Expert: Tina - 11/29/2008

Question
Hello!

I just adopted 2 cats in August, Jazz and Java.  They are brothers, nine months old.  When I got them (They were five months old then), Java was by far the bigger of the two.  He was very playful and active.  Now Jazz is much bigger,  has a beautiful coat, is still very playful, active, curious, and a bit feisty.  But Java is small now, his coat does not look very healthy, he sleeps a lot,  plays very little, and is excessively nervous and timid.  And he has constant diarrhea (It seems there may be some blood in it), and keeps going outside of his litter box.  The treatment the vet gave him has not helped.

Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks!

Thanks!

Answer
Hi Bethany,

You need to take your cat to another vet for a second opinion. I can't tell you what is wrong over the internet, his symptoms could be anything from having swallowed something and having an intestinal blockage to worms to irritable bowel disease. You should bring a stool sample with you to the vet and they should do xrays or ultrasound to look for foreign matter in his digestive tract.

Next time you email please include more details about your cat - for example what is the medication the vet gave you, what was the vet's diagnosis?

Hopefully this will turn out just to be internal parasites which are easily treated - but there are several different types of worms and you need a specific medication for different worms.

You may also want to consider what you are feeding your cats, you didn't mention it. I recommend a high quality meat based canned food sich as Wellness, Innova Evo, or Nature's Variety Instinct. Here is some more info about cat nutrition:

http://www.catinfo.org