Little Futures Blog

My cat, Grant, is an American short-hair. He is almost four years old now, or to put it more precisely, 3 years and 7 months old, equivalent to a thirty-year-old man.

Grant has suffered from allergies since we took him to the United States. He licked too much, causing little wounds between his toes. At first, the vet suspected litter allergy, since we had to change his litter after we moved to North Carolina from Beijing last fall. We used to use only tofu litter in China, which is just too expensive here in the U.S.

I experimented with the mainstream litter sold in the market: Clay litter was the first experiment. Licking and wounds. Paper pellet the second. I didn’t find a lot of choices. The most tragic experience was with pine litter: my cat is so uncomfortable with the odor of the pine that he refused to shit in the litter box. The shit was discovered on the bed. I did pay the price of learning and experimenting and had to swallow the pain myself. At last I did try tofu litter here, it’s not the same brand as we used in China and it’s just too expensive. I ended up adopting an “innovative” litter made in China: called petskit, it appears to resemble the form of tofu litter at a much more affordable price.

But changing litter does not help Grant much. The over-grooming and wounds continued. The second vet, who himself was new to North Carolina, told me it could be food allergy. Or “he is just allergic to North Carolina”, he said, amusing himself even. I embarked on a new journey of experimenting with cat food: I don’t know why but the cat food I used to feed Grant in China is not sold in the U.S. either. I was exhausted to compare this time. I tried the said “King” of dry food, Orijen. Grant loves it, very much. However, it has no positive influence on his allergy. I then turned to the limited ingredient Instinct (Rabbit flavor). Neither does it work.

It pained me to see Grant start to have wounds on his belly. I put him on a cone to try to erect his licking. Apparently, it is not a solution at all. But it did help for the first couple of weeks. Grant and I even developed a routine without need of communication: he approached me and followed me and then I took off his cone for a short while. It’s his precious moment to be a cat without a cone. A real cat. After a few weeks, I got the illusion that this has cured Grant. After I took off the cone for longer time, he did not seem to insist on licking any more. I almost shouted “hooray” before the illusion was completely crushed. My family left the town for ten days, during which a neighbour helped us care for Grant. When we returned, Grant’s overgrooming got even worse.

It is devastating to see my dear Grant have wounds all over his belly and paws. This time I consulted a vet online through the app called Dutch while I waited for my appointment with a vet nearby. The online vet suggested it could be anxiety and prescribed medication that also treats human anxiety and depression.

I waited for over a week for the medicines to arrive by mail. It’s a tiny orange bottle of white pills with a thick user guide: The guide is completely aimed at human users who suffer from depression. I remember myself look through the guide and for the first time feel so heavy about our move to the U.S.. Are all the burdens of travelling and moving beared by my poor little cat? Why is Grant to be on a medication like this? I thought about everything I heard of on human depression treatment: the medicines can be addictive. It’s a long journey to recover and it’s over-simplified to say it has ups and downs. (It could be downs, downs, downs, a small up, downs, downs….)

In the end I didn’t give Grant this medication. I waited until the in-person visit with a nearby vet. And this vet assured me it could only be allergies with the symptoms on his paws. “We have to use steroid.” She said. I don’t even know what steroid mean. “It’s to stop the information from communication. So that the cat will no longer feel itchy.”

That’s the story. Now is the fifth day Grant has been on Steroid. He is doing good. He has better appetite and is sleeping more comfortably, without the cone, on his newly bought cat tree.

We finally come to what I promise to say at the beginning: the best gift for my cat. After the online vet diagnosed my cat with “anxiety”, I decided to buy a little gift to cheer him up. He is almost four now. He finally got a cat tree of his own. It’s a second-hand one, but he immediately jumped onto it after it was assembled.

“A cat needs a kingdom of his own.” Years ago, one of my colleagues commented. I regreted it had taken me so long to provide my cat with a tiny kingdom. And it had taken all these pains of him for me to be better aware of the sensitive nature of cats.

Grant, I am sorry. I just wish you will be as happy and healthy as you are now.