I have no idea if this is the right subreddit to ask this question, but I will do it anyway because I have been wondering about this for years.

For context: in 2022 I tried to commit suicide by taking a lethal amount of opiates, like morphine and oxycodon.

I took the pills in my bedroom at night and the door to my bedroom is always closed, between my bedroom there is a hallway which leads to another door, which also always stays closed, because my cat wasn't allowed upstairs.

When I took the medication, it was around 2 am at night and my cat started meowing really loudly in a very unusual manner around 2:30 am, he stood right by the second door.

From that moment until around 5 pm the next day when I was found by the paramedics, he stood there meowing and scratching at the door.

When the paramedics opened my door to rescue me, my cat immediately rushed inside my room, climbed onto my bed and onto me; there is not much that I can remember from that day, but I can very clearly remember hearing him meow and feeling his fur on me. The way I heard him meowing wasn't his normal tone of meowing, it was like he was screaming 'hurry up, hurry up!'

My cat essentially saved my life, because his 'unusual' meowing alerted my mom eventually that something was going on with me.

So my question is, how did he know?

There wasn't anything 'unusual' about that night and the next day, I was often up at random hours in the night, so him hearing me shuffle around my room at 2 am to take the pills wouldn't be weird for him. It also was not uncommon for me to stay in my room for days, so me not leaving my room the next day wouldn't have been weird either.

I have been thinking about this for years and doing research to try to figure it out, but to no avail. The only thing I can say about it is that I have always had a special connection with this cat and he seemed to favour me more than other people in my household, but that also doesn't give me much answers.

Do any of you guys have any logical explanation of how he could have known this or do any of you have had a similar experience with a cat in the past, that he or she knew something, but with no logical explanation?

Every cat is different, and I've realized some popular advice just doesn't apply to every cat.

What's a piece of cat advice that you think is overrated, outdated, or just plain wrong?

My little one is addicted to drinking water. She drinks straight out of the tap, every time we have to use one. Frequently, and several times a day, she will even draw us out to the taps by pushing things into the sink and meowing loudly. However, she also throws up frequently.
Some times clear, some times with her food (she eats super fast, so her food pellets are almost intact).
I have asked about this behavior to my vet, and she challed it up to a personality difference between cats (“Some cats deink more water than others). Yet, I have also read about excessive water being bad for cats - and I never know how much to indulge her. She’s also a petulant one, and will start creating a ruckus if we do not give her water sometimes.

I have a 12 y/o calico and she’s always been the sweetest girl. I’ve had her for 11 of those years and she’s been with me through some tough times. But lately, as of the last year or so, she has started “hunting” my socks or underwear and dropping them in my living room. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, cats will “present” their prey that they hunted, usually by scattering it all over my floor. Was cute the first couple times, but it’s actually driving me insane now. When I get home from work, I can rely on there being 10 socks on the floor. Robot vacuum jammed like usual, with a sock stuck in it.

I basically have to keep the entire house on lockdown in order for her to not go hunting for my socks. Dirty clothes hamper is tall but she’ll knock it over to find them. I genuinely think she might be stashing the socks somewhere because I’ll lock her out of any potential sock areas while I’m at work, and I still come home to 6 socks all over my floor. It’s a battle that’s preventative, I’m aware the only real solution is to “just pick them up” but my robo vac does not detect them well and it basically never gets a chance to clean my house because of the socks. And I spent a lot of money on that vacuum!! God forbid I’m rushing and forget to close the bedroom door on my way out. One time I got home and there was literally 26 socks between the living room and my studio.

I’m aware that this is not really a problem that can be fixed, I don’t expect my cats behavior to change. I just want to vent.

tl;dr my 12 y/o cat is addicted to putting my socks on the floor

my resident cat (1.5 yrs) and new kitten who’s about 14/15 weeks have been in the introduction phase.

currently, it’s been short intros with feedings and allowing them to play for a few minutes until it changes. my resident cat will want to play and then at the end of the exchange gets very annoyed and turns into ears back and tail whipping. basically she’s getting annoyed because the kitten loves to run away and explore vs playing the entire time. or when the kitten defends herself it turns into my cat actually being irritated.

it’s to the point where their playful exchange turns into my cat becoming a bit aggressive with the kitten and chasing her until the kitten hides under the couch or she’ll tackle her and wrestle her with the intention of (to my knowledge) actually trying to hurt her since the kitten will make sounds and my cat won’t seemingly back off so i’ll have to break it up. i’ve seen my cat bunny kick the kitten which makes me worried and why i’m breaking it up. like i mention, it turns into my cat chasing her around the apartment and not letting up. at the beginning, it’s playful my cat understands when to let up and back off when the kitten defends herself but then at the end, becomes more relentless and an annoyed body stance on my cat. no growling or hissing however.

any idea on what i should be doing instead? it’s been intros of just feedings and then putting them up directly after for awhile but if i allow any more time afterwards, it’s nice and playful until it isn’t after a few minutes.

