Ritzy scared us to death! (gross out caution)

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11-22-2002, 08:01 PM
tuxluvr

Ritzy scared us to death! (gross out caution)

Ritzy girl was not her normal self tonight - I wasn't home as I was visiting some relatives....got a call that she had been sick, but we thought it was just her usual "snarfing down" of food too fast...but she kept getting sick.

Apparently Lil miss found a big long string of some kind...thinner than a shoestring but thicker than just string, like a drawstring from silk pajamas or something.... who knows....anyway about 2 feet long, apparently she thought it was a really long mouse tail and swallowed it....she was sick after eating.....my spouse had to help get hold of the end of it and CAREFULLY pull it out (yuck)...but think we have it..it was folded up TWICE inside her!!!

She is now playful and eating and drinking again and so far after 2 hours no more uurrping....
I still don't know where this came from...other than perhaps the closet floor - we try to keep it closed, but there was a small opening. VERY scary - when I think of what might have happened if it had blocked her intestines...I am on poopy patrol tomake sure the "other end" is working...Kudos to hero daddycat for being there in a pinch.
11-22-2002, 08:21 PM
Vermontcat

Oh No! I hope Ritzy is ok now. It sounds like she did the old "Kitty Floss" trick where she tried to floss out her insides!
This can happen when a cat eats tinsel from the Christmas tree too!:eek:
I hope she feels better soon.
11-22-2002, 09:58 PM
Cataholic

Yipes! Ms. Ritzy, what were you thinking??? I hope you got it all out, and a few poops will tell you..and thankfully you knew to pull it out slowly.

I think you should know by 24 hours if things are 'fine'. Do you think a type of laxitive, or stool softener is appropriate? You know, something to help her go easier???:confused: :confused:
11-22-2002, 11:31 PM
Miss Meow

Ewwwwww, what a scary way to freak out the furparents! Poor Ms Ritzy, I hope your tummy is empty now and you're feeling a lot better :)
11-23-2002, 04:48 AM
BastetsMum

What a horrible thing to happen to furrparents and furkid! I hope she will be ok! If she starts throwing up again get her to a vet and take the string with you so they know what they are looking for!

Some cats are known to swallow string. Its a fairly common vet proceedure to open up a furkid with a ball of string in their gut.

I am glad though that you pulled it gently out and hopefully *fingers crossed* got most of it.

I wish you all well
11-23-2002, 06:51 AM
tuxluvr

So far so fine - all is aok in the poopy department and she is her old lively self again. I eating and drinking normally. She has her regular vet visit on Monday morning, so if any repercussions - I do plan to ask him about it...

This is a first for this 2 1/2 year old puss - mom and dadcat will be careful of the string toys from now on.

WHEW!
11-23-2002, 07:21 AM
smokey the elder

I'm so glad Ritzy is OK. You think you have a place catproof but the cat often has other ideas.
11-23-2002, 08:35 AM
kimlovescats

Thank GOD that Ritzy is ok.... so scary the things that kitties can get themselves into .... or in this case ... "into themselves"!
11-23-2002, 01:02 PM
tuxluvr

Quote:

Originally posted by Cataholic
Yipes! Ms. Ritzy, what were you thinking??? I hope you got it all out, and a few poops will tell you..and thankfully you knew to pull it out slowly.

I think you should know by 24 hours if things are 'fine'. Do you think a type of laxitive, or stool softener is appropriate? You know, something to help her go easier???:confused: :confused:

Good advice, but so far we seem to be ok. Ritz is VERY regular in the poopy department and has something of a predictibale nature when it comes to her moods. I sifted the litter last night so that I would know anything in there today was "after" the event...so we seem to be ok.

She has been drinking water, ate all her food today, and visited the litterbox again. She has also been very lively and playful. What i worried about was getting an infection in her tummy from the foreign object. When my spouse got home yesterday, he said she wasn't her usual self, following him around the house, meowing...instead she was kind of sullen and subdued, not a typical Ritzy mood at all. After she finally got the offendng object out, within an hour she was prancing around, playing and eating...I just worried that the lining of her tummy/esophagus would have been irritated

I've been scouring the house for any sign of what she might have gotten hold of. Day before I had been cleaning out a closet and I think she might have found a drawstring from pants...it didn't look thick enough to be a shoestring...and she must have hid it away in her "stash" because we always close that door during the day when we are gone.

Like others said I've always felt I was so careful about "catproofing" and Ritzy never seemed to show much interest in ingesting string...other than the fake mouse tails, which we chop off before letting her play.

Crisis averted, it would seem. She's getting a lot of hugs and attention from me today..the thought of something happening to that little tuxedo face is just more than I could bear.!
11-23-2002, 04:40 PM
lynnestankard

Just sooooo relieved alls well that ends well :D

Lynne
11-23-2002, 05:45 PM
ChrisH

So glad Ritzy is ok and no real harm done. :)

But, oh boy, there was I thinking it was just the dogs who were the ones to worry about in eating weird stuff department! Shows how much I know about cats! :o
And what has been going through my mind lately.... "maybe...I`m not sure... hell, I DO want to have a cat!" :confused: think I`d better do some more thinking! lol
11-23-2002, 06:35 PM
Cataholic

Quote:

Originally posted by ChrisH
And what has been going through my mind lately.... "maybe...I`m not sure... hell, I DO want to have a cat!" :confused: think I`d better do some more thinking! lol

of course you want a cat! We will be here to see you through any questions that you might have. They aren't that much different than dogs, really...just cuter..:D
11-23-2002, 06:58 PM
momoffuzzyfaces

Gosh, Ritzy!!! I hope you chucked all the string up. Please feel all better now and don't scare your parents like that again.

