Purrs In Our Hearts - Cat Forum UK
Cat Health & Behaviour => Health & Behaviour General => Topic started by: Tiggy's Mum on May 28, 2007, 09:14:20 AM
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A friend came over to meet the boys yesterday and bought them a toy made by Hartz (reputable make). It was definitely in one piece this morning but I've just noticed that they seem to have eaten a piece of it. It's meant to look like a chicken leg and the bit they've eaten is made out of a soft spongy foam. I've taken a pic on my phone with a 10p coin for scale - the bit that's missing is the same size as the cream coloured bit that's still there although I've pulled that off now. I've looked all over the house for it including under settees but I can't find it so one of them must have swallowed it.
They are both running around like normal and have both eaten something. Would you be worried? Will it pass through them or is the size potentially big enough to cause a blockage? I'm meant to be going out for the day but don't want to leave them if it could cause them harm :scared: What do you think?
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If the foam isn't toxic to cats (maybe someone else knows this) I'd wait and carefully monitor their health. The foam could be hidden in one of those places cats know about but we never think of.
If it has been swallowed, it's probably too late to take emergency action - unless the foam is toxic.
If a blockage develops, this can be operated on when it shows itself.
Is there any toxicity warning on the toy?
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I've thrown the packaging away, it's made by Hartz which is a reputable make so I doubt if it's toxic. I'm more worried that it would cause a blockage, anyone know what signs I should look out for? Like I say they're running around like normal, purring etc Guess I won't be going out though just in case.
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fingers crossed theyl be fine........i doubt if a blockage would show up straight away so monitor them over the next few days x
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Thanks Ruth, I'm still going to stay in with them today, I'd never forgive myself if something happened. I have to go back to work tomorrow so I'm desperately waiting for two poos - then I'll be happy!
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awwwwwwwwww bless them, hope they haven't eaten it. I would make them stay in and monitor (if you can) who has a Pooh and who doesn't. Daisy is a nightmare for cellotape and a few weeks ago passed a long bit she had as my daughters friend had made her a cellotape ball >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
Maybe feed more than normal so they poop more and if they have swallowed it will pass sooner rather than later
xx
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Oh dear, seems all kittens like to eat their toys then! Maybe give them a load of katalax/oily hairball paste for the next few days to help ease it through and just keep an eye on them and their poos. Bilbo has eaten half a carrier bag before and was fine and it came out the other end a day later so fingers crossed your boys will be the same with the foam.
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Helen i know dogs and cats are different but if knew half of what my mums dog has eat which has amazed vets that he hasnt had a blockage :Crazy: :Crazy: :Crazy:
all of what he has eat has come out in his pooh or sick the very next day
i dont blame u for staying in today and keeping an eye on em id proberly of done they same ;)
im pretty sue they will be fine though hun :hug:
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Maybe give them a load of katalax/oily hairball paste for the next few days to help ease it through and just keep an eye on them and their poos.
Great idea, don't know why I didn't think of that myself :doh: Just tried to give them some, they wouldn't eat it out of the tube like Tiggy used to but I just mixed it in with a bit of Beef paste that I used to mix Tiggy's supplements in, Riley fell for it but Lukey wasn't so sure and only ate about 1/3 of what I wanted him to. They are still fine in themselves, purring their little heads off :Luv:
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Maybe give them a load of katalax/oily hairball paste for the next few days to help ease it through and just keep an eye on them and their poos.
Great idea, don't know why I didn't think of that myself :doh: Just tried to give them some, they wouldn't eat it out of the tube like Tiggy used to but I just mixed it in with a bit of Beef paste that I used to mix Tiggy's supplements in, Riley fell for it but Lukey wasn't so sure and only ate about 1/3 of what I wanted him to. They are still fine in themselves, purring their little heads off :Luv:
Typical of little ones, if you didnt want them to eat it they would :evillaugh: :evillaugh: :evillaugh:
I know I have said before but tiggys picture just the best
xx
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Typical of little ones, if you didnt want them to eat it they would :evillaugh: :evillaugh: :evillaugh:
I know I have said before but tiggys picture just the best
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I know! They go around eating tasteless foam chicken bones from their toy but won't eat fishy flavoured hairball paste >:( Thanks again Smudge, she was stunning wasn't she :Luv:
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helen if it were to cause an obstruction (most commonly in the intestine) then you'd be looking at 24-48 hrs to see any signs id think..Abit off colour, Vomiting would be your symtoms to start with i'd say.
