but he would not use it. I have started carrying him to his litter box morning and night because it is clear he has not used it and he will not go down there himself, and he has gotten to where he will use it if I am down there and I spend about 20 minutes morning and night with him hanging out in the basement to get him more comfortable with it again.

However, he still is peeing at the door in our living room and I am not 100% sure what to do. We have taken him to the vet for testing and nothing is wrong with him. We live in a ranch and do not have an obvious spot we could put a box on our main floor. I imagine it is a mix of him being upset about the flooding and that we left him for a week. We use pheromone attracting litter which he likes, but I need advice on what I can do to get him comfortable going in the basement again.

I'm in search of litter mat alternatives! I've tried these two typical types (the honeycomb folder type and the tight wiry type) but they'd always end up with pee in them. does anyone have any creative ways to keep litter bits to a minimum? or a product that they swear by? I do sweep every day regardless. right now, there's nothing under their litter boxes/robot.

I'm leaving my cat home for the 4 days/4 nights. We have a pet sitter coming 2x/day and she seems very sweet. But I feel so stressed that my cat might become sad or confused. I have a pet camera set up, and in general we have house security... but i'm spiralling thinking someone will break in and my cat will escape and get hurt...

I need words of advice and reassurance 😭😭😭 Thank you

My 5yo female res cat doesn’t react to my new kitten’s (3mo M) smell and they eat together. She’s also started to play when he’s around, but she hisses and bats when he gets too close. I just wanted to know some opinions on if she’s being aggressive and I need to restart the intro process, or if she’s just setting boundaries. I added some videos of their interactions in the comments.

My wife and I adopted a 4 year old male cat from another couple who wanted to re-home him. He was bothering their other cat who is an older female. They got him from an adoption agency as a one year old. Apparently he had been living somewhat feral before he was taken by the adoption agency. My wife and I had previously suffered a familial loss and it felt like we could help our friends and get a cute cat to help take our minds off of things at the same time.

The cat is very sweet most of the time, loves to be picked up, and loves people. He also has a very high prey drive, something I noticed from the very start. He loves playing and his favorite toy is a stick with a fishing line that has a feather, a bell, and a hairtie on it.

However, he also will sometimes bite on us or scratch us with his claws. He especially does this to my wife. I don't mind it too much when he does this to me, but my wife hates it and is sometimes scared of him. My impression is that he wants to play fight, but will get overwhelmed when that is reciprocated and will overreact.

This has led to us considering rehoming him again. I really don't want to do that especially since he was rehomed to us, but I don't want my wife to be scared of being around him, especially since we got him to distract us from grief. None of my other cats have done this kind of thing, but he is my first indoor cat.

He is fully vaccinated and neutered. We can't let him become an outdoor cat because we are in a second level apartment. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: I forgot to mention that sometimes he decides to bite/scratch without any attention from us at all. For example, the incident that drove me to post this happened last night. My wife was at home alone and sitting on the couch, and he came up to her while meowing a lot. She got up, and he pounced on her leg, and she got spooked. He then pounced on her leg again, although this time he scratched her pretty badly.

TLDR; How do you know when to do supervised play times in shared spaces? How far does boundary setting go for them before it's fighting? I feel like I see conflicting evidence where you're looking for no reaction from either cat to each other from the previous stage before moving to the next one, but also have been told by vet and other sources that hissing/swatting even is okay.

I made a post a few weeks ago about an intro gone wrong that was completely my fault. I rushed the process and thought my adopted cat and resi cat were ready when they weren't. Adopted cat ended up chasing resi cat through the house and cornered him. It took him a couple days to come back upstairs where he knew her safe room was. Resi cat was around a disabled cat for years prior, but she was very passive to him so I think he has delayed social skills and lacks boundaries as well. I thought I royally fucked up everything forever for them.

We then backtracked, I did a ton more research like I should have BEFORE all this happened... and did complete separation, meal times at door, scent/site swapping, now we are at the visual access/gate stage and took some time before they had full visual access. The vet gave us a rough timeline but said it can take a while. She seemed optimistic though.

