Expert: Ali - 5/2/2009

Question
Is it true that if a cat suddenly has white foam coming from his mouth and it doesn't last long, than he may have just eaten a spider or a stinging-type of insect?

Answer
Melanie,

Not necessarily. Domestic cats are quite sensitive to a number of different substances that can cause them to froth at the mouth. Cats routinely froth at the mouth if they've gotten something that they don't like the taste of in their mouth. Some cats will froth at the mouth and drool profusely prior to vomiting. I've seen cats froth at the mouth when they've been given certain medications in liquid and pill form that they don't like the taste of. Symptoms like excessive drooling and frothing at the mouth can also be an indicator that your cat has ingested poison, insecticide or even a household cleaning product, so I'd recommend making sure to use pet friendly, non-toxic cleaners, avoid the use of insecticides and poisons within your home if at all possible. There are several wonderful recipes for non-toxic cleaning products online. I've also seen and tried a variety of natural ways to repel or kill insects including fleas. In the case of fleas I recommend using natural remedies like adding some garlic to your pets' food, brewer's yeast also appears to make pets less attractive to fleas. There are also natural flea baths and powders, they may cost a bit more initially, however the cost is worth it in the end, you don't risk harming yourself, your pets or the environment when using eco-friendly choices.

Rodenticides should be kept well away from cats, this includes making sure that your cats don't ingest poisoned rodents. Antifreeze is very attractive to pets because these products have a sweet taste to them, I would urge any person with pets or children in their homes to invest in similar products containing a bitter agent to make these poisons less appealing to kids and pets. Another concern is that he may have ingested a small amount of some sort of human medication that he shouldn't have. Cats can be awfully curious by nature and many will try most things at least once so for your cat's well-being be sure that you pay special attention to keeping drugs of any kind well out of reach of your cat because many of the over the counter, illicit and prescription medicines we routinely take can be quite toxic and even cause death in cats.

Although having a cat contract rabies in most developed countries where rabies vaccines are required for pets by law would be very unusual there is a chance that a cat could be infected if he's not vaccinated and he's been bitten by any unidentified animal carrying the virus. I think that you should consider it as a possibility if your cat is unvaccinated, allowed outside unsupervised and he's recently been bitten by another animal.

Signs of rabies include temperament change - friendly animals become aggressive, aggressive animals seem friendly or restless, unprovoked attacks, biting or scratching anything that moves, change in your cat's voice, protruding third eyelid, drooling or appearance of choking, tremors, lack of coordination, loss of balance, paralysis and respiratory failure, staggering or erratic behavior. The appearance of these symptoms doesn't necessarily mean that your cat has rabies, these signs can point to other more common, but serious conditions which are treatable. In the event that your cat routinely goes outside, he appears to have one or more bite wounds from an unknown animal and he hasn't had a rabies shot you should bring these symptoms to the attention of your family vet so that the cat can be placed in quarantine and rabies can be ruled out as the cause of his symptoms.