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Thanks Lynn, would you be worried if it was Cody? First of all I though I was over reacting now maybe I'm not taking it seriously enough :shy:
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can you find a picture online of the actual toy then tell us better which bit is gone.
Yeah suspected FB'S should always be taken serously, something like that though theres not a whole lot can be done other than waiting to see what happends...if its something like a sponge then its not going to show up well on an xray so wouldnt be appent until it had actually blocked and you'd have a whole load of faeces or built up gasbehind it in the xray which would be your indication.
If it was cody i wouldnt be panicking but would be CLOSley monitoring.
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Can't find a pic it's a Hartz 'Trashcan treats chicken leg'. The bit that is missing is virtually identical to the bit that's remaining in the photo, it's prob about the width and thickness of an ice lolly stick and about 2 1/2 cm long. It's made out of a flexible squishy dense foam.
Do you think once they've done a poo then they are 'safe'?
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are we talking the white bit at the end then ?
no not safe after they have done a poo as that would probably be faeces already far down the tracts, you need around a day give or take for a fb to lodge where ever its going to lodge then for the faeces etc to come behind it before the blockage is apparent and the cat feels abit unwell.
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Yeah the white bit, I'm really worried now. I keep going over to them to wake them up and check on them :shy: Is there anything else I can do other than wait? I rang the vets but there was a recorded message saying if it was a GENUINE emergency to ring the on call vet but seeing as they are fine in themselves I didn't think it right to bother them.
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Dont be overly worried helen, wakening etc wont do anything..if they have swallowed it then they arent going to choke or anything and no i wouldnt class this as an emergency at the moment.
when did they eat it (if they did) ??
You might still find it somewhere the little boogers givin you worry LOL.
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Helen, if I were a gambling woman, I would bet serious money that you will find the offending piece in some hideyhole - or in the littertray in a day or so.
:hug:
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It's in the job description for kittens that they cause as much worry as possible! I agree with Christine - I think there's a good chance the offending piece will be lying around somewhere. They may have just pulled it off but if it's the size of a 10p piece that's actually quite big when you think of the size of a kitten mouth and throat. Compare it to the size of a pice of dry cat food. And if they have swallowed it at least it's not sharp so hopefully will just pass through - chances are it will appear in the litter tray or be vomited up. I wouldn't have thought it would be toxic if it was used in a cat toy.
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Is this anything like it?
http://www.hartz.com/Our%20Products/Details.asp?A=02,0&BR=Y&S=Y&SKU=3270003961#
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It's in that range Hippy but it's the chicken leg one and they didn't have a pic of it on their site.
when did they eat it (if they did) ??
You might still find it somewhere the little boogers givin you worry LOL.
Between 8am and 9am... Lucas has done a poo with no problem, didn't dissect it but it looked normal! If one of them has eaten it it's more likely to be Riley as he is a big chewer. I'm 99.9% certain one of them has eaten it, I've searched the house thoroughly, looking in and under everything and unless they've been in the loft then in must be in one of their tummies.
Hope you're right Christine and Susanne, I keep checking the trays to see if it's arrived!
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I am sure they will be fine Helen and I am a betting woman sometimes :rofl: and I bet they have hiden it somewhere ;D
I once looked at my dinner plate with amazement cos i had left the large piece of fat (the long hard piece on the side) from some chops on it, actually two and they had vanished and I reckon my liitle cat Kocka, who even the vet couldnt open her mouth, had swallowed em in one go. she had no teeth! They were enormous too. She just sat there looking at me with a smile on her face ;D
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I'm sure they will be fine - any sign yet?
Maybe its in the hoover?
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Nope, Riley had a poo at around 5am - I had been awake since 3:30 am due to them bouncing of my head :doh: so attended to it straight away, again it looked normal with no sign of the offending foam chicken leg. I haven't hoovered since it happened and there's no sign of debris on the carpet so they haven't shredded it, it's almost definitely in one of their tummies.
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Aww poor Helen.
At least they have both done a poo now, thats a good sign.
