Conniecat...question about my kitten

[Cricket]

Since you are so into cats I thought you would know a lot about them. We have a 6 month old kitten and when he eats he swallows the food pieces whole, no crunching like our other cat did. I do buy him all natural kitten food from the pet shop, which is small, hard pellets. Is this normal? Also, he had an upper resperatory infection when my daughter found him outside and we took him to the vet and got antibiotics for him. After those meds were gone he had an infection on his neck, in which the vet game him another bottle of antibiotics. He now has asthma type sounds coming from him. Not bad, and not often. I am just wondering if that is just a result of his upper resperatory infection. It has cost us over $600 for this little guy and if we can avoid taking him every minute to the vet , it would help. Of course this included declawing and getting him up-to-date on shots and neutering him. Boy, our saying yes to taking him in has been quite a pocket emptying experience! He actually looks exactly like your kitty with the white paws and under belly white. He is very adorable and spoiled and we love him so much. He is quite a brat to say the least. Cricket our pomeranian will just be laying down, enjoying a snooze when out of the blue we see Pepe Le Pew run , jump on Cricket's tummy and fly into the other room before Cricket knows what just jumped on her!!

 

[GloBug]

I'll chime in until Connie sees this posting...

Those asthma sounds, are they constant, or intermittent? Sounds like they might be a cat sneeze, but kinda backwards. It's hard to explain, but they do those and since he just got over an upper respiratory thing, could be related.

If he's swallowing his food whole (silly kitten!) I would crush them, and mix it in some natural canned cat food for him for now. He'll learn. If he was feral and hungry, it might take a while for him to calm down about food.

When I first brought Kiefer home, I was taking him to the vets CONSTANTLY at first... split toe nail, then pink eye (the very next day!), this and that. It adds up, that's for sure. Then we look at them when they are sleeping, and we remember how much we love those little critters.

 

[conniecat]

Hi, sorry, just got home. About the food, unless he is throwing it back up, it should be OK, Simon does the same thing. I think it is because of the teeth coming in that the gums are sore. By 8 months they should have all their adult teeth. If you are still concerned about him gulping, you could mix a little canned food in, like Glo said, or even a little water which is what my vet recommends for a neutered male
to avoid cystitis. I don't do this, I feed them Purina One urinary tract food.

About the asthma sounds, watch him, cats do have allergies. We had a female who wheezed and had a runny nose all ther life. If it look like it is causing him a problem breathing during kitten fits (running, leaping, going crazy) then I would ask the vet. Otherwise it may clear up on it own.

I understand about the vet bill, I would not have been able to adopt Simon if a couple very nice friends had not contributed to his upkeep, for which I am more and more grateful as he just gets more and more loving and sweet. (well, usually, I am eating dinner as I type and he is on the desk trying to steal the chicken out of my plate everytime I look away!)

Let us know how he does, and WE WANT PHOTOS!!!!!!

 

[PassthePeas]

I rescued a kitten around Christmas time as a gift for my mom as she'd been wanting one so badly. He was in the pound 5 minutes when I found him, had to stay overnight for shots, etc, but darned if he didn't get the dreaded upper respiratory infection. A friend took us to the animal emergency center on Christmas day, and we got a 7 day supply of antibiotics and stuff for fever. The vet told me that the antibiotics do nothing but prevent pneumonia. The upper respiratory infection has to run it's course. "Bandit" was presented to my mom a few days after Christmas, still coughing and sneezing a little bit (making that little asthma sound you talked about) and it took him a total of about a month to completely get over it. Oh, and another thing, this stuff is HIGHLY contagious... just in case you have other cats. Keep them well away from the new baby! My kitties say get well soon!