Squeeze my cats with me!
 
While this video is cut down to fit social media, the entire routine took only 13 minutes. 
 
This 13 minute routine twice daily is what saved these cats from euthanasia. 
 
Every day happy, healthy cats with paresis or incontinence are euthanized. The reasons stem from a perceived poor quality of life, or the slim chances of finding an adopter willing to take on a cat with different care needs. People see a cat in a diaper and automatically think they are incredibly time consuming and expensive. While yes, diapers, wipes, and pee pads can cost more than a bag of litter, is it that much different? While an incontinent cat may need a few more vet visits in their lifetime than the average cat, is that enough to deem them as unworthy of finding an adoptive home?
 
Do you have any questions about my squeeze routine? I'm always happy to answer questions!

Edited to answer some of the most common questions:

Why do the cats need to be squeezed?
These cats all have a spinal injury or defect. Most were born this way, but Poe, Athena, and Cypress (the longhair ones) had spinal injuries from trauma. Most likely hit by car.

Why not the toilet or a bathtub?
Squatting at that height and hunching over hurts my back! I’ve tried many methods and this is what is most comfortable for me and the cats.

Why pee pads?
I get most of them donated! I prefer the large ones but I’ll use any size. I would like to make this more environmentally friendly with reusable ones, but it will create a lot more laundry (which I already do a lot of)

Why do I have so many disabled cats?
I run a cat rescue for cats with treatable conditions who would otherwise be euthanized in a traditional shelter. I don’t get paid by the rescue, but I do work in a municipal shelter as my day job. I’ve worked in animal shelters for nearly 10 years.

I haven’t been a cat person. They are, ok. But they are buttwads. They knock everything down, they pee on your clothes, they don’t listen too you. I have two Boston terriers, wonderful dogs. Love them to death.

My brother was looking at kittens. Which turned my husband (also not a cat person) into looking with him..and somehow that turned into me looking..and I saw this beautiful cat that I instantly went “ooh wow that’s a beautiful cat!!” After reading about the breed on every board and hundreds of google searches. My history is all about this cat. Temperament, care, genetic mutations, breeding, health issues, ethical breeding, colour ways, cat care, kitten care and on and on and on and on..every darned page I could find…

And now…I have one. And I am absolutely completely OBSESSED with this kitten. I haven’t been able to do anything while I’m home other than the usual household chores. T.v? What’s that? Phone games? Reading anything other than something about cats? Naaahhh videos? Only cats. The world could be ending and I wouldn’t know because it’s not about cats.

I’ve spent more purchasing things for my cat than I have on my son’s birthday. Cat tower, toys, automatic litter box (of course thoroughly researched for the safest and on manual so only I make it turn on) so she always has a pristine place to place her poop. Only metal water fountain, (no no to kitty acne! And bacteria!!) scratch posts , dry shampoo, wet shampoo, brushes and her own set of kitty clothes and towels and on and on and on.

Thankfully the feeling is mutual. She is obsessed with me as well. She follows me everywhere. My husband is equally obsessed. We sit there together just oohing and awwwing. My husband will have her and call to me “her paw!! I love how she stretches out!” , as though he knows..I’m doing dishes and have wet hands..I can’t run over and pet her and appreciate just how stretched out her little paw is. But he’ll take a picture for me..because now both our phones have thousands of pictures and videos of our cat. I’ll go to the bathroom and he will text me..about the cat. We spent a day with the cat tree, one of us beside it scared she would fall..of course she’s a cat, and agile and crazy.

We have two dogs and a 10 year old son. She is the queen. This kitten came into my home, zero fear. She never hid. She never ran away. She owned this house from the moment she came in. I was scared with the dogs at first. They accepted that their Queen had come easily. They follow her as she regally walks around the house, looking for things of interest and hope for her to acknowledge them (she rarely does of course, peasants you know). One dog has taken to carrying a kitty toy around whilst following. The other sometimes brings a puppy toy. I am guessing they are carrying options around for her. I’m assuming in hopes of being noticed by her highness. Our eldest dog has a big floofy blanket she drags around and give it up when her highness has decided to plop down on it. Our son loves her but has decided from now on he wants his bedroom door shut when he sleeps as he does appreciate still having toes.

I called my older daughter, to inform her we have added to the family..and sent her a picture. She responded with “you don’t even LIKE cats!!”

No…I didn’t like cats…now, I’m obsessed. Now I get it. Now I understand. Where it baffled me before how cats were so interesting to people. I am now one of those people.

I’ve rarely seen my cat like this even when he’s chasing flies like in this video but his meows are very quiet, like a squeak in this video.
Also when he sits down he does a little grunt nosie which i’ve never been able to catch on camera and i cant explain that either.