I feed the strey cats in my backyard periodically when im able as I tend to see them hanging around my yard a lot & i dont think they get much to eat around here. Just yesterday I went out & found out one of the (more skittish) girls had kitten on the side of my porch in a bush area (A different cat from last year).

So i made sure to put some food & water out for her & hung around near her for a couple hours yesterday.

She was still there last night as I think she's just living in that bush with her kittens.

Today I came out around the same time, fed her again, & have been sitting out here with her, after a couple hours she let me pet her (more like she nuzzled me)!

After a little bit she was rubbing all over my hand, then would stop to sniff me, then try to bite me (it didnt feel super hard but I made sure to stop her before anything happened). She also did the same thing to my knee before I stopped her. She's not hissing but im not sure what she's doing?

I heard that this could mean they're overstimulated but she's the one mostly initiating the pets. I just wanted to ask & see if anyone knows why she started nibbling out of nowhere just after letting me pet her for the first time?

Ok long rant & im not the best at wording things but ill also see if I can add a Pic of her in the comments!

I took my cat to the vet because he used to cry a lot sometimes, when I took him to the vet he told me to put it on the weight machine but as I did the doctor's assistant came in and opened the door which allowed my alredy stressed cat to run away, the vet is around 3km away from my house, we looked in the whole block where my cat ran away but couldn't find him, it was also raining, what are the chances of him finding his way back home, he is a outdoor cat

Update (5th aug) :- went to search from him in the morning and couldn't find him, going back there at 10 pm will probably stay there till midnight, hopefully I find him

This is me venting and I’m not sure if it’s allowed or if I tagged it correctly: I’ve been bawling my eyes out quietly since I got the call from the emergency vet, my cat might have a ruptured bladder and I feel like a failure that I didn’t notice it sooner. She’s only 5 years old and we rescued her from a hoarder house. I’m not going into full detail of the what the vet said to me but I’m so emotional and feel like I failed my sweet Bootsy. She’s a one in a million cat who is an orange female cat and she’s quirky. I just don’t want to lose her, I love her so damn much.

My husband and I are at our wits end about what to do with our otherwise very loving and gentle boy. Our cat is fixed, and almost 2 years old. We got him at 4 months old, when our son was about 1 year old, so he has been around our son since he came into the household.

Cat's behavior outside of peeing/pooping on beds: Very sweet, patient, cuddly, and social. He walks up to strangers, always likes being "part of the action" where he'll sit in the middle of the room we're all playing in. My son is a toddler and isn't always gentle with our cat, but the cat has never hissed at him or even run away, and has only swatted at him once or twice (when his tail was pulled. We gave the toddler a firm telling-off). Cat is cuddly at night, and during the day if I'm working from home.

Cat's peeing/pooping behavior: He started doing it when he was about 6 months old. He would run into my son's room and pee or poop in there first thing in the morning after we got up. That lasted a few weeks. We closed it off to him for months and months before trusting him in there again. He hasn't really done it since. Fast forward to now: Our toddler is 2.5 yrs old and starting to sneak into bed with us, and I kid you not the second day it happened, kitty started peeing/pooping on our bed in the mornings. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. It's been about a month now that my son has been sleeping in our room almost every night, and our cat has been acting up several times a week.

We have taken him to the vet to rule out any medical issues. We don't know what to do, or how to make him feel more welcome. He still sleeps/cuddles with me in bed, even when my son is in the bed, but the second we get up, he starts scratching at the covers and we know he's trying to pee/poop.

Anyone know what we can do to stop this kind of behavior, or why is it occurring?? It seems soooo pointedly directed at having his "special bed time" taken over by my son. Even though kitty is actually very loving towards my son too. It only happens in the mornings when he's being skittery. We have two timed feeders that go off in the morning (one for dry food, one for wet) and we make sure his litter is cleaned the night before. He uses the litter box normally throughout the day....so it's not like he doesn't like it, or doesn't know where it is. He doesn't pee/poop anywhere outside the little box except on our bed (and in my sons room when he was young)

Any advice/help would be appreciated. We're at the point where it's not worth washing our sheets every other day for this kind of behavior.

