MeOWch…

Our cat Pie (Magpie) has been under the weather for a few days. He was hiding and a couple of the times we saw him try to eat he hissed and ran away from what we were feeding him at the time.

The ‘food’ he ran away from was a treat- a little quarter-sized dollop of milk. We decided to get him to the vet pronto given his reaction and the fact that this happened twice on two days. It was a bit of an adventure and we learned a few things in the process

The behaviours

Pie is normally a bit of a strange fellow in terms of eating. He has no interest in soft cat food, but he will partake of a bit of dog food now and then. So his main diet is hard food/crunchies, which our cats have free access to in multiple places in the house along with multiple sources of water.

He also gets one quarter-sized dollop of milk or cream each morning while the other cats have their soft food breakfast. It was this last item that made us most concerned for our black and white fluff. Two days in a row (I only saw the one time) Pie reacted while licking up his milk treat by screaming, hissing, and running away.

We had noticed the day earlier that Pie seemed to be showing ‘hiding’ behaviour, avoiding all his usual places to sit and watch the world go by. Instead we had to search the house to find him in some out of the way spot. This kind of behaviour is often one of the key indicators a cat will give that they are not feeling well. But it was the milk reaction that really prompted us to action.

Not cooperative at home

Irene and I surmised that something might be wrong with Pie’s mouth based on how he was reacting. I tried to get a look into his mouth while we attempted to get an appointment for the vet on a Saturday. I was unsuccessful, and Magpie was extremely unhappy about having his mouth touched to the point of hissing at me when I tried.

This reactivity when I tried to look into his tiny maw was another clue that something wasn’t right with his mouth. We passed this on to the vet when we finally got through to them on the phone, along with the fact that we weren’t sure whether he had eaten or drank anything in 48 hours.

Not eating or drinking is kind of a serious thing for all animals, but in cats it is essentially an emergency if it goes on for more than a day. Cats are very ‘secretive’ about their health problems and are quite prone to experiencing systematic failures of various organs if they stop eating for very long. So the vet in Nelson made room for us in their schedule late in the day, and off we went.

Not cooperative with the vet… then Kitty mix tranquilizer

The visit with the vet went well right up until they tried to look at his mouth. They experienced the full range of Magpie anger and fear reactions, and cats are very good at re-enforcing the concept of ‘no’ when cornered. The vet agreed at that point that we had a potentially serious problem with his mouth, and suggested tranquilization.

The meds they gave Pie to make him pliable were pretty amazing. Apparently they call it ‘kitty mix’, and it is a combination of three drugs including Ketamine. I didn’t catch the three specific drugs as I was somewhat distracted at the time, but I suspect it is this mix, which consists of Zolazapam, Ketamine, and Xylazine. Whatever it was, it worked very well.

After a screech when being given the injection (apparently it is a painful concoction) Pie spent about five minutes under the seat in the exam room. He was as limp as a wet rag when I picked him up at the vet’s instruction, and was completely non-plussed while she opened his mouth to get a look inside. We even had time for Irene and I to have a good look at what she found.

Pie’s teeth were fine all around, so that was good, and there was no sign of any problems with his jaw at either the joint or the bone. Instead, there was an ugly inflamed ulcer at the upper-back side of his mouth. The vet didn’t find any sign of an infection or a tumour, and suspected it was more likely a burn or the outcome of Pie biting something sharp and spikey.

I wasn’t smart enough to take a picture, but it was obvious that the sore would be uncomfortable if not extremely painful based entirely on how it appeared. I pondered possible causes as the vet took care of other aspects of her exam. Pie is not a chewer of electrical wires, which is one of the things the vet suggested might cause such an injury. I also am not aware of him getting into anything like sharp sticks or the like. The only thing that I could come up with: stink bugs.

We have stink bugs that get into our house occasionally. They seek out warm places and are generally not much of a bother. The smell they produce when agitated is unpleasant: sort of an astringent ‘pine sol’ type odour. But generally if they are left alone the bugs just sit quietly until I notice them, gather them up in a plastic cup, and throw them outside.

The cats and dog, however, do not leave the bugs alone. They bat them around and occasionally try to bite them, which I’ve noticed causes the dog to shake his head and spit them back out: obviously they don’t taste good.

Some reading online, however, shows that the chemical that produces their ‘stink’ is actually rather caustic. It can cause skin burns and damage to the eye. That sounds pretty much like the kind of sore that Pie had in his mouth. I can’t prove it, but it is as good an explanation as I am likely to get.

Aftermath

The vet gave us a couple of doses of pain killer for Pie and sent us home with instructions to keep a close eye on him for a couple of days. By the time we were back home he was recovered from his drug induced magical mystery tour and was quite happily doing all of his normal things instead of hiding. The vet indicated that the drugs he had been given would provide some pain relief for a day or so.

I also gave Pie a tube of the squeezable ‘Catit’ cat treat/food and he lapped it up quite happily. Obviously the pain was not bothering him. But the best thing was seeing him doing his usual things around the house, jumping up on my lap and purring, walking around looking out windows, and generally not hiding and looking miserable.

This morning I gave Pie some more of the squeezable Catit stuff, and he once again ate everything I gave him. So I am hopeful that Magpie is going to be fine. Barring infection or the like, mouth sores generally heal pretty quickly, especially if we keep the patient somewhat pain-free with his meds. Another adventure in being a cat caretaker…