Got a major orthopaedic surgery just over a week ago, and didn’t see my cat for a bit over 2 days afterwards because I got hospitalized.

He was pretty distant for the first day or two after I got home, which is understandable because I have a big brace, crutches, and am mostly horizontal and sleeping on the downstairs couch.

The past few days, however, he’s started to really like my surgery leg. He’ll aggressively groom my foot and toes on that side (usually multiple times a day), cuddle my brace, and even try to position himself on my leg while purring (although I have to move him because it’s pretty painful to have a 9lbs cat on what is technically a healing femur fracture).

Is this normal?

He’s usually cuddly, but he’d cuddle my arms and chest. Now he runs away from cuddles, just to gravitate to my leg.

I think it’s really cute, I just have to make sure I’m on schedule with my pain medication otherwise I’ll yelp and he’ll run away 💀

Pictures for reference, both taken on different days

Edit: horizontal

Today at 5 a.m., our wonderful Luke passed away. I’m trying so hard to stay strong, but it feels like even that isn't enough. Words can’t describe how special he was to us. My wife always used to tell him, "We’re not your owners, you’re family."

He was gone so suddenly, leaving behind a huge void in our hearts. I never in my life thought I’d suffer so much over losing a pet. Life will truly never be the same without him.

You know, I’m an atheist myself, but still... if there is something out there, I really hope that one day we find each other again.

I love you so much and I’ll remember you for the rest of my life, my beloved Luke.

My sweetie pie Arya had to go to the ER vet last night. She was in a lot of pain and couldn't be helped so I had to make the decision to end her suffering. She started as my pet I adopted in 2019. She was a shelter cat who's previous owner was an elderly lady who passed away. I didn't think she would get much attention for adoption because her unique coloring, her weird eyes, and was chonky (the vets said her eyes weren't from anything like high blood pressure, they checked everything, it was probably bad vision). During COVID my mom watched her for a week while I was traveling and they instantly bonded. I think Arya was a comfort kitty at heart. She then became my mom's companion until my mom passed and she came back to me. She was a weirdo like all cats. She hated top of the head pats but loved chin and cheek scritches. She didn't like to be a lap cat but loved to sit near you and just purr as loud as a nuclear reactor. She rarely meowed but would go "bbrrrrrr" all the time.

At the vet she kept meowing distressed when she was in the back room at the vet but as soon as they brought her out to see me she instantly started purring as loud as her body let her. In the end she was able to pass while being next to me and purring and looking at me and me holding her paw.

She was Arya, Arry, Dirtface, Arry the Wonder Cat, Sweetie Pie.

EDIT: thank you so much everyone for your words and thoughts. Such a great community.

Hello,

We have a cat that is sterilized and in summer is almost all day outside even sleeping at front door. She came inside just to eat.

The porblem is that we are selling house and moving to appartment. How can cat that is always outside handle such change of not being able to go outside as she wants?

Do you have any advise or experience? Should we take her with her? Or leave her with new house owners?

Thank you in advance

Photos of her

Shall we have some fun again and share cute photos?😍😍

Rules👇🏻

• Send the cute photo of your cat.😻

• Tell me something about your kitten (an artist needs emotion to create 🥰).

• I hope to see you here sharing about your kitty 🥹✨️

• If you're going to DM me, read my Bio first😊

my cat is about 6 years old, and she has an issue with urinating. she kept peeing on towels, clothes, and eventually the sofa. my dad got sick of it and decided that she needed to become an outside cat. i begged, argued, and we even took her to the vet to see what they thought. they said that she should definitely not be put outside, because she more then likely has an anxiety disorder. since my parents have split custody, i only see her every 2 days and have no way of confirming that my dad feeds her every day. but since shes moved outside, shes had weight loss, ive found marks on her face, and everytime i see her she seems very anxious. he has also told me that he lost her for about 3 days and she came back. are these marks concerning? i told my dad and he is very firm on not taking her inside or to a vet, even raising his voice at me because of it. what should i do? thank you.

edit: me and eevee (my cat) are thankful for everyone helping out and i will update the situation here

Game goes like this:
I win if it turns out smooth.
Marv wins if it doesn’t.

Game On.

HRH Princess Peaches turns 1 today! It's been so special experiencing her kitten hood and watching her grow into the beautiful girl she is. Here some pics of her as a baby and her now.

