By Barbara
My cat Millie is 13 years old. We hadn’t seen her for about 2 1/2 days and assumed she got herself stuck in some neighbor’s garage or something.
This morning we found her laying in our yard under a lilac bush. When she got up she seemed to be staggering and felt really thin when we held her. We immediately gave her some wet cat food and she ate voraciously.
I thought it made sense that she would be very hungry and thirsty if she hadn’t had any food or water for 2 1/2 days.
However, after more watching, we noticed that all of her wobbliness seemed to be on her right side. What the heck could be wrong with her? She also has a little bit of discharge from her right eye.
Please help! Millie is part of our family.
Barbara
Response
Hi Barbara. Thanks for visiting and asking. You made the post about 24 hours ago. Could you please leave a comment to update us? Is Millie feeling better?
Ruth, a valuable, regular visitor who is a retired vet tech. would advise that you take her to a veterinarian for a check up, as soon as possible. That must be the sensible response.
However, as you have taken the time to ask, I’ll respond as best as I can and perhaps Ruth might add a comment too.
I will assume that Millie was in good health before she disappeared for two and half days. If she is wobbly on one side it indicates that she has been injured over those 60 hours.
As the lack of coordination affects one side it indicates nerve damage incurred through injury, perhaps a fall or a car accident or even abuse. Perhaps her spine is hurt or something like that.
Spinal cord injury can cause neck and back pain with weakness (or paralysis) of one or more legs. Millie’s problem appears to be one-sided indicating a spinal injury. Her wobbly gait is consistent with such an injury.
Other possible causes of limb weakness are:
- arterial thromboembolism (blood clot in artery) – unlikely in this instance.
- nerve injury.
- broken bones.
I would take her to the vet asap. Sorry.
I am not a vet. There is no substitute for seeing a good vet. The best of luck to Millie and yourself.
Do you mean your husband took Spunky to the vets and paid to have him euthanised by her? He must have told that vet he was the owner of the cat because if an owner decides a cat is to be killed, the vet has to do it.
When I worked for vets we had to ask permission of the person who brought the animal in if we could rehome him/her rather than kill them, if they refused then the vet had to do it.
Some people stood and watched to make sure we did!
I’m very sad for you, it is terrible to kill healthy animals.
I’d love to hear more about this. I don’t understand what you are saying. Thanks for commenting by the way.
I Can’t believe all the cat haters. I have always loved cats and found them to be precious and loving. I had a beautiful cat named Spunky that was healthy and such a sweet cat. He was taken to our vet killed. She said she killed him because my husband hated him. I can”t believe a vet would do that. I feel so angry and sad that anyone could do that.
Agreed. He claims shooting cats is legal, but it isn’t in my state– even ferals, much less pet cats. Our previous governor vetoed a bill which would have given permission to shoot feral cats. “Over my dead body,” he said, “will anyone be shooting any cats.” I think it is now legal in some counties, our present governor not caring about animals much, but it’s not legal everywhere. My guess is it’s Woody who is the criminal.
Online research probably saved Monty’s life. After Monty tried to eat a bee the vet said giving Benedryl would be fine. But what I read online said any time the sting is on the mouth, get treatment. So I was extra vigilant, despite the vet’s reassurances. And sure enough, I did have to rush him in. If I had read that before talking to the vet Monty would have been brought in immediately, forget trying to shove a pill down him.
The writer doesn’t say. This cat could have been taken to the vet and her own research done at the same time. But I can’t imagine going first to the Internet if my cat had neurological symptoms. He’d be at the vet in a hurry. However, weekends can be problematic depending on where you live. If there is no treatment available until Monday, then I would be forced to use the Internet. I have paid to talk to a vet in just that circumstance, although at the time Monty was symptom free, but had ingested things he shouldn’t have. Around here emergency vet care is hundreds of dollars just to have him seen on weekends. Once was when Monty licked out my bowl after we had chili and once when he found a match under the fridge and had had the head of the match in his mouth. In both instances he was fine. Right after I paid the sixty dollars to talk to the vet through the ASPCA (after the chili incident) Monty climbed to the top of the curtains, jumped down and did it again. No, the onions and garlic in the chili had not made him anemic. But he waited until I was done talking to the vet to demonstrate that.
My pastor’s cat who was put down would probably be alive, but it happened on a weekend. They think he ingested string. Surgery was needed but through emergency services it was $4,000. Pastor said he could have spent $2,000 but not double that, with no guarantees, and it would have been wrong to leave Jonah suffering until Monday, if he could even have survived, so Pastor made the painful decision to euthanize.
This article was posted over a weekend. My guess is the cat is at the vet now and that PoC was not her only avenue of research. She may have also paid to talk to a vet on the phone as I did. But with the cost of emergency vet services being what they are, if they are even available– with a stroke that was already a few days ago and recovery beginning right away– I would probably take that chance and wait until Monday. But on Monday I’d pay the extra fee at my vet for an emergency appointment. I wouldn’t not treat the stroke at all– but I don’t have thousands lying around either. And there are places in the USA where there is not vet care available at any price over the weekend. It’s really a shame and I don’t understand it, since things happen on weekends too. Another instance of animals being second class citizens.
Woody is obviously in the US where lots of cats are kept prisoners because of dangerous conditions and cat murderers like him exist there but it’s very different in the UK and if he lived here and boasted about shooting cats he would be traced and prosecuted which is what he fully deserves.
The US badly needs a pet welfare law and urgently at that.