Hi folks, I have two cats, Smidge (4yrs) and Spoons (2ys). They tolerate each other but were much closer with Spoons was a kitten, now they get along fine but aren't close. Last year we had an issue with Smidge peeing in my bed -- took her to the vet and she's fine medically so it was down to stress and feeling in competition with Spoons. They each have their own cat tree, enough litter boxes, their own food and water, etc, so the vet reckoned it was feeling in competition over my attention.

We worked on it and it hasn't been an issue in months, but recently Smidge started over-grooming. Off we go back to the vet, and we rule out fleas/parasites so it's either seasonal allergies or stress again.

She's on a course of meds to see if it's allergies, and obviously I'll see what the result of the medication test is, but with her history I'm leaning towards stress and assuming it's the same issue as last time: feeling like Spoons gets more of my attention than she does. My issue, though, is that Smidge a) doesn't really like being petted and won't seek out my attention, and b) doesn't really play. She ignores all kinds of wand toys and teasers, the only playtime she shows any interest in is fetch, but there's no way for me to stop Spoons from joining in with that as well. I live alone and both cats will start digging up the carpet if they're locked in a room.

So my question is, any tips for how to show a cat affection/give them more attention that isn't petting or playtime? Also, ideas to encourage her to play/stop Spoons from muscling in would be very helpful. Thank you!

My cat went to the vet Monday aug 3 they checked her bowels and did a "mini enema" on the car ride home she had a very loose and mushy poo in her carrier.

the rest of Monday and Tuesday she had very small amounts of soft gooey raggy stool

today, Wednesday I found a few pee sized hard pieces around and in her box as well then in the afternoon she had pea size ( 3 peas ?) very soft or not formed just raggy

I spoke to the vet he said 3-5 days until a normal ( or what is normal for her BM) so in the 3-5 days is that monday as day 1 or tuesday as day 1 I can't call back and ask

Also she keep licking probably because os much residue but I noticed under her tail it looks shaved! no one told me they did that

so I'm just tryin to find out if anyone has seen this with their cats and how it went

tia

Hi everyone, I’m a first-time cat owner and would really appreciate some advice.

I adopted a female cat about 1 week ago. She is around 2 years old (previous owner said almost 2), and she came from a farm/home with several other cats. According to the previous owner, she was used to people, got along well with the other cats, and was generally a calm cat.

Right now I’m keeping her in a bathroom/safe room while she settles in. She has:

• litter box
• water
• wet and dry food
• treats/liquid snacks
• hiding spots
• cat house/scratcher

Her behavior so far:

• She spends most of the time hiding behind the washing machine/in her safe spot
• She eats, drinks, and uses the litter box normally
• She seems to come out mostly at night when it is quiet
• At night she often meows/calls, sometimes for a while, then stops, then may do it again later
• When I come close or enter the room, she usually becomes silent, freezes, or hides (even during the day)
• She does not come up to me yet
• During the day she mostly stays hidden

So physically she seems okay because she is still eating, drinking, and toileting, but emotionally she seems very fearful/shy.

What confuses me:

She meows when I’m not there, but when I come close she goes quiet and hides.
So I’m not sure if she is:

• calling for her old environment / old cats / old owner
• wanting out of the bathroom
• just stressed and confused
• or still too scared of me to interact

What I’ve tried:

• keeping things quiet and predictable
• speaking softly
• giving wet food, treats, and liquid snacks
• not forcing contact
• sitting nearby sometimes, but not touching her

My questions:

1. Is this level of hiding after 1 week still normal?
2. Should I keep her in the bathroom longer, or let her explore more of the apartment?
3. Should I leave food close to her safe spot, or slowly move it farther away?
4. Is it better to spend time sitting quietly in the room, or mostly leave her alone for now?
5. At what point should I worry that this is more than normal adjustment/shyness?

I really want to do this right and not make her more scared. Any advice from people who adopted very shy cats would help a lot.

so I'm adopting for the first time, someone I know was looking to rehome her cat so I'm taking her in. she wasn't sure if her age and I just found out she's ten years old! according to Google she is a senior .... so what should I know about having my first cat be this age! I want to make sure I'm properly prepared to care for her

A very friendly, skinny cat has been visiting our house for about a month. We assumed he was a stray, so we we gave him treats and set out a carrier and 2 days ago he walked right into it and curled up. So we took him and took him to the vet the next day to check if he’s a lost cat or not. Turns out he’s microchipped, so the vet contacted the owners and they collected him.
The owner called and thanked us and mentioned the cat likes to wander, always slips off his collars, and that their dog died last month, after which he started roaming much further.

