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This guide helps you triage; it does not replace your veterinarian's exam. When in doubt, call us at 514 223-1197.
Go now: the signs that cannot wait
Any single one of these is enough, and none of them is counted in hours: what follows comes before any thought of watching and waiting. Cats hide illness, so by the time one of these shows, it is already serious. Settle him gently into his carrier, keep the ride calm, and call on the way.
- He goes in and out of the box, crouches for a long time, strains, and almost nothing comes out. Most people think constipation. In a cat, that same scene can be a blocked bladder, and that kills. Almost nothing comes out, but a few drops still count: the fact that something appears does not mean the road is clear. Read the next section, then leave.
- He has diarrhea and he has stopped eating. In cats, refusing food counts in hours: never let more than 24 to 48 hours pass without eating, and even less if he is round, older or already ill. His liver starts processing mobilised fat faster than it can handle, and a cat who had diarrhea ends up with a liver problem on top.
- He is flat, hiding, slow to answer you, or he goes and presses himself against a radiator, a baseboard, a laptop, and will not move. In a cat, seeking out heat is not about comfort.
- His stools are black, sticky and tarry: that is digested blood, from higher up in the gut. Never file black as less serious than red.
- Blood that comes back every single time he uses the box, blood you notice without having to look for it, or blood together with any other sign on this list.
- He freezes, refuses to be touched on the belly, will not settle, stays hunched in a ball or hides: that is a cat in pain, and a cat in pain with diarrhea is not a cat you watch.
- A thread, string, ribbon, dental floss or elastic is hanging from his mouth or his anus: NEVER PULL, even gently, because pulling can cut the intestine from the inside. Do not cut it either. Leave exactly as is.
- He is vomiting on top of the diarrhea. He is losing from both ends and can no longer refill himself: this is no longer a watch-and-see situation.
- He is a kitten. In kittens you do not watch diarrhea, and if you are reading this in the evening, that means tonight.
- You suspect he swallowed or licked something. In cats, poison does not arrive through the garbage the way it does with dogs: it arrives through grooming, because anything that lands on his coat or paws ends up in his mouth. A chewed lily or the water from its vase, a dog flea product applied to him or a freshly treated dog he slept against, a human medication: diarrhea is no longer the subject, leave now with the packaging or a photo of the label.
Something stopping is not something getting better
This is the reasoning that costs the most nights. A cat who was going back to the box ten times and has stopped, a cat who has stopped vomiting but is now hunched in a corner, a cat who has stopped complaining, a kitten who has stopped crying, a cat who has stopped grooming: those are signs we take seriously, not signs that reassure. The right question is not "has it calmed down", it is "is he better".
A straining cat is so often taken for a constipated cat that we devote a full page to it: feline urinary tract disease.
And if you are also seeing blood in his urine, or you cannot tell where the blood is coming from, our dedicated page sorts that one out: Blood in the urine.
If he has diarrhea and he has stopped eating, the other half of the problem has its own page: what cancels the clock, what "24 to 48 hours" really means, and why force-feeding is not a home remedy. My cat stopped eating.
For poisons, the first steps by product:
Straining in the box: three different things, one single scene
You saw him crouch, push, come out, go back in. Now you are trying to work out whether the diarrhea is what is making him strain, or whether he is constipated. Stop right here: the question itself is the trap, because the scene answers nobody.
An irritated large intestine
When the lower gut becomes inflamed, a cat strains often, produces little, and that little sometimes carries jelly-like mucus or streaks of red blood. He is not constipated at all: he has diarrhea, and he strains anyway.
A gut that no longer empties
Here he really is pushing against something too hard or too dry. It hurts, it can draw blood, and a cat can also leak a little liquid around whatever is stuck: from across the room, that looks like diarrhea.
He can no longer urinate
This is the one that kills. The exit passage blocks, and the cat returns to the box in exactly the same way, in the same position, with the same look on his face. Except that what has stopped coming out is urine, and his kidneys and heart are starting to suffer.
You do not have to decide which of the three it is
And that is good news, because the scene does not tell anyone: not you, and not us over the phone. That is exactly why we want to see him. Your job is not to decide, it is to call, and if we are closed, to head to a centre open around the clock. Describing what you see costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Two clues that sort out nothing at all
- The crying. A constipated cat complains while straining; a cat who can no longer urinate complains too, in the same box. If anyone ever told you that crying means urinary, or that a quiet cat has nothing serious, forget it: sound does not classify your cat.
