Onyx
Lairian
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2014
- Messages
- 14
- Points
- 4
Hi. This is my first time posting here. I read through a lot of threads when I first got my Sphynx and found this forum really helpful. I have an issue that I'm trying to fix and I wanted to see if anyone has any advice or tips.
My Sphynx cat, Clyde, is not even a year old yet, but he's been getting into a lot of trouble. He's the sweetest cat I have ever met and me and my family fell completely in love with him. I did a ton of research before getting him [as he is not only my first Sphynx cat but also my first cat in general] and everything was going great for a while. Then, when he was around five or six months old, he had to get surgery in his intestines for swallowing a piece of plastic that we couldn't recognize. We were heartbroken, and it was very difficult for him and us to go through it, not to mention how ridiculously expensive it was. I started to watch him a little bit more closely after that.
Just two months later, he started vomiting again, and it turns out he swallowed THREE foreign bodies this time. I couldn't believe it. He loves to chew on plastic, on strings, electrical cords, rubber bands and hair ties. I don't know what to do with him. After the second surgery, I was so upset and felt so awful that I became extremely strict with him. He is always under supervision, and he stays in my room most of the time. He has a cage with a pet bed inside where he sleeps at night now. He used to sleep in my bed with me but he would wake up earlier than me and wander around my room and I am a heavy sleeper so I can't trust that I will wake up with him to watch him.
Recently, we put him in the cage and went downstairs to eat dinner really quick. It was less than 45 minutes and I came back and he chewed up and swallowed a part of his blanket that had thick decorative stitching on one end. We rushed to the ER and they forced him to vomit it out since we found it right after it happened. Now I can't even cover him with a blanket at night. I put two sweaters on him at a time to keep him warm through the winter but it breaks my heart that I can't cover him with a blanket anymore.
At this point I gave up on trying to predict what he would chew since it seemed impossible so instead I decided to just watch him instead to keep him out of trouble. He stays in the cage when I'm in school as I'm a college student and I'm not always home. I took only online courses this semester so now I'm always around so he's gotten used to being outside of the cage a little more since I can supervise him more. So now I have a new issue, it seems he's peeing in the cage, I think maybe to tell me that he doesn't like being in there, especially since I'm home more and he's in there less? I would have never put him in a cage when I first got him, but after the second surgery I just couldn't let him walk around freely all the time. At this point it could kill him. I've tried taking him to his litter box before putting him in the cage but he's stubborn and doesn't want to use it now unless he decides to do it himself without me asking him to [which is strange because before he would go when I did that]. I don't know if it's his way of telling me he doesn't like the cage. I don't think it's the litter because he's used that litter for a long time, at least four months, without any problems.
I can't afford any more surgeries [and pet insurance companies don't want to cover it at this point] and even if I could I don't think he can go through so many procedures. It feels cruel at this point. I love him so much and I have been trying to train him out of it. He's definitely responsive, he's learned not to jump on the kitchen counters when he used to do that constantly. But this chewing and swallowing thing is taking a long time to train him out of. I made up a word, "junk," for stuff that he shouldn't be eating to try to make the training more effective, but now a new behavioral issue has come up with him peeing and one time even pooing in his cage. The vet asked if he was taken away from his mother early and he wasn't, the breeder had us wait until he was three months old to take him home. So I don't think that's it.
Sorry for the long post, I didn't want to leave anything out. Does anyone have any tips on what I could do?
My Sphynx cat, Clyde, is not even a year old yet, but he's been getting into a lot of trouble. He's the sweetest cat I have ever met and me and my family fell completely in love with him. I did a ton of research before getting him [as he is not only my first Sphynx cat but also my first cat in general] and everything was going great for a while. Then, when he was around five or six months old, he had to get surgery in his intestines for swallowing a piece of plastic that we couldn't recognize. We were heartbroken, and it was very difficult for him and us to go through it, not to mention how ridiculously expensive it was. I started to watch him a little bit more closely after that.
Just two months later, he started vomiting again, and it turns out he swallowed THREE foreign bodies this time. I couldn't believe it. He loves to chew on plastic, on strings, electrical cords, rubber bands and hair ties. I don't know what to do with him. After the second surgery, I was so upset and felt so awful that I became extremely strict with him. He is always under supervision, and he stays in my room most of the time. He has a cage with a pet bed inside where he sleeps at night now. He used to sleep in my bed with me but he would wake up earlier than me and wander around my room and I am a heavy sleeper so I can't trust that I will wake up with him to watch him.
Recently, we put him in the cage and went downstairs to eat dinner really quick. It was less than 45 minutes and I came back and he chewed up and swallowed a part of his blanket that had thick decorative stitching on one end. We rushed to the ER and they forced him to vomit it out since we found it right after it happened. Now I can't even cover him with a blanket at night. I put two sweaters on him at a time to keep him warm through the winter but it breaks my heart that I can't cover him with a blanket anymore.
At this point I gave up on trying to predict what he would chew since it seemed impossible so instead I decided to just watch him instead to keep him out of trouble. He stays in the cage when I'm in school as I'm a college student and I'm not always home. I took only online courses this semester so now I'm always around so he's gotten used to being outside of the cage a little more since I can supervise him more. So now I have a new issue, it seems he's peeing in the cage, I think maybe to tell me that he doesn't like being in there, especially since I'm home more and he's in there less? I would have never put him in a cage when I first got him, but after the second surgery I just couldn't let him walk around freely all the time. At this point it could kill him. I've tried taking him to his litter box before putting him in the cage but he's stubborn and doesn't want to use it now unless he decides to do it himself without me asking him to [which is strange because before he would go when I did that]. I don't know if it's his way of telling me he doesn't like the cage. I don't think it's the litter because he's used that litter for a long time, at least four months, without any problems.
I can't afford any more surgeries [and pet insurance companies don't want to cover it at this point] and even if I could I don't think he can go through so many procedures. It feels cruel at this point. I love him so much and I have been trying to train him out of it. He's definitely responsive, he's learned not to jump on the kitchen counters when he used to do that constantly. But this chewing and swallowing thing is taking a long time to train him out of. I made up a word, "junk," for stuff that he shouldn't be eating to try to make the training more effective, but now a new behavioral issue has come up with him peeing and one time even pooing in his cage. The vet asked if he was taken away from his mother early and he wasn't, the breeder had us wait until he was three months old to take him home. So I don't think that's it.
Sorry for the long post, I didn't want to leave anything out. Does anyone have any tips on what I could do?