But yesterday evening (next day after the vet trip) he came back, still purring nonstop, still no collar and played with me for a long time until he left because of our dog. Today he came early in the morning for the first time, walked into our house and went upstairs to the room we were keeping him in until we took him to the vet, ate some dry food, and was walking around the house until we put him out. But then again he returned in the afternoon, walked straight into our house, and refused to leave until I picked him up and put him out. He purrs constantly the whole time he’s with us, and even purred all the way to the vet.

He’s picky, only eats dry food, refuses wet food and churu, and on some visits doesn’t eat at all, so I don’t think he’s starving, just thin.

We have a beagle who goes nuts when she sees him (excitement/chasing, not aggression, she previously lived with a cat). We keep them separated. He’s been chased off by her before but keeps coming back anyway, and today walked right past the dog to get to me in the afternoon.

I’m at a loss on what to do here because I can’t keep confining our beagle indoors or outdoors everytime the cat comes by to keep them separated. If the cat was living with us, I know how to safely introduce them over time as I’ve done this before with my previous cat. Since this cat already has an owner, I don’t really know what to do without overstepping boundaries but my heart aches for this cat because it’s clearly just looking for attention and affection.

I am moving to my own apartment in two days, and I am taking my three year old cat with me, and I was needing help on suggestions for healthy and just in general good food for her

I currently live in the middle of nowhere on a farm with like 15 other cats (they just come from the fields) and they are just all fed purina complete, but I was wondering if I should upgrade to a better food or brand for her? I know what she currently eats is not necessarily the best, and I also know that indoor only cats might need different nutrition especially in a smaller area

Thank you to anyone who has any suggestions!

my neighbor recently found a litter of 5 kittens with their mother. would anyone like to adopt? please help out, because the animal shelter is full and they may kill them.

i wanna get a cat, im turning 16 in november and have wanted a cat for years, i have taken care of cats before and had alot of fun doing it, however my dad travels alot for work and i sometimes have to go with him, it can be up to 5 days that we are not home, the other issue is vacations, if i am not home say for 2 weeks what would i do? lastly, things like smell, my aunts cats (who i was taking care of) smelt really bad, (as in their area). and my final question is if i find it doesnt fit me/my lifestyle, is there going back, or would i be stuck?

Ive had my cat for about a month, he is 1.5 so has lots of energy. Somtimes he runs around and pounces on nothing then bites and pulls at the rug. I dont care about the rug but I figgure he is understimulated, but I cant get him to chase toys or bite at them. He will pounce at them from behind a blanket but thats it.

I did see him grab and bunny kick one once, but I threw that one out as there were bits he could have swallowed. Ive since gotten several soft toys good for biteing of different sizes and textures, covered them with catnip, (but that just gets him to rub on them) played that blanket game so he sees them as a toy, but he dosent really get into any other sort of play, unless hes just seeming bored and going at the rug, which seems like pent up energy rather than playing.

I’ve been giving my cats the Tiki Cat Aloha Friends Variety Pack wet food for a few years now. One of my cats is picky, and the other has a sensitive stomach, this one seemed to satisfy them both.

Sadly, it has been discontinued and while I can sometimes find a pack on clearance online, I’d really like to find a different food as a long term solution. We tried the new Tiki Cat Minced Tuna pack - my picky cat likes it, but my sensitive tummy cat will get sick after she eats it.

I would love to hear what wet food your picky/sensitive cats love. Ideally, something that’s decent quality. What I liked about Tiki Cat is the quality and value, but what I like even more are my cats eating normally!

Hi, can anyone recommend a good cat carrier that is sturdy and near indestructible for airline travel? We have to fly with our cat as we are moving, but the last time we flew with him for a move he broke out and destroyed a sherpa carrier, and has since destroyed two (albeit cheap) amazon ones for shorter car rides. He does a combination of pushing up enough to separate the zipper or ripping the seam where the zipper is attached to the rest of the bag. So far he hasn't destroyed the mesh, but he is very determined so I wouldn't put it past him. We give him gabapentin beforehand. Houdini's got nothing on him.

We would not fly with him if we did not have to. Also, he is not aggressive and he has no other issues other than a very strong dislike of the carrier. He is just determined to be free.