- The blood. There is red blood when the large intestine is irritated, there is red blood when a cat strains hard against a too-dry stool, and there is blood in the urine of a blocked cat. Neither the colour nor the amount classifies your cat. Blood tells you one thing only: call sooner, not later.
While you hesitate, do not do any of this
- Do not give a laxative, oil, or an enema. If this is urinary, you are spending the hours that matter; and a drugstore enema can be frankly toxic to a cat. Even a so-called gentle enema is given at the clinic, by tube, under sedation if needed.
- Do not press on his belly to feel what is blocked, and do not try to pull anything out. You do not have to tell a full gut from a full bladder: that is our job, and a very full bladder can rupture.
- Do not give him any leftover sedative or painkiller, even one prescribed to him before. A sedated cat stops straining, and that false calm will cost you the night.
- Do not delay leaving in order to collect a sample. We can collect one here.
If something is coming out of his anus
A cat straining very hard can push out a red, moist bulge of tissue through the anus. It looks alarming, and it is visible without measuring anything: call right away, or head to a 24/7 centre if we are closed. In the meantime, do not try to push it back in, and keep the area moist with a clean cloth and lukewarm water.
What the litter box tells you, and what it does not
For an indoor cat, the box is just about the only thing you can observe. It is worth reading well, but you need to know which way it speaks.
Read this before anything else
Nothing you find in the box gives you permission to wait. The box is for describing, not for deciding. The phone call decides, and what you have noted simply makes that call shorter and more precise.
Do not count the stools
Nobody will ask you how many times he went, and that is not out of politeness: it varies far too much from cat to cat and from day to day for a number to mean anything. So do not worry if you cannot answer. Tell us what you saw, not what you counted.
Everything that breaks the measurement, and nobody can help it
- Your cat goes when nobody is watching, and nobody can watch a litter box all evening. When cats are filmed at home, it turns out their owners catch only a small fraction of their visits. So conclude nothing from "I did not see him go".
- A covered box hides the result from you. Do not take it apart tonight: a sick cat may boycott a box that has just been changed, and you would lose your only window. Just lift the lid to look inside.
- If you have more than one cat, or more than one box, assume you do not know who did what or where. Say so when you call: it changes the questions we will ask.
- If your cat goes outdoors, keep him in tonight with a clean box. As long as he goes out, you are measuring nothing at all.
- A self-cleaning box makes the evidence disappear before you have seen it: turn the automatic cycle off for now.
- And if you find nothing in the box, do not conclude he did nothing: look elsewhere. Diarrhea is urgent business, and a cat who does not make it in time, a weakened cat, an older cat who can no longer climb into a high-sided box, all of that ends up beside the box, behind furniture, in a corner.
What you can genuinely see
- He is soiling beside the box when he has always been clean. It is the most reliably observed sign in any household, because someone steps in it.
- He keeps going back, or he strains: see the section above, that changes everything.
- What it looks like. No scale, no score needed: describe it in your own words. Formed, soft, like pudding, watery, with mucus, with blood.
- Rice-like grains stuck to the fur under his tail, or visible worms. Tell us, it points the way. Not seeing any means nothing: most parasites are invisible to the naked eye.
- And if something struck you, the smell, the colour, the amount, mention it when you call.
While you are calling us
- Empty the box completely, then look at what is in it each time he goes. Two lines on a scrap of paper, the time and what you see.
- Take a photo of the stool in the box before you scoop it. You have nothing to assess: the photo means our team looks at it, instead of asking you to translate it into words.
- If you have more than one cat, separate yours into a room with his own box: in one move that settles both who produced what and the risk of passing it around.
- Do not change litter brands tonight. A sick cat may refuse a box that has just changed, and you would lose your only window.
- Mind which way this reads: finding something does not put your cat in the clear. A box that stays empty, on the other hand, is real information you can give us.
- And if you are leaving, leave. Do not wait around for an hour in order to observe.
The sample: while you call, never instead of calling
If you have a fresh stool on hand, keep it: about the size of a grape, in a clean closed container, refrigerated, never frozen. A liquid stool analyses perfectly well, and often tells us more. Our collection guide explains the rest, including what skews a result. But your cat comes before the sample: he is the one who does not keep until morning.