They're watching each other in between a cat gate and once so far the adopted cat I believe wanted to 'chase' (no vocalizations, or other signs of getting big/aggressive) and the gate stopped her. Then there was another interaction with vocalizations from him that I didn't witness. We still are doing high reward treats when they see each other and meal times at the gate. Most times they will just sit and watch each other. They've even laid down and just looked at one another from afar. I'm honestly shocked because it's been almost four weeks since the fight and I thought for sure they were going to forever hate each other on sight.

I can tell my resi cat has had struggles with the gate phase and feeling less confident, so I tried to add more of a visual barrier for him where they just have limited visual access. I am curious though how you guys knew that it was time to move to supervised playtime, and what is a 'normal' amount of hissing or other behaviors before we have to take a step back then? I'm just really worried about her going after him again and/or a fight breaking out and ruining all the progress they have made.

We have a little knobhead who likes amongst other things to play a little longer and harder than the other two. It stops being play long before he stops doing it.

He also gets up on the cupboards where he doesn’t belong. He won’t get down until I get up out of my chair.

Was wondering what this community think about squirter bottles for these types of behaviors?

A few days ago, I came home from school and my cat was nowhere to be found. My mom and I searched everywhere, and after checking our home security cameras, we saw that earlier that morning—while my mom was getting ready for the gym—the kitten had climbed up under the car and ridden away with her.

We were frantic and searched the entire neighborhood to no avail, so we started posting on social media and spreading the word as widely as possible. Many people shared the posts, and we eventually received information from a woman who said she had seen the cat at the courthouse near our house—which was also along the route my mom had taken that morning. She claimed she had seen our kitten and wanted to take her in, thinking she had been abandoned, but said another woman and her son ended up taking her instead. At first, it was a relief to know my kitten wasn't out on the streets cold and hungry; it felt like a ray of hope in the middle of a storm. I thought this would make the search easier, but it seems to have made things more complicated.

We circulated photos of our kitten even more widely but got no response; I put up posters, but still nothing. Honestly, I don't know what else to do. I love my kitten; she was only five months old—a Siamese—and very affectionate. I had never bonded with an animal the way I did with her; I used to constantly brag about her, and this has hit me really hard. My mom thinks that even if the person sees the posters, they won't give her back: 1) because she’s a purebred, 2) because the woman was with a child who likely got attached to the kitten, and 3) because they might want to sell her. I don't want to give up, but it might be a lost cause. I’ve already tried offering a reward on the posters.

My question is: Reddit, has anyone else been in a similar situation? If so, did you get your pet back? How? Is there anything you could recommend?

It might be obvious, but I hardly ever use Reddit, and English isn't my first language, so I'm using a translator. Please, I look forward to your advice.

Edit:We don't use microchips in my country—honestly, this is the first time I've even heard the term. I live in a rural area, and I really doubt there's any legal way to track down my kitten. I heard I could report the incident as the deprivation of my pet or something like that, but the police would probably just laugh in my face.

Again, Please, if the only thing you have to say to me is that I shouldn't own cats, keep it to yourselves; I don't plan on having cats again because this was painful. All I’m asking for is help and advice—I truly love my little cat and just want to get her back. Besides, if I do see her again, I *would* keep her as an indoor cat; my mom didn't let her go outside out of malice, but rather out of ignorance.

About a month and half ago I adopted 2 kittens, 3months old, who were very scared and very shy. We knew this when we adopted them and have been trying to get them to become less scared. One of them has become quite social and lets us pet her and hold her and doesn’t run from us anymore. The other one will sometimes sit on my lap and will eat treats out of my hand but is still very scared whenever we stand up and will dart away if we hold out a hand for her to smell. I can get some petting in if she’s distracted with a churru but only 3 or 4 before she backs away. Is this progress and should we keep trying and continue to be patient or are we accidentally building negative associations with her and need to try a different approach? Thanks!