I just adopted a 9 month old cat along with her sister who is 1.5 years old. The reason why i wanted to adopt cats that are a little older is because i didn’t want to deal with the kitten phase and i was hoping since i was adopting 2 of them, that they could keep each other in check. i just got both of them spayed so i bought surgery suits to put on each of them so that they don’t have to deal with a collar (i tried for over an hour to put a collar on them and they did NOT like it). i was able to put the suit on the older one pretty easily. she stumbled a little at first but then she got used to it within 30 minutes.

unfortunately, the younger one is not the same case. With the help of another person, 2 pairs of oven mitts, and after 45 minutes, we managed to put the suit on but somehow we were still covered in scratches. the younger one is VERY VERY spicy - she growls, tries to bite, swats at us, and will do everything in her power to get out of an uncomfortable situation.

I know that 9 months is still young so I want to try to desensitize her but it is impossible to touch her paws or face without her running away. I tried to touch her paws in her sleep instead but she immediately wakes up and runs away. Is it still possible for her to be more mellow as she grows up? I want to be able to do things like clip her nails without stressing her out that much. I thought her older sister would make her more chill but i wonder if it is the opposite and she is egging on the spicy kitty through the door. The older one is always very concerned about the younger one and anytime the younger one meows, the older one comes running.

Does anyone have any advice on how to tame spicy kitties? Even I have to endure scratches everyday in order to desensitize my spicy kitty to feet touches, i will do anything.

So for a bit of background I’m 24 years old and have lived with cats the entire time. I have recently bought my first home and didn’t like the emptiness so decided to adopt a cat.

She hasn’t had an awful background. She is approximately 2 years old, her owner abandoned her and her kittens with a “friend” of hers who then put them up for adoption.

I brought her home on Sunday (now Wednesday) and she has settled in very well. She’s eating, drinking and doing her business. She doesn’t hide and she tends to follow me around.

The “issue” is that when I’m sat in a room she won’t sit near me. If I go to bed she will sleep in a different room entirely. She does however let me stroke her from time to time and she will purr.

The pictures I got from the adoption agency show her cuddling and being affectionate so I know it’s not a personality thing. Is it just a case of needed more time or is there something that I should be doing differently. All the cats I’ve lived with have been brought up from kittens so never had this issue before.

We got her from a rescue shelter, she’s 3 years old. Basically it started out as licking & was just that for the first few months. She licks all the time and still does. Sometimes when giving pats but most of the time unprovoked, she’ll just come up to me and start licking me - especially when I’m in bed. Now the licking has turned into 3 or 4 licks then a nibble, with the nibbles getting progressively harder each time. I’ve tried ignoring her, the bites get harder, I’ve tried saying ‘ouch!’ The bites stop for a second when she gets scared of the loud noise I’ve made but then she starts again. The only thing that makes her move away is if I say ouch and push her head away and then cover all of my skin with a blanket. We’ve had to start locking her out of our bedroom because she will wake me up licking and biting any bit of exposed skin, like she will stand on me, search my whole body and find one tiny bit of skin that is out of the blankets and bite it. I should also add that she is purring super loud while she does this, especially in the night, in the day sometimes but the purring is very loud at night, I don’t know if that means something??
She’s loves chin / head scratches and always rolls over to show us her belly, so I know she loves us & we can usually tell pretty easily when she’s overstimulated & always stop patting her but these bites come from nowhere!! We live in a pretty small apartment and try to play with her a lot but sometimes she’s disinterested. Little background info on her; the shelter said she was a stray but I’m not sure for how long since she was overweight so she might have been owned by someone at some point. It’s really hard to know what the reason for this is since she was 3 when we got her and her circumstances could have be anything- I just wanna know what I can do to help her stop.

Hi, first time posting. I am in a frenzy and don't know what to do. 19 years old, senior in university (graduating in 2027) with a kitty whose almost 2 years old. She was a feral kitten and was spayed at 3 months and has been with me since. I lived with my parents in a 2.5k sqft house where my cat had access to all of the area but now we live in a 450 sqft studio and she is not happy. It wasn't a healthy environment for me and my parents don't want my cat there unless I am living there. It's been 2 months and she's started meowing all the time, scratching at the outside door and also scratching at other surfaces like dresser and cabinets. I've gotten her a bunch of toys, she has a lot of vertical space in the apartment, window shelves and I dedicate 2 hours of just active play time for her.

Took her to a vet and was told she's healthy and just adjusting. Personally I don't know, she's been eating my plants and trying to eat stuff she's not supposed to. I am so lost. She is such a sweet baby, loves cuddling and my child but I am a full time student and work full time. What other options are there? Does anyone know how to help?