HandicappedPets.Net

So my Cat Ziggy's tail was amputated on Tuesday. He has no anal paralysis although I've yet to see a bowel movement. The bladder ... well the vet said only time will tell & we're hoping for a full recovery. This morning he ate breakfast and drank some water for the first time that I've seen. Expressing his bladder has been VERY difficult for me & I can't get more than a few drops out at a time so a vet Tech has been coming to my house 3x a day to help. This morning he ate, drank then walked into his litter box and squated. Nothing happened but does anyone know if that's a good sign towards his recovery?

That sounds positive to me! Is the vet expressing for both urine and defication? I am sure the vet may have already said that sometimes anesthesia can cause constipation and so can pain medication if they have him on it.

You can give him a tablespoon of canned pumpkin (no spices) mixed in with his other food and that may help move things along. I am not the cat expert around here, but we have some good ones. Keep us posted and show us a picture if you can.

Well, he knows he has to pee.

I found the vet to be worthless at teaching me how to express; the people here were MUCH better at helping me find the water balloon. Have you read all the info in the expressing Wiki?

Sounds like my cat has a similar injury. He was squatting in his box like you described and nothing was happening for a long time. After a month and a half of a dry litter box he started to pee very small amounts in the box and then over a 2 week period the amount of pee got bigger and bigger until it was a normal amount. We have yet to see him consiously poop and its been 2 months since the accident. But I figure if his peeing came around to working again, then the other one could too, eventually.

Inability to defecate at will can become a problem with a tail injury. Did the vet explain anything about that?

Update We haven't had any bowel issues since 2 days post surgery. Sometimes I'll find a piece on the floor - he'll go to his box, try then it will fall out a few minutes later. This isn't happening often though & 9/10 times it's in the box w/no issues. I have finally learned to express him myself but no improvement in that dept as far as going on his own. I really think he peed last night but w/2 cats it can be hard to tell. Although I do think waking up to 3 clumps of pee in the box would be a lot for 1 so I think he contributed Not sure though. Keeping them separate tonight to see if he pees in the box. If his bladder recovers that would be great, if not - I will express him for life and I've adjusted into a routine that allows for that. The only long term issue that I'm concerned about is him leaking pee when he cleans himself. Be it on the carpet or my bed I hope that's only temporary though. I watch him when he cleans himself and sometimes he drips, sometimes he doesn't. I'm still hoping for a full recovery

That sounds like a positive update

My cat with the similar injury is doing the same thing when he cleans himself down there. The only solution for that I've found is to keep him most the time in the half of the house that has hard surface floors - so its easy to clean. He also goes outside for a few hours in the day, so hopefully some of it will leak out there instead of in the house.

When was your cats injury? Mine was on 06/15. Was the tail amputated? Are you expressing?

It was on May 15th.

His tail was amputated within the first week.

It took me a long time to figure out how to express. He is a boy cat and apparently boys are harder because they have a long urethra. Finally I saw a different vet and they explained that with boys, you have to find the bladder and then gently move it up (in the direction of their head) for about 1/2 inch and then give it a squeeze. Moving it forward a 1/2 inch straigtens out the urethra so it is not kinked up and therefore the stream can come out without trouble or discomfort. Before I figured out how to express, I was taking him to the vet twice a day. It added up to be really expensive but I didn't know what else to do. After I was fed up paying all that money to the vet, I found a way to get some urine out by using the method you use to get baby kittens to pee (using a warm wet wash cloth or some papertowls and dabbing in circular motion down there). Then I finally was able to express him by squeezing - like the vets do - but then a few days later he started to pee in the box on his own. I think it was at least a month and a half or two months after the accident until he peed in his box.

Once he was peeing in the box on his own I stopped giving him phenoxybenzamine. He didn't need it anymore. I think the phenoxybenzamine really helped to get him to pee on his own - so if you haven't tried that yet, you might want to ask the vet.

The only problems left is that he leaks pee when he licks it down there and his poop just falls out whenever.

I went to the vet last night and asked him if the leaking while licking would stay around forever and he said NO - and explained that his nerves still need to be fine tuned and that it will improve over the next few months. He wasn't so sure about the poop function though. Although, the pooping really is not that big of an issue.

Your expressing tip was added to the wiki article to help others.


http://www.handicappedpets.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Express_a_dog_or_cat