Silly question: what makes cats sick?

Montero said:
Cat biscuits. Had an old cat from the rescue centre with really bad teeth. The vet said to make him eat biscuits for the good of his remaining teeth (to clean them). If we put cat biscuits down he'd nibble at them in a pathetic way, then throw them up ten minutes later. If we put down high quality tinned food he'd ignore it. If we put down the most disgusting, humming, cheap tinned cat food he'd lick the bowl round the floor getting the last little bit and keep the lot down.
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I've had that before with biscuits. I think it's because they are dry, so the cat needs to drink water with them. But most cats seem to have an aversion to drinking water out of a bowl and would rather drink it from the bath or basin.
 
MstrTal said:
Chocolate.

Believe it or not but chocolate is not good for cats. . .
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Actually chocolate is poisonous (it's something to do with an alkaloid in cocoa, theobromine). People can die of chocolate poisoning, though it would take a lot! Obviously, cats and dogs are smaller so the amount required to poison them is less. This is why you get special dog and cat 'chocolates'.

Part of the 'rush' of eating chocolate is the body's reaction to the tiny amount of the alkaloid going into your system (ably abetted by the sugar rush).
 
One of our cats (the one that hunts things) regularly gets ill enough for a vet trip because he has either eaten a rat from down the road that has been in the rat poison or he eats too many rabbits and blocks himself up... We almost didn't get him to the vets fast enough last time and he was on a drip for three days, and he almost had to be cut open for them to remove the excess stuff in his gut... Cream is also a good one to make them stop and possibly throw up... Chocolate is poisonous, and umm one of our cats got so intoxicated by our catnip that they passed out for a bit and a friend of mine also gives their cats brandy at Christmas so it goes to sleep in its basket and doesn't get upset by the people and dogs that go round for lunch...

Lovely thing to come in to are the bits of mice and other things that they don't eat and if they do eat it they will become very sick - our dimwitted one does that occasionally if he manages to actually kill and eat a mouse and is always the worse for it, and luckily he is a terrible hunter and so doesn't catch things very regularly.
 
Are cats really lactose intolerent? That doesn't seem to follow, what with their love of saucers of milk and the cats that got the cream etc. I don't remember my cat ever having an issue after drinking milk (which he was very fond of on the rare occasion he got it).
 
Our vet certainly says cats are lactose intolerant. It is usually not vomiting but the runs is the reaction at the end of it. Just because it is bad for them doesn't stop them eating it. Like humans really.

Also cats are easy to poison as they don't urinate very much for an animal of their size, so they take a long time to clear things out of their systems. If you measure toxicity of a substance by say weight of substance per kg bodyweight of organism being poisoned, cats can be killed by a far smaller equivalent dose than a human. One of the human antiseptic creams is poisonous to them (can't remember if it is germolene or savlon, one of the two) but we always buy hibiscrub from the vet as that is made for animal use.
 
As I understand it cats love cows milk but (similar to humans actually) struggle to break down the large (I think) fat molecules. Many years ago I had a cat that used to travel around the country with me, sitting on my shoulder (and, yes, I have heard just about every Dick Whittington joke going). When he got down for a little trot about I used to have to watch out for 'well wishers' putting down a saucer of milk for him. It wasn't too bad if it was skimmed or semi-skimmed but if it was full fat I could guarantee he would be throwing it back up within half an hour - not good news when you are hitch-hiking around the country.
 
Bowler1 said:
I feel like Prof Plum in the dining room as I don't like cats very much (they love me for some reason, I find that very baffling). :confused:
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It's because cats are evil and are therefore drawn to your seething hatred, even if it is aimed at them :)
 
Give me a dog anytime. I like a terrier, any type it does not matter. They poo a lot if you give them milk as well.

Cats, yuk...
 
