The other feline by-product...

Poop

Did I get your attention?

We all wait with dread and hope with spinal cord injured cats for their bladders to come back online, because if you don’t pee… you die. It’s pretty simple. A bladder than can not empty will kill you in 24 to 48 hours & it’s a miserable way to go.

So, we learn to check bladders and squeeze them to pee our cats in hopes that we can do this long enough for enough recovery to occur so that our cats can be OK enough. Just OK enough.

One thing we overlook at first is this.  Can the cat pass stool? Poop.

When the nerves to the hindquarters are inured, not only do the signals get messed up to the bladder and back legs, they also get messed up going to the colon.

What this means?

Constipation.

Super cool, isn’t it. It’s bad enough to have to figure out how to make a cat pee by hand, and now you are asking me to make it poop?

Well, sorta.

As Boogar ages his colon is working less and less. Other spinal cord injured cats also have problems with this. So lets talk about what it is and what to do.

Here how it works. It works allot like the bladder.

The nerves tell the colon it is full and they tell it to squeeze in an organized manner. This makes you ‘need to go’. The muscles push in a pattern and push out the ‘log’, ‘gift’, ‘cat byproduct’, ‘stool or whatever you wish to call it (send me what you call it & make me laugh & I’ll post it), leaving room for more coming on down the pipes.

If your nerves are not working, then everything gets backed up.

When it backs up, it dries out and gets bigger and bigger. It dries because it is your body’s job to suck the extra water out. It gets bigger because it’s still coming down the pipes but it’s not escaping…like a big brown bad smelling traffic jamb.

What needs to happen is a few different things. It needs to stay soft enough for the body to push, and sometimes the body needs help clearing things out.

This means stool softeners, and enemas.

Now there are some easy stool softeners out there. The best and easiest? Canned pumpkin.  

So, how do you get a cat to eat canned pumpkin? Mix a spoonful into the yummiest canned cat food you can find, about 1/3^rd pumpkin to 2/3^rd cat food and many cats will eat this. Try for a heaping spoonful a day.

Pack the extra pumpkin into an ice cube making tray and freeze it, store it in freezer bags and defrost one at a time.

The other stool softeners are prescription in the USA, Lactulose is one. It’s a nasty, super sweet syrupy stuff that sucks water into your colon to keep everything soft and wet. Most cats will take it. Don’t use it as an emergency coffee or tea sweetener…

You may learn to help your cat pass stool, when you feel for a bladder and realize there is a great big log in your way. It’s sort of a firm but gentle massage and milk it out movement. (I so need to make YouTube videos or hook up a webcam).

When all else fails, you may need to learn to do an occasional enema.

CAUTION

Do not give an over the counter enema. Cats can not tolerate some of the substances people can.

Warm water and KY is generally thought of as safe.

Talk to your vet about what kind is OK. You will need to be shown the first time how to give a cat enema. Once again, Don’t try this at home without live one on one direction.

But enemas used carefully can help.

this is pea pod. his eyes look like they do 

because of damage from high blood pressure.

The iris has holes where his lense flashes

red through in photos.