hello, ive never made a reddit post like this before but im looking for some outside perspective on this. my cat who is 14 has had some kind of neurological episode. not sure if its a stroke or what. it all happened so unexpectedly. i came back from a work trip and noticed something was wrong and she was circling counter clockwise.. immediately and took her to the emergency very where they found out she has a large mass pressing against her lung which they believe is the underlying reason for this episode. they let me know that outside of surgery/chemotherapy if it was cancer which both are risky for her age, and genuinely out of my ability to pay, nothing can be done for her brain damage and to just give her the best care i can. i unfortunately travel for work a lot so i had to leave 3 days after finding this out but she was doing relatively well, eating, using the box and drinking, and i felt comfortable caring for her with these issues. i just came back from another two week work trip and her condition has severely declined. shes blind and cant really get around and im having to hand feed and give her water. i cant bare to see her like this but the thought of not giving it my all is destroying me. i know this will most likely end in having to put her down but this is my first time going through this on my own, i remember going to pick her out at the shelter when i was 11 and shes been my best friend ever since and im 25 now. does anyone have any kind of advice or suggestions on what to do or if this is even the right choice. i know no one can make that decision for me but im emotionally devastated knowing this is her end.

This is for a fairly distant future in which I start collecting different animals as pets but I really want to keep a lot of pets when I can cats included but also want to have reptiles such as snakes lizards frogs and basically everything else you can keep as a pet. So I’m wondering if people have figured out a way to have them coexist without hiding them from each other

My dog has always been a bit weird. We got her young (rescued from a bad situation) so shes not socialized quite correctly.

She was raised around cats and another dog about 6 months her senior. Ever since she was little and realized the cats would grab her and clean her, she would sprint over to either of the cats, throw herself at their feet, and wait there for them to clean her.

She's around ten now, and still bothers our cat constantly to clean her even more than she asks to be carried or held. I'd always assumed that it was just because it felt nice? Not sure why the cats clean one dog and not the other, though. (If it matters, the dog they clean is a shih-tzu mix with soft fur, and the dog they don't has coarser, terrier-like fur.)

Please limit unnecessary anthropromorphizing! (I do think animals can feel/have favorite individuals but it's not the flavor of answer I want.)

Like he should be fine right it was only a 75mg? (Yes ik not replacing vetinary advice or wtv I'm not I promise)

Like you have a stray cat that you feed something and willingly stay in your house and can leave the house anytime they want

A cat settling beside its owner may be part of a relationship that reaches beyond companionship. A small study of Japanese households found links between feline and human hormone levels, while closer everyday proximity was associated with owners feeling more vigorous and active.

The research, published in iScience, examined 29 cats and 19 owners over one month. Saho Takagi of Kyoto University worked with Taisuke Tsubomura, Miho Nagasawa and Takefumi Kikusui. The team investigated whether everyday relationships could help explain why studies of cat ownership and human wellbeing have produced inconsistent findings.

The results suggest that cats and owners share measurable physiological patterns. However, the study cannot establish whether cats improve their owners’ moods, happier owners interact differently with cats, or shared household conditions influence both.

Okay so for full context I currently have a 9 years old pug and a 4month old kitten at home. The dog is the familly dog and the cat is mine. The problem is that except my mom and me no one in the familly truly take care of the dog in the way that they don't play with him, don't walk him and just go to pet him and return to do whatever what they were doing (2 sisters and a father. My mom go walk him when she can and sometimes walk him. Which mean that I'm the one that has to be with him during the day, play with him and walk him.

And I feel completely terrible for him the guilt is intense, I can't leave the house without thinking that I should stay because he didn't go for a walk and knowing no one will do anything and he will just sleep on the couch. I'm mentally ill and don't always have the energy to do all what I need to do and I have school so sometimes I find it truly hard to do all what I need to do. He walk once a day and we have a backyard and I try to play with him when I can but I know its not enough for a dog even for a 9 year old pug.

And I'm so mad that everyone think that he's fine like that. My dad think its not his problem and that he don't need to do anything because it's "not his dog" and my two sisters just stay in their room and basically think he's just there to be a cute dog.

I feel like crying from guilt I don't know what to do anymore and I'm so tired I cannot keep this up with my current schedule, right after school I go right back home to be with them or else I feel too bad but I still have a life.

Hi everyone,

As title says, just want to put this out to the universe to see if we can get some hope and some additional good vibes and prayers sent to our baby. He is a 7-year old mutt and late Thursday/early Friday began his fourth bout of Hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, or so we thought!

It has always started the same: lots of puking, followed by an eventual turn into diarrhea with some blood, rapid dehydration. The first time he just needed a subcutaneous fluid bubble and that was it. Second time he was hospitalized overnight with IV fluids. Third time was ambulatory again. This time….he puked more times than he ever has before. They actually sent us away the first time we showed up even though we knew how this would progress because his vitals looked fine. Then, about two hours later he was panting and pooped his classic raspberry jam color & consistency stool so we brought him back in. The vet checked his heart rate and said it was 90, which is low for a dog with acute gastroenteritis so he said there was a possibility for Addison’s disease, which was then confirmed as atypical later.

Yesterday was a rollercoaster. From being told they could manage it and he would likely be discharged at night, to being told he was actually much sicker than normal and might need a mainline IV, to then being told he didn’t need one because he was improving on his own, to then his blood pressure dropping to 55, being told he had a 50/50 shot to survive and to come into spend time with him, to being told the mainline iv seemed to be helping and his blood pressure had stabilized.

We got to see him, and he has a bag hooked up to his bowels which is basically just continuously dripping blood out of him. We’ve been told this is concerning but not altogether surprising. They have given him lots of albumin to replace the protein and his levels are improving. They sedated him to put in a nasal feeding line and will try nutrition later tonight.

This has been absolutely awful and I’m having a hard time seeing stories similar to this one. We’re hoping his odds have gone up a bit since last night since he is holding stable but the vet says we are still in a critical point.

We are so worried and just looking for advice or reassurance or i don’t even know. We just want to get him through this now that we know so we can manage it well for him.

Please please, if you can send some well wishes to our boy Ardy, or some prayers if you pray, we could really use all the good energy.

Thank you.

And if your dog has repeated issues like excessive shedding, chronic GI issues, and other subtle symptoms, look into Addison’s disease.

Adult cat about 7 years old. Completely food obsessed, and frankly kind of an ass. Always has been. Like break into the fridge to chew his way into a bag of cat food I had to hide level bad.

Found a baby kitten abandoned near a dumpster, took her in, cleaned her and nursed her to health. Cats were separated for almost a month with the whole medical treatment process.

Introductions weren’t great. Adult cat avoids her completely at first, now he tolerates her barely and it feels he is mad at us for taking second kitty in. Separating the cats just seems cruel to any of them at this point. Either one would get locked up and isolated.

Kitty is rambunctious and sweet, doesn’t really get social cues well still and tries to play with the adult cat who is very much not having it.

How do I get them to get along and be happy? I already give the adult cat high places and plenty of extra food. Bought the pheromones but they’re not doing too much. Been about a month