Cats are not fragile. Among the mob of cats that brought me up (well, as up as they could reach, anyway) there was one who adored pickled onions, and would just about eat his own weight in them (and then come and breath in your face), which can't be what a carnivorous digestion is set up for, and never reacted to it negatively, another who ate enough of my marbles that he had to give up swimming, dustbin contents, coffee grounds…

Perhaps thoroughbred apartment cats have delicate digestive tracts, but cats that live outside seem nearly as omnivorous as goats. Fine, from time to time they have to dispose of something the same way as it got in, not wishing it to do the entire gastric tour, but that's still a lot more sensible than horses.

Mind you, at the time I'm talking about there was still rationing, so the likelihood of them getting chocolate poisoning was negligible. (there was one who would beg for licorice; and getting a cat to beg indicates a fairly high level of interest).

Now, my grand-niece, I bet I could chocolate poison her if the rest of the family weren't so enthusiastically sacrificing themselves to protect her by absorbing as much of the dangerous substance as they can so she won't OD;).
 
chrispenycate said:
Cats are not fragile. Among the mob of cats that brought me up (well, as up as they could reach, anyway) there was one who adored pickled onions, and would just about eat his own weight in them (and then come and breath in your face), which can't be what a carnivorous digestion is set up for, and never reacted to it negatively,
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One of my old cats used to beg for raw chillies and ate them with much apparent enjoyment. In retrospect, perhaps naming him Lister was tempting fate.
 
We had a cat that liked Christmas cake. We assumed that she saw it and mistook it for something else but no, once she had the first taste, she wanted more.

However, foolproof methods to make a cat vomit:

1: Leave out a desperately important report that has to be handed to your boss first thing in the morning. The cat will vomit on it. When you chase the cat off and try to see what can be salvaged, unless you take special precautions the cat will most probably hide in the vicinity of the printer to finish expelling whatever the problem is.

2: Shoes in a dark corner - potent cat magnet and emetic.

3: Visitors. Especially those with refined sensibilities. Or hangovers. Nothing quite like it. (We had friends sleeping over after a party - one usually very robust and hung-over chap struggled with the sight of one of our cats throwing-up and then going for the rematch and eating it again. Being kind and understanding people, we asked him what he would like for breakfast.)

4: A dead-line to be somewhere. Not only will the cat vomit, but there will be accompanying wailing which the Spanish Inquisition would have been proud of, and possibly even Oscar-winning displays of near-death. All of this will clear up once you are late. (Except the carpet. Not self-cleaning)

5: Theoretically, a new carpet will do it. I can not be certain about that as the only time we have put one in was when we were selling the last house. The cats were moved out on the Friday, the carpet fitted on the Monday before viewings started. The following week, I came home to find a cat in the house… one of the neighbour's pets had somehow jemmied the locked cat-flap. Just the lure of the new carpet was enough, although I got the cat evicted before any vomiting can happen.

Remember, cats are designed to vomit. They don't need much encouragement and like to practice regularly.
 
This is great stuff. I have a cat-people story sitting on the back burner.

Cats are designed to vomit. Drunk teenagers are designed to vomit (when they think Mum and Dad can't possibly catch them drinking and vomiting). Therefore, drunk teenage cat-people...
 
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TheDustyZebra said:
Cats always love people who hate them! My dad had the same problem.
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I read somewhere that it is a miscommunication due to different body language between species.
Someone who doesn't like cats will sit very still and hope the cat ignores them.
Someone who likes cats, but doesn't necessarily understand them (or at least nervous cats) will sit there going "Puss, Puss" and waving hands around. Confident cats are OK with that, nervous ones are not.

So in a room with a bunch of strangers, many cats (but not all) will prefer the sitting quietly non-scary person and avoid the noisy "puss, puss" person. And so the cat hater gets the cat.
 
Cats are definitely lactose intolerant. When my former cat Daisy had an obstruction in a hernia, she almost died - the vet operated and saved her, but an obstruction lower down was a blockage. So she gave Daisy a large saucer of rich cream to get things on the move, and voila, a while later...

Daisy lived another 2 years, I'm pleased to say.
 
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