cat sullen all week, restless, sleeping out of the way places.
vets yesterday, big lump on its stomach, ultrasound today.
16 years old.
crossing fingers.

Doesn’t sound great… Hope it turns out to be nothing serious though.

Sorry top hear that, lumps and bumps appear with ages, don’t worry unnecessarily about them.
Hope he come through all fine, lost my cat to a stroke a month or so ago, sorely missed.

Our cat is down the vets today because of violent wind !

Been on a course of pills but it hasn’t stopped the explosions, which used to surprise him but he’s now used to them.

Any news yet, roady_tony?

Hope it turned out to be nothing to worry about.

Nothing constructive to add, but sending best wishes.

thanks everyone!!!!! its been a real help today.

scan shows large liver tumour, waiting on blood tests to see what they return, however it looks like its too much liver taken over to operate…and being such an old moggie…..

The wife’s cat has just started eating the tip of his own tail. Anyone else’s done this? Likely cause? There’s nothing stuck to it or any obvious injury other than his self-harm.

My Mum’s cat started eating the fur off its tail when she went away on holiday. Was diagnosed as stress.

Poor Moggy, sending healing vibes roady_tony….

After letting out some rip-roaring farts tonight our topped it off with crapping on the floorboards – causing the wife to get the scented candles out (after the cleanup) 🙁

Was trying to use the toilet tray, but manages to stand in it whilst leaving his arse outside the boundaries…

Thinking of you OP, fingers crossed for a positive outcome. Ours is fourteen years old and I dread him getting unwell…

Was trying to use the toilet tray, but manages to stand in it whilst leaving his arse outside the boundaries…

I’ve never seen a cat succesfully crap in a tray – they always shat out.

Hope for some good news Tony…

One of our pack of three is in that age zone..

Let us know how you get on…

OP – my thoughts are with you. I’ve been through it twice with older cats; one cancer and one kidney failure. 🙁

And both of the new cats regularly miss their litter boxes! The big cat is tall and long, and his are near misses (right next to/over the box) so are understandable. The little 5 lb cat misses by a whole room, sometimes! 👿

thanks once again all.
my heart goes out to all those who have been through this themselves…

blood tests came back all clear, so the option is go for the op and see if we can get it out, or leave him asleep on the table. or , pain meds and leave things to take their course of action.

i’d like to go for the op, but the half wants the second option….
we dont really need to decide till monday i guess.

I’m not a cat owner but isn’t 16 years a good innings for a moggy?

Having had two dogs get old I think that option 2 is probably the kindest option, although not the easiest.

Hope it all works out for the best whichever route you take.

All cats crap outside the litter boxes IME. They do it on purpose because they know it’s annoying. We put our trays on newspaper to catch it and then they started crapping on the edge of the box, because they knew it annoyed me.

I found, not letting them in the house resolved that issue.

Hard decision. You do hear of plenty older cats making a full recovery from major surgery, but I’m sure there are plenty less able to bear it. I’m guessing it won’t be cheap either. I’d be tempted to let the moggy slip away peacefully tbh.

Tough call, if he seemed pretty healthy and fit up to this point, I’d be tempted to go down the surgery route myself.

Sorry to read this Tony 🙁

I think I’d probably go for the surgery option if it was one of mine.

Either way, I’ll be thinking of you.

I had to say goodbye to my 12 yr old ‘Fred’ last month after he had a goofball sized tumour in/on his spine at the injection site (ironically for the anti cancer drugs)

Worst and hardest choice ever to take him for his final trip. I totally failed to MTFU.

Sadly you’ll know when it’s right, and the vets are sensible with their advice I found – yes surgery was an option, but you’re delaying an inevitable fate, while causing more discomfort 🙁

Our fab cat died two years ago of cat lukemia, he was a big brute of a thing. Stopped eating and went downhill fast, idiot vet kept saying they didnt know what it was and take this and take that blood tests etc. He was on the bed when the other halfs daughter went to move him to give him a tablet. All hell breaks loose as his lungs had filled with fluid. Missus thinks he is choking so opens his mouth and he managed to bite through her thumb, daughter is screaming at he mum to save the cat and then he is gone. Heartbreaking, he was a noble beast that didnt deserve an ending like that. Still chokes me up now. Missuses daughter is devastated, he was born under her bed when she was 8 and the two of them were inseparable. He was the onlt cat I have ever seen do tricks on command. If she went away for a week or so he would get angry and bite her when she came back not hard but enought to show he wasnt happy. Then would ignore her but not be more than 3 feeet away. A huge character.

When its time it is time don’t let them suffer.

i hope your cat gets better soon 🙁

Hey, we have had our cat on a year long course of chemo and she has been fine, one more to go and she is all clear!

Just remember that no matter how bad it is there is always hope.

We lost our two to cancer and liver failure. In both cases, we ended up putting them out of their suffering and in both cases, I was heartbroken. We had adopted them as a pair of older cats and somehow they became part of the family. Took me nearly a year after the second one went to stop seeing him flitting about the house.

For the record, my cat has NEVER missed the dirt box. She is very fastidious. Just wanted to say that in defence of cats !

I feel really sorry for you mate, I know how hard it can be when you have had an animal that long. All the best.

Ours misses the bumtray all the time – yes, she is old and a bit senile, but I think she does it on purpose.

OP, hope all goes ok, whatever you decide.

Last thread on this subject had me shaking like a fat lass in a cake shop, just because I know the time isn’t too far away when we face the same decision about ours.

sigh, so many sad stories about pets yet we still love em and get new ones…

final trip to the vets today, all questions answered, best course of action is drugs/pain meds and waiting… so thats what we’ll do, spoil him with mince and fish and strokes and sleeping on the bed.

my humble thanks to you all

Feel for you. We lost two in the last year – Fat Jasper last year; he started failing of liver problems, we put him through all sorts of tests and treatments at the vet, which he hated, to no avail, and then finally had to put him to sleep anyway.

The other cat, Little Odo, was a Peter Pan cat. Even though she was 18, she stayed a kitten for 17.5 of those years, but she also started to go downhill a few months back and we decided we weren’t going to subject her to the same vet treatment and when the time came we’d do the right thing by her. In the end, it never came to that. She really deteriorated one weekend, went from mainly sleeping to totally listless to ‘in and out’ in the course of a couple of days. She was booked for the vets on monday morning, I sat with her for ages on sunday night telling her she could go any time she wanted and not to wait. Eventually I went to bed at half midnight, and when the wife got up for a wee at half three she was cold and stiff. Stubborn little sod, outwaited me after all. And then to cap it, instead of curled up like she always slept, she’d decided to stretch right out, tail and all, so i couldn’t find a box big enough to put her in. I had to get a huge printer box out of the loft and even then as i tried to lower her in, had to bend her tail round to get it to fit. Witch.

Very sad. I really feel for you.

Just caught up with this thread, hope all goes well Tony.

Best of luck mate, our Mickey made it to 21 so they can just keep on truckin

Our little black cat would hiss and scratch you if you came close to her then when you needed the loo she would come and sit on your lap.
Broke my heart when i had to bury her,
Sums up owning a cat for me.

Horrible time, really feel for you. Our two are rescue cats so don’t know exactly how old they are but I’m dreading the day I have a decision to make.

Our young cat has started crapping and peeing in the vegetable patch. I try to find the eggs and chuck them in the brook but should we worry?

Our young cat has started crapping and peeing in the vegetable patch. I try to find the eggs and chuck them in the brook but should we worry?

don’t throw poop into fresh water please.