Are you going to work today then?
xx
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Hope the little one's will be fine.......the toy was not very good though.....to be demolished so quickly, you would thing being a toy company etc there toys would sustain the rough play >:(
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Fingers crossed for you :Luv:
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If it's a blockage it could float around for a bit but you'd see vomiting I'm pretty sure, probably a few hours after eating. Max eats plastic and that returns on the carpet a few hours later. So if there's pooing and no vomiting, maybe hopefully the culprit has just digested it?
Really hope they are fine, Helen.
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If you enlarge the picture of the fish bone one on hartz site (link below), there is a cartoon pic of the chicken leg version near the pic of the cat.
I may be a good idea to email hartz (they have a 'contact us' link on the website) and tell them what has happened. The toy should have withstood the rigours of play, not easily eaten. They might also advise you about the stuffing.
Hope everything goes well, could be a few days till it re-emerges.
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Thanks Hippy, I'll definitely email them then. It had puncture marks all over the bone bit on the first day but I never thought it would come off completely by day two. It was bought from Sainsburys or Asda (my freind can't remember which) so there's potential for lots of people to have the same toy. I'm ultra paranoid about toys as it is and all their mice have ears, eyes, nose and tails removed, I've tied up the swinging rope ball on their climbing scratcher but was caught out by this chicken bone >:(
They are absolutely fine in themselves and had me up at 3:30 bouncing off my head, I'm at work but turned their webcam on so I can see what they are up to but the little rascals have decided to avoid the camera and must be playing/sleeping elsewhere :evillaugh:
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Poo update: Lucas has had his second poo since the 'chicken leg' went missing - all clear nothing to report :evillaugh: Still waiting on no 2 (in both senses) from Riley :shify:
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any relief (both senses!) in the poo tray yet?
seriously, how are your little terrible twins today?
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any relief (both senses!) in the poo tray yet?
seriously, how are your little terrible twins today?
Well, Riley presented me with a second poo since the incident at around midnight last night - perfectly normal looking :shify: Due to the timing of Riley's second poo I can only assume that the poo in there this morning was Lukey's third since the incident.
I don't know what has happened to the chicken leg but I think I can safely say it hasn't caused a blockage :shify:
As for the terrible twins, I think they had too many E numbers yesterday as they were very badly behaved at around 2am, racing around in a frenzied state. By around 3:30 Riley had calmed down and his mission in life was to keep me awake by burrowing his entire body in the small gap created by my neck laying against the pillow and then meowing pitifully as though he was stuck. When released he pressed his wet nose up against my face repeatedly, Lucas was an angel throughout and just lay next to me purring Wouldn't change them for the world though :Luv: :Luv: :Luv:
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Aw, glad to hear the boys are OK with no sign of the chicken thing causing any problems ;D
They sound full of mischief with their nighttime antics - you must be knackered :evillaugh:
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I'm at work but turned their webcam on so I can see what they are up to but the little rascals have decided to avoid the camera and must be playing/sleeping elsewhere :evillaugh:
what a brilliant idea Helen.! :Crazy:
Never thought of it myself and I have got enough cctv and computer stuff here to open a shop ! It would be great to see what my boys get up to durring the day whilst I'm at work . I'm convinced they have half the neighbourhood cats round for a party judging by the mess when I retun home at night.
I'll get on toit (similar to roundtoit) right away or as they say in Cornwall " Oil git it dun directly sah " ;) :doh:
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Thanks Nick ;D It was relatively easy to set up, I know you're alot more techie minded than me so I'm sure you'll have no problem. I got a free web page and then the pic is beamed to the webpage using FTP. There are simpler ways such as doing it via a messenger service but I can't access that type of thing at work.
I pointed the webcam at the top of their scratcher which is probably around 6ft high so the view is of the top platform, where they are usually asleep, and then it pans down onto a section of the living room where their toys are. I set it up as I kept going home on my break to check on them only to find them fast asleep, me coming in woke them up and then they got all sad when I had to leave to go back to work. Now if I can see they are asleep I don't go home only to wake them up.
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Glad to hear they seem to have suffered no ill effects from their little snack!
You'll get no sympathy from me on the sleeping front - been 14 months of sleepless nights for me now! ;D Mosi is getting better though and does give me the odd night of sleep. Only trouble is I'm so used to being woken now that I tend to wake up of my own accord only to find them both sleeping peacefully. But once they're aware of me being awake that's them up too!