Until we know, treat every stool as contagious
Scoop more often than usual, with gloves or an inverted bag over your hand, wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds after every contact with him, his box or his back end, and put nose kisses on pause. The box is not the only source either: a cat with diarrhea carries it on his coat, under his tail and on his paws. Clean soiled fur with a warm damp cloth, and keep him off counters and beds tonight. No bath: a sick cat chills quickly.
One detail that matters tonight : You may have read, from us or elsewhere, that cat stool only becomes infectious after some time in the box. That is true, and it applies to the toxoplasmosis parasite. During diarrhea, other germs are transmissible the moment the stool leaves the cat. So treat every stool as infectious right away, and put the closed bag in the garbage, never down the toilet. Conversely, cats shedding the toxoplasmosis parasite usually show no signs at all: diarrhea does not announce toxoplasmosis, and the absence of diarrhea rules nothing out either.
If someone pregnant or immunocompromised lives in the house
Two things change tonight. Someone else handles the box for as long as this lasts. And we do not wait to have the stool analysed: call today, or a 24/7 centre if we are closed and your cat's condition cannot wait. For their own precautions, that person follows their doctor's advice, not ours.
If there are other cats in the house
This cat's diarrhea concerns them: several causes pass from cat to cat through the box. Clean the boxes daily, do not use the same scoop for two boxes, and tell us how many cats live with him.
Blood in the stool: two readings, neither of them harmless
This is probably what you are looking at right now. Blood reads two different ways depending on where it comes from, and in cats one of the two is far easier to miss.
Bright red
A few red streaks, or some jelly-like mucus, in a soft stool, in a cat who is otherwise completely himself: call us today. It is not nothing, and it is not something you watch in silence, but it does not mean crossing town tonight. Blood that comes back every time, blood you notice without looking for it, or blood alongside any other sign: leave now.
Black and tarry: melena
Stools that are black, sticky and shiny, sometimes like coffee grounds: the blood has been digested, so it comes from higher up in the gut. It is what gets missed most often at home, and in cats it is worse: clumping litter coats and darkens everything, so a black stool first reads as simply a dirty one. With gloves or an inverted bag over your hand, take it out into daylight and photograph it, then call right away; if we are closed, call a 24/7 centre. And mind which way this reads: not seeing any rules nothing out, because this is precisely the sign that hides.
One thing that erases this information for good
Pepto-Bismol and similar products turn stools black for several days. Once the dose is given, nobody can read that colour anymore, not you and not us: they erase the very sign we have just asked you to watch for, and that information does not come back. If you have already given some, just tell us: we sort it out with you, we do not judge you.
Soft stools in a healthy adult: watching is reasonable
The most common scenario: a healthy adult cat whose stools have gone soft and who is otherwise completely himself. There, and only there, watching is a reasonable choice. Let us be precise about what that means: our Emergency page already lists diarrhea in an alert pet among the reasons to call. So this tier does not replace the call, it only says that, for this particular cat, the call can wait until we open.
All of these conditions at once
- A healthy adult, with no known illness and no current medication.
- He IS EATING, and drinking. That is the non-negotiable condition in a cat: if he is losing fluid with every stool and stops refilling on top of that, this is no longer diarrhea you watch.
- He is bright, out of hiding, living his life: coming to see you, jumping where he usually jumps, grooming himself.
- He is not straining in the box, and not going back to it over and over.
- Stools that are soft but not watery, with no blood, no mucus, and never black.
- None of the "go now" signs, and no doubt about a string, an elastic, a plant or a product.
How to watch (and for how long)
- Reassess over 24 hours: that is a ceiling, not a timer to run down.
- In a cat, that ceiling has usually started before you did. People rarely see the first soft stool, they see the third. If you are not sure when it began, assume the count is already well along.
- Note the time and what it looked like, and take photos. Two lines are enough.
- Keep offering his usual food, in smaller portions more often, and leave water available at all times.
- And because you are probably reading this in the evening: if it has not sorted itself out by morning, call when we open. Do not let your 24 hours end on a second night.