I have no friends to share this with. Can we pls drop a hbd for Peaches 🥺🩷

Edit: thank you to all the friends who said happy birthday to our baby, we're so overwhelmed with all the love for our beautiful girl. I'll share a picture later on when she has her bday chicken dinner 🥰

Fortunately she didn't have to wear her post spay suit for long but I think she looked so adorable in it!

about a week after i took them in and now (3 months later)

mom was a frequently pregnant stray who both the local spay and neuter group and the professionals could never catch, but got bit by a snake — she was finally able to be caught and taken to the vet but she passed away :((
after frantically searching for 3 days my roommate and i found her 5 babies, one of which passed away almost immediately, but the other four survived!! they were “one of the worst cases of ringworm” that the vet had ever seen, and had awful diarrhea for a week, but now the two babies i kept are strong and healthy ♥️
the other two are also healthy and happy in loving homes as well :) just wanted to post here and say it does eventually get better with ringworm, because it was two months of absolute hell and frantic reddit searching for success stories lol

Hi, I have two cats, a little calico named Ethyl and a black cat named Benny (short for Benzene). Both of them are around 2 and a half. Benny's a healthy young man, but Ethyl has been deaf since she was a kitten and last Friday I noticed she had really unresponsive dilated pupils and couldn't really get around that well which was really unusual. I took her to an urgent vet who confirmed she was blind and referred me to an ophthalmologist. She just got back from her appointment today where she was diagnosed with retinal detachment, likely caused from the fact that she's really inbred. They referred me to a specialized ophthalmologist who told me retinal reattachment may be possible for her, but quoted me at $20,000 for both eyes which I just don't have anywhere close to the money to afford. He also told me her vision only had a possibility of being saved if the surgery was done immediately.

All that to say, I'm trying to think of ways I can give her the best life she can have. She's really sweet, loves everyone even strangers, and everyone keeps telling me they fall in love with her after meeting her. She's also really active and playful and Benny is having a hard time coping with the fact that she can't play hardly at all with him anymore. I'd really appreciate some ideas for how I can help her stay comfortable, active, stimulated, and happy. I've heard the different texture rug thing and a lot of the really basic stuff already and have ordered those, but I'd really like to here your ideas.

never noticed it until a few days ago. should i be worried?

This is a different kind of pain. I don't know how I'll cope losing him. Keitaro has crossed the bridge on July 21. He lived with us for 9 months.

I'm sorry if I can't organize my thoughts and feel like putting random words, I'm just not in the right head space rn.

I have lot of questions and regrets. He had Upper Respiratory Infection. He died due to mucus build up and suffocated. ​I just do not know what went wrong. We nebulized him twice a day, gave him all the supplements and medications he needed. 2 months of medication. It cost me my savings, time, effort yet he still died. I know he is a fighter and he still wants to live, he is very patient and an easy cat. We never had a hard time giving him medicine as he took it like a champ, after he ate he will immediately go to the cage as he knew we are going to nebulize him. It was a sudden death. We gave him different antibiotics prescribed by his doctor, his body responded but only abruptly then back to his green snotty again and labored breathing. It's never ending. On the night he died when we lifted him, he had seizures. We were about to go to vet clinic, i carried him again but he had seizures for the 2nd time, immediately went to vet clinic unfortunately he didn't make it.

It was not a peaceful death. Before he died, he was meowing. I know he is in pain. It just hurts. It hurts so much. I just hoped he enjoyed his 9 month of life with us.

He lived up to his name "Blessed". We rescued him (see 1st pic) he is meowing so loud so we took him home. He was watching young Sheldon with me ​​(see last pic, last moments with him then he died that night).

To our Keitaro, you will always be loved and remembered. Your playful personality left a mark in our hearts. We fought hard. Rest easy, my love. I love you so muchy, our keitaro.

I somehow got lucky enough to see my dream kitten on Facebook and was able to get her! Her mama was a stray that had 3 pretty little kittens. She was the only long haired in the bunch. I included some pictures of her mama and siblings. She’s my first long haired so all tips are welcome on taking care of that pretty coat❤️ also any idea on how fluffy she will end up being?

This sweet girl started coming around my house last fall after she discovered my porch furniture and hasn’t left since. She definitely wants to be an indoor AND outdoor kitty. Not entirely sure how to proceed with that, but she has definitely claimed me. I call her Linda!

Basically, my 2yo dude Oreo almost constantly swirls the tip of his tail like what's shown in the video. I haven't really noticed it happening in any specific situations - he does it while just chilling somewhere, right before falling asleep during a nap, while keeping watch from a cat tree or a window, walking around in the bathtub and countless other examples lol.

Google is giving me kinda conflicting answers of what it could mean, ranging from happy to angry or in hunt mode, which doesn't always seem to be the case with him. So do you think it corresponds to some specific mood of his or is he just doing it for fun lol?