My uncle had a dog that ate the rind off a slice of bologna. The rind got wrapped around the dogs intestines and he had to be put down. (This was over 20 years ago and vet medicine has improved a lot since then) I try to keep all strings, rubber bands and yarn and the like out of paw range but they're like little kids and want to put things in their mouths. No matter how careful you are, they are sneakier. Leonardo chucked up some plastic a while back. I never found out where he got it. I thought I had it all out of paw range.

Paws crossed that Ritzy is fine now.
11-23-2002, 07:16 PM
Vermontcat

Quote:

Originally posted by ChrisH

And what has been going through my mind lately.... "maybe...I`m not sure... hell, I DO want to have a cat!" :confused: think I`d better do some more thinking! lol

Yes ChrisH, you DO want a cat, and Bob wants a cat and you should get a black and white cat like a tux cat to go with Bob.;)
Don't you know that if you spend time here on the cat board we will talk you into it, that is what you were hoping for right?:)
11-23-2002, 08:34 PM
jenluckenbach

Poor, silly Ritzy. You should know better. You could hurt yourself. I am glad that all seems fine. Pulling a string out (from either end) is not always the right thing to do. Bet that was scary>
11-24-2002, 04:35 AM
ChrisH

Vermontcat :D you got it!! LOL
11-24-2002, 02:22 PM
tuxluvr

Quote:

Originally posted by jenluckenbach
Poor, silly Ritzy. You should know better. You could hurt yourself. I am glad that all seems fine. Pulling a string out (from either end) is not always the right thing to do. Bet that was scary>

Daddycat probably wouldn't have attempted to pull the string out, but it was "folded up" twice and both ends were sticking out... and over halfway hanging out of her mouth (about 4 inches) , so he was in kind of an emergency situation as she might have choked with it like that and couldn't seem to get it all the way out.

. We live 40 miles from the nearest emergency vet clinic, so time was of the essence here.

he put his hand around her chest gently and lifted her slightly so that gravity would get most of it... when he tugged lightly, it more or less slid out the rest of the way... if it had been a single strand, we would have been off to the vets. We watched her very closely for the rest of the evening for signs of emergency need.....she perked up almost IMMEDIATELY after the thing was out of her...

She was her old self yesterday, but we still were on the 48 hour poopy patrol....glad to report that as of this morning, all is "moving through" as it should!
11-24-2002, 02:30 PM
tuxluvr

Quote:

Originally posted by ChrisH
So glad Ritzy is ok and no real harm done. :)

But, oh boy, there was I thinking it was just the dogs who were the ones to worry about in eating weird stuff department! Shows how much I know about cats! :o
And what has been going through my mind lately.... "maybe...I`m not sure... hell, I DO want to have a cat!" :confused: think I`d better do some more thinking! lol

I don't think it is as typical with cats as dogs, but I do know that cats love to play with string and yarn, but have always been very careful about leaving anything like that within "paw's reach".....this was just so odd - I'm still not sure where this came from - I know she loves to chew the tails off the fake fur mousies, so we started removing them before letting her play with them.....this thing was about the same thickness as one of those mouse tails...so for a while she probably thought she was in "mouse tail heaven"...:rolleyes: :eek:
11-24-2002, 06:18 PM
Cataholic

Ritzie- you scared us!!!! No more mouth stuff, unless Mommy gives it to you, ok?;)
11-25-2002, 07:11 AM
Vio&Juni

So glad Ritzy's ok :)
11-25-2002, 01:21 PM
wolflady

OMG! What a scare! I'm so glad that everything seems to be OK with her now though. It's always tricky when it comes to swallowing long strands of string like that. Cats have a tendency of finding things, no matter how good we cat proof a house :rolleyes:
We had a similar incident with Marius, and now that I think about it, we're lucky that everything turned out ok. Aaron and I were actually on vacation and we had a pet sitter coming every other day to feed/check-up on our babies. Anyway, when we came home, I saw the pink string toy lying in a puddle on the floor (the typical barf puddle). Marius had to have swallowed it and urped it up later. I don't know if he had gotten up somewhere to get it, or if the sitter left it out because we always put that toy away when we didn't play with it for that very reason of Marius eating it. Ugh! I'm just glad that he was able to get it back up and everything was ok.

For Ritzy, I think dadcat's actions were right, because she might otherwise have choked. I would have been in full panic mode for sure!
Give Ritz a cuddle for me and tell her not to get into any more hidden string!
11-25-2002, 02:15 PM
kimlovescats

So glad Ritzy is "out of the woods"! A dear friend of mine just got through a similar scare with her baby. He swallowed that rubbery red string that comes around sliced bologna!!!! Talk about a scare! She had to give him lots of laxatives and wait it out. Thankfully, he is fine ... but no more purchasing the bologna with the red rings anymore for her!!!
11-25-2002, 05:06 PM
tuxluvr

Ritz is all AOK. We went to the vets this morning for the "annual" visit.....she protested with all her might, but all is ok in the kitty innards!
11-26-2002, 04:02 PM
BigCharles

Cindy had something like this happen after wraping Christmas packages. She lost track of a length of red ribbon. Lamoni had found it.

A day or so later Cindy was petting Lamoni and thought that there was something odd under his tail. It was the red ribbon. She took hold of the end of the ribbon and just HELD ON.

As Lamoni walked away the ribbon came out the rear end. He did all of the pulling. Cindy says that there was almost two feet of ribbon in there. Well, he IS a big cat.