One single signal cancels the clock
If he starts vomiting, if he turns down a meal, if the stools go watery, black or tarry, if blood appears, if he hides, if he strains in the box, if he can no longer hold it until he gets there, or if something worries you and you cannot quite name it: call. One signal is enough, and you do not have to justify which one. The clock does not restart because one stool looked better, or because the trips to the box have spaced out: it is the whole day that counts, not the last visit. And if the clock cancels while we are closed, do not push it to the morning.
This tier is not for everyone
The kitten
You do not watch, you call, and if you are reading this in the evening, that means tonight. He has almost no reserves: diarrhea empties him, being empty chills him, and a kitten who skips a meal can run out of sugar in very little time. A kitten who is cold to the touch, limp, trembling or no longer responding is a 24/7 centre now. Do not try to make him drink or swallow anything if he is wobbly.
The older cat
First because the diseases that cause diarrhea with age are many, and they do not announce themselves any other way. Second because his is the body where your home checks mislead you most: his skin often keeps a tent even when he is well hydrated.
The cat followed for an illness
Kidneys, thyroid, heart, diabetes, gut. If he is followed for his kidneys in particular, he is already losing water every day, and a single day of watery stools costs him more than it costs another cat.
The cat on medication
Diarrhea is no longer an isolated event, it may be the medication talking: this happens with thyroid treatment, often in the first few weeks. Do not stop anything on your own, call us first. And if he is on an anti-inflammatory, see the last section: that is the one exception.
The pregnant or nursing queen
Give her nothing on your own initiative, not even something bought at a pet store, not even a dewormer: several products we would use without hesitation in another cat cannot be given to her, or not in the same way.
The round cat
Intuition says exactly the opposite, so let us be blunt: an overweight cat has no safety cushion. It is not the diarrhea that worries us in him, it is what happens if he stops eating on top of it, because it is precisely his reserves that overwhelm the liver.
The already-thin cat, or one who has melted
Diarrhea on top of weight loss no longer tells the story of a bad day: it is the classic picture of a gut that has been unwell for a while, and that is an exam we do not put off.
For them, we do not watch overnight. Call us the same day, even for "just soft stools", and if we are closed, call an emergency centre rather than waiting for opening.
"It is probably just stress"
That is true, and it is exactly what makes it treacherous. A move, renovations, a new arrival, a boarding stay: in cats, disrupting the routine genuinely produces digestive signs, and perfectly healthy cats start turning down food or going outside the box. But read it the right way round. Stress is an explanation you land on at the end, once the rest has been ruled out, never a reason not to call tonight. The same goes for the other things we tell ourselves: "it is his hairballs", "he has always had a sensitive stomach", "he does this every month". A history is not a diagnosis: "he has always been like that" usually means it has been going on a long time.
What to do, and what not to do
This is where old reflexes do the most damage, because nearly all of them come from dogs.
Never put your cat on a fast
That is the advice we used to give for dogs, and in cats it is dangerous. When a cat stops eating, his body sends fat reserves to the liver faster than the liver can process them, and a cat who had diarrhea ends up with a liver problem on top. Keep offering his meals, in smaller portions and more often. And if he stops eating on his own, that is not a stage to let pass: it is a signal.
Do not change his food tonight
A sudden switch can cause diarrhea all by itself, and it muddies the picture at the exact moment we are trying to read it. Worse, in cats: a nauseated cat can lastingly associate that queasiness with whatever food is put in front of him and refuse it afterwards, even once he is well. You would be closing the door on the very food he may need later. Offer, never insist, and if he drools or turns away from the bowl, leave him be.
Chicken and rice is a dog reflex
Cats are strict carnivores, and homemade mixes always leave something out, and not only the things you would think of. The real problem is not the recipe anyway: it is that a cat who feels unwell and is offered unfamiliar food may simply refuse to eat, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid in him. Stay with what he already eats.
The best move for water is not to make him drink
It is to feed him wet. Canned food brings in far more water than kibble, even when the bowl is full. If your cat already has a wet version of his usual food, now is the time to offer it. That is not a diet change, it is the same thing in another form.
Never cut off the water
Diarrhea loses fluid fast, and a cat denied water dehydrates faster still: the bowl stays available at all times.
No Pedialyte, no Gatorade, no store-bought broth
Those drinks are dosed with sugar and salt for a human body, and the sugar draws even more water into the gut. Store broths often contain onion or garlic, which are toxic to him. And there is worse than useless here: do not try to syringe fluid into him. A cat who struggles swallows the wrong way, and you end up with a lung problem on top of a gut problem.
