Expert: Jana Connell RVT, CVT - 2/1/2012

Question
Hi, I'm wondering if you can give me any advice. One of my cats was a stray that we took in when she was just a tiny kitten. She is over 2 years old now. We didn't think she was going to make it because she had some kind of issue with her bowels. She was so constipated and wasn't able to have a bowel movement for a very long period of time, and she didn't respond to medications. We took her to the vet, and I'm not exactly sure what they did, but they somehow loosened up her GI tract. As a result, all of her stool comes out semi-solid/liquidy and matts to her rear end. She is not able to completely pass the stool, so it collects there and builds up. She smells putrid and is constantly leaving drips on the floor, as we can't get near her. We are at a loss of what to do and need advice on her diet or supplements to help her.

Answer
Well, without knowing if this cat is a short-tailed cat like a Manx or how long this has been going on, it's probably going to be pretty hard for me to tell you anything more than to get her back to the vets and have her looked at again.
I mean, how long has this loose bowel issue been going on? This is a common problem with Manx cats or any cat with a very short tail- as in so short there isn't a vertebrae sticking out of her little rump.

There are foods made for cats that have these issues, as well as supplements like Vetacyl, or feeding them canned pumpkin for life.

There is also a very hard to treat form of diarrhea that cats can get from a parasite called Tritrichomonas foetus. This is a very serious and often undiagnosed cause of feline diarrhea.
Here are some articles on it:
http://fabcats.org/breeders/infosheets/tritrichomonas.html

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/tritrichomonas_foetus.html

Food has a big play in this as well, but no food on earth will help unless she is tested for a lot of different parasites and then treated for them.

This could be a mechanical issue, in other words, how she is built, which is why I asked about her tail. Short or no tailed cats tend to have problems with nerve conduction to the anus and rectal area due to a lack of nerve endings that normally radiate out and down from the spine- which is what the tail is. So the lack of a tail can mean the lack of nerves to control her bowel movements etc.

Sometimes there is just nothing you can do but keep her clean all of the time, and be vigilant about keeping flies off of her in the summer.
If it gets too bad then the kindest thing to do for her is have her put down.

If her quality of life is suffering, then so is she.

If you can answer some questions about her tail, what she eats, and when she last saw a vet about this issue, I will see what else I might be able to add to this.

Thanks