Probiotics, fibre, canned pumpkin
We get this question every single day, so here is the honest answer: in cats the studies are few and their conclusions remain weak, particularly in sick cats, which is exactly tonight's situation. Nobody can promise you a sachet will settle the night. These are not dangerous products, but they are not a reason to wait either. If you have already given some, just tell us.
Dehydration: you can spot it, you cannot rule it out
The skin-tent trick, the one you may have been shown for a dog, works poorly in cats: it can snap back normally in an already dehydrated cat, and a thin or older cat keeps a tent even when well hydrated. His gums, on the other hand, should stay moist and slippery; dry or tacky gums are a warning sign that deserves a call right away. Read these checks one way only: they are there to spot dehydration, never to prove it is absent. What you can genuinely observe is what he does: whether he keeps emptying out, whether he stops going to drink, whether he lies in one spot without moving, whether he stops coming to see you. And real dehydration is not fixed at the bowl: it is corrected with fluids given at the clinic.
"He is still drinking, so he is not dehydrated"
That reasoning costs hours, and in cats it is particularly treacherous: many cats drink very little from the bowl normally, especially if they eat wet, and they drink elsewhere, from the tap, the plants, the shower. So you have no reliable baseline for whether he is drinking more or less than usual. Conversely, a marked increase in thirst is not reassuring either: it can itself be the sign of an underlying disease. And if your cat already receives fluids under the skin at home, for his kidneys for instance, do not increase anything on your own: call us first.
Looking for the cause: what changes with age
What follows is there to prepare your call, never to replace it. None of these causes can be settled at home, and that is normal: they look a lot alike from the outside.
The kitten and the young cat
Panleukopenia
This is the cat's parvovirus, and it does not read like the dog's. The diarrhea is not always there, it can come last, and unlike in dogs it usually contains no blood. So do not look for blood to make up your mind, and do not wait for the diarrhea either: what counts is that he is flat, that he turns away from his bowl, that he is running a fever. It still circulates, especially where many cats cross paths: litters, shelters, colonies, cats found outdoors. And it can travel on objects, clothing and shoes, without any sick cat ever setting foot in your home. If a stool test has already come back negative, that does not rule it out: in a kitten we decide on his condition, not on a result. Call us before coming in with a kitten who has diarrhea: we will bring you in differently, to protect the other cats.
Parasites
Young animals are very often already carrying them from birth, with no visible sign at all. That is why we deworm early, even a kitten in perfect health. And if your kitten comes from a breeder, a shelter, a show or a colony, and has diarrhea that drags on, tell us: there are parasites we only look for in that context, and they do not show up on an ordinary test.
Low blood sugar
A kitten with diarrhea who skips meals can run out of sugar within hours: weakness, trembling, a wobbly walk, a blank stare. That is an emergency in itself, even if the diarrhea looks mild to you.
The adult cat
What changed in his bowl
A new food given all at once, a different can, treats, milk, leftovers: a common cause of soft stools. Tell us everything that changed, however minor.
What he may have swallowed
In cats, do not think garbage first: think thread, string, tinsel, hair elastic, houseplant. Those are not diarrhea stories, they are emergencies, and a swallowed thread can start out looking exactly like what you are seeing tonight. And the stuck-object trap is not settled by age: one segment of bowel can slide into the next in a very young cat as readily as in a middle-aged one.
Parasites, and the negative-test trap
Giardia is shed intermittently: it is not in every stool, so a single test can come back negative in a cat who has it. That is why we sometimes ask for more than one collection, on different days. The reverse is true too, and it is rarely said: finding it does not prove it is the cause, since plenty of perfectly healthy cats carry it.
A recent medication or dewormer
Diarrhea following an antibiotic, a dewormer, a parasite product or a dose change is commonplace, and it is one of the few things you know for certain. Say so when you call, and do not stop anything on your own.
The ageing cat
The gut itself
In an ageing cat, diarrhea that lasts usually belongs to one family: chronic inflammation of the gut, a form that responds to a supervised diet change, or intestinal lymphoma. It has to be said plainly, because it explains the whole approach: these diseases produce the same signs, the same slow weight loss, the same soft stools. That is why we do not guess, we look.
The thyroid
Hyperthyroidism does produce loose, bulky stools, but it is a minority sign, and it is almost never what brings the cat to us. The picture to recognise is elsewhere, and it is disconcerting: a cat losing weight while eating more than before, drinking more, becoming restless or noisy at night, with a scruffy coat.
The pancreas
Two different things, and both read backwards from the dog. Feline pancreatitis does not present as diarrhea: what you see first is a switched-off cat who stops eating, and who does not cry out. That does not mean he is not in pain. And there is a pancreatic insufficiency that simply prevents digestion: there the dominant sign is weight melting away, with soft, bulky, pale stools and a coat that turns greasy. Appetite tells you nothing reliable in either case.
The word "triaditis"
You may hear it. In cats, the pancreas, the liver and the gut are plumbing neighbours and they often inflame together. It is not a diagnosis we make over the phone. It is a way of explaining why we look at all three when only one seems involved.
None of this is settled at home. What you have just read is there to prepare the call, not to replace it. If we are closed and your cat is flat, has stopped eating, or is vomiting on top of the diarrhea, do not wait for us to open: a 24/7 emergency centre will take him tonight.
Past three weeks, this is no longer an episode
We are no longer talking about a passing upset but about chronic diarrhea, and it deserves a workup. Three weeks is not a delay to let run: it is the point past which we stop looking for a passing explanation. And the count does not restart because he produced two good stools this week: what matters is how long it has been coming and going.
"Should I change his food to see?" Two things. First: a diet trial is not trying another kibble. It is a precise process, one food at a time, over weeks, and done halfway it means nothing. Second: do not start one before we have looked. Buying a bag of "sensitive digestion" on a weeknight adds a variable to the picture at the worst possible moment.
Prepare your call (2 minutes)
- Since when, what you have seen in the box, and whether it is speeding up.
- Everything he eats, and we mean everything: brand and format, treats, milk, leftovers, what he steals off other plates, and what changed in the last month. It sounds trivial. It is the information most often missing.
- His medications, his dewormers, the date of the last one, and anything you gave him yourself, including something bought at the drugstore.
- Whether he goes outdoors, how many cats live with him, and whether he was recently adopted, found, or came home from boarding.
- If he has ever been tested for feline leukemia or the immunodeficiency virus, have the result and the date handy. These viruses do not cause one evening of diarrhea, but in a carrier, diarrhea that settles in gets pushed further and sooner.
- And whether he is eating, drinking, vomiting, and urinating normally.
Give no home medications
A cat is not a small dog. He is missing, from birth and for life, a liver tool that humans and dogs use to neutralise certain drugs. This is not an individual weakness, and it has nothing to do with breed, size or age: every cat is concerned, without exception, and no test will change that. And the rule that follows from all the rest: never give your cat a medication prescribed to the household dog, not at a smaller dose, not for the same problem.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
Fatal to cats, even a single tablet. There is no safe dose, no children's format small enough, no way of cutting a tablet to make it acceptable. In cats this product attacks the blood before the liver: the blood loses its ability to carry oxygen. Gum colour can change, but it changes late and in several different ways: do not wait to see anything on his gums, and do not let gums that look normal to you reassure you. If your cat has swallowed some, leave now, this is not a morning phone call. And it is not only the bottle marked Tylenol: acetaminophen hides in most cold, flu and headache products, including ones sold under entirely different names. Read the active ingredients, not the name on the front.
Imodium and other loperamides
It is the most commonly recommended thing online, and the one that worries us most. Diarrhea is often the body pushing something out: closing the door does not make what is behind it disappear, it keeps it inside longer, and what a bacterium produces then passes more readily into the blood. The cat looks better because he has stopped soiling, and that illusion is exactly what costs hours. This drug is also a cousin of morphine, and in cats opioids do not always sedate: they can agitate and disorient instead. Finally, it masks a stuck object: a swallowed thread can start out looking like what you are seeing tonight, and a drug that slows the gut blurs the picture while things get worse.
Pepto-Bismol, Kaopectate and friends
They contain a salicylate, a cousin of aspirin, which a cat clears from his body far more slowly than a dog: the product accumulates instead of leaving. And they turn stools black for several days, erasing the very sign we are asking you to watch for. Be aware too that these products change formula from one country and one year to the next under the same name: do not trust the name on the box. If you have already given some, bring us the box or photograph the active ingredients.
Ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen (Aleve), aspirin
Cats are markedly more sensitive to these than dogs. They attack the lining of the gut and the kidney, and they can do both at once rather than one after the other. Giving one to a cat who already has diarrhea adds bleeding and kidney injury to dehydration that is already underway. Aspirin in particular stays in a cat's body far longer than in a dog's: an amount that would look trivial to you adds up from one dose to the next. There is no gentle version, and nothing on a drugstore shelf is made for an animal this size: cutting a human tablet does not create a cat dose, it creates a guess.
Dewormers bought at the drugstore or pet store
"Diarrhea, so worms" is the most widespread equation there is, and it is the product most often given without telling us. Deworming blind does not treat what is causing the diarrhea most of the time, it delays the call, and above all a dewormer given shortly before a test can mask the parasites and make the result falsely reassuring. If you have already given one, tell us which and when: we account for it.
Dog flea products
Several contain permethrin, a violent poison for cats: tremors, seizures. Never a "for dogs" product on a cat, not even a small amount, and watch out too for the cat who sleeps against a freshly treated dog. If that has happened, it is an emergency, not a morning phone call.
Leftover prescriptions
An antibiotic left over from another episode, or from another animal in the house, is never a stopgap. Metronidazole in particular is no longer a reflex: it can affect balance and vision, with a staggering walk and a cat who no longer knows where he is, and the risk climbs when the dose is not adjusted to today's weight and when the course drags on. That is exactly what happens when a bottle comes back out and gets given "until he is better". One point that applies to every leftover prescription: a cat with diarrhea no longer weighs what he weighed at his last visit, so a dose calculated on the old weight is mechanically too strong. And the steroid left over from an allergy or asthma flare can worsen digestive bleeding, especially if an anti-inflammatory was already given that morning.
Oil, butter, petroleum jelly, milk, yogurt
Do not try to move things along with a greasy substance. These products are bland and slippery: a cat who struggles while you push one into his mouth can inhale it without even coughing, and oil that goes down into the lungs stays there. As for milk, cream and yogurt, it is the most tender and most counterproductive gesture there is: most adult cats no longer digest milk sugar, which then draws water into the gut and does exactly what you were trying to stop. Yogurt is not a cat probiotic, it is milk with a reputation.
Activated charcoal
It is not an anti-diarrheal. It is a tool we use at the clinic, in specific cases, when we know which product was swallowed and how long ago. Given at home to a cat who is vomiting, flat, or struggling, it can go into the lungs, and pneumonia gets added to the diarrhea.
And do not make him vomit
In cats there is no safe way to induce vomiting at home: peroxide can be fatal to them. It is a clinic procedure, under sedation if needed. If you realise you gave him the wrong product, do not attempt anything: call, or leave.
The one time we ask you to stop a medication yourself
If your cat is on a prescribed anti-inflammatory and he loses his appetite, vomits, or passes black tarry stools: stop the medication and call us. Those are possible signs of a digestive ulcer, and it is the only situation where we would rather you hold a dose before you have even spoken to us.
Already gave him something?
It is not a reproach, and it is not a confession: it is clinical information we need. Tell us what, how much, at what time, and bring the box or photograph the active ingredients. Nobody here will lecture you.
Frequently asked questions
The questions we hear most on the phone, and one people don't always dare to ask.
He has diarrhea but he is playing and eating. Am I bothering you for nothing?
He is straining in the litter box. Can I give him something for constipation?
Should I fast him for a few hours to rest his gut?
I do not know how many times he used the box. Is that a problem for you?
It is evening. Can this wait until morning?
His stool test was negative. So it is not parasites?
He has had soft stools for months and I never mentioned it. Did I hurt my cat?
Also worth reading
The honest triage, in one sentence
He strains in the box with almost nothing coming out, he has stopped eating, he is flat or cold, his stools are black, he is a kitten: go now. Blood, mucus, diarrhea that drags on, an older cat or one followed for an illness: call us today, and a 24/7 centre tonight if we are closed. Soft stools in a bright adult who is eating: watch, without going past 24 hours and without letting the clock end on a second night. And remember that the box is for describing, not for deciding.
Your cat has diarrhea and you are hesitating?
Stop hesitating: call us and we will triage together. If an appointment is enough, we will say so; if it is more urgent, we will point you in the right direction immediately.