rescued a fluffy blue eyed HUNGRY thin cat tonight...

[grasswire]

...was hanging round the block where neighbor cats were trying to chase it off. I reached down to pet it, and under the fluffy coat were just bones and no body fat. Oh, poor thing. Obviously it has been away from food for weeks, and has no home near enough to return to.

It is a beautiful cat. A bit like a rag doll, but not quite that fluffy and the coloring is a bit off from a rag doll. It's buff and smoke and dark black/brown face and tail and legs. The coat hides the skinny body.

I got a cage and took it home to the mud room, sequestered away from the five house cats.

It has been eating for a couple of hours now. Well trained, very loving and mannerly. I'll put up fliers and already made a craigslist page.

I have a question. This cat has an extremely unusual meow. At first, we thought it was hissing at us. It's as if it has lost its voice and is only making noise by moving air.

Would this be a product of the stress and strains of its situation? I know that siamese cats have odd voices sometimes, perhaps that is the answer. I will check its throat and mouth tomorrow; didn't think of that earlier. Any other ideas?

[marzipanni]

1. I hope you can find its old owners, or a new one.

"When a cat that is normally vocal loses her voice or become hoarse, it could indicate an inflammation of the voice box. This medical condition, known as laryngitis, may be caused by throat infections, tonsillitis, inhalant allergies and pulmonary disease. Sometimes, a stress-induced behavioral problem that involves extensive yowling or mewing may cause laryngitis."
http://www.thecatsite.com/Behavior/44/Cat-Sounds-Feline-Vocal-Communication.html

When I moved my old cat yowled at the door to go out, even though it was raining, and he didn't come back. the next day I made fliers and put them under doormats and on telephone poles around my block. I walked around after dark calling his name, hoping he'd come running to me from a hedge.
Three weeks later (!) a woman a few houses from mine called me and said she thought my cat had been hanging out in her neighbor's yard, eating their cat's food under the deck. Fortunately she had put the flier on her refrigerator and recognized the cat in the photo. I was so happy to have him back with me, and he never strayed out of my yard after that.
I hope your fliers get some good results!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

2. Maybe dehydration?

I know when my body fluids are low, my voice is the first thing that's affected.

Poor kitty! It's good of you to take him or her in... :hug::yourock:

[lildreamer316]

3. I bet she/he was just yowling for it's owners a lot..hence the lack of voice.

Just a possibility.
Pictures? Meow!!

[grasswire]

4. do veterinarians charge to check for a chip?

Just wondering about the expense of a veterinarian visit -- an initial visit is usually $150-$200 by the time vacinations are done, and that is usually mandatory in my experience. It's just not good timing for me to spend that, but I'd like to know if this cat has a chip. I was told not to take it to the shelter, as they will take charge of the cat and it will be less likely to get home to its owners than if I am advocating for it. I already have someone interested in it if we can't find its previous home.

The poor thing is so, so, so thin.

[flvegan]

15. A shelter should scan regardless, without any charge.

You take this cat to get scanned and that shelter pitches an issue, I'd like to hear it.

[DeepBlueC]

16. you can call a vet and ask if they'll just do a chip check gratis

Call several vets until one agrees. I am sure that someone will. Tell them you want to start there and will make any further decisions about the cat's care after you have found out if her people can be identified. And if they come empty, ask for advice about what to do to then tell them you are going to go home and think about it.

[ThomCat]

5. It is a big cat?

Maine Coons often have very odd, quiet meows. It's a common characteristic. And they resemble rag dolls.

I am very glad you took him/her in. :hug:

I hope you find a very good home for that cat.

[grasswire]

7. hmmm...

I've had a Maine Coon before. I don't think so here, although the hair is similar in length.

[LostinVA]

10. Ragdolls and Maine Coons are both huge

[grasswire]

11. this is not a big cat

I have a 24 pound tabby and a 16 pound orange marmalade tabby. This kitty at full weight (which it is not) would be about 10 pounds, I would guess, at most.

I'm still trying to get a pic to post. The camera went on vacation with a member of the household, unfortunately.

[LostinVA]

12. The rescued "Ragdoll" I mentioned below is a female about that size

[LostinVA]

6. Ragdoll cats make weird noises and hardly ever meow

It might be a Ragdoll. They don't know how to take care of themselves outside. Haruka's mom has two Ragdolls. They come in a lot of colors.

[grasswire]

8. that's interesting to know

It's not as fluffy as a rag doll. But it apparently knows nothing about finding food for itself, for sure! It's still making a weird hiss instead of a meow. Poor, poor thing.

Tonight it has a bit of diarrhea, unfortunately. I'm assuming that it ate so much dry food so fast that its system was just overwhelmed. Will keep an eye on that.

Oh, it's a girl. Somehow I knew that.

[LostinVA]

9. Her one Ragdoll was a rescue from a kitten mill breeder

She was half-starved to death and had ten litters by the time they got her at five-years-old. She is MUCH less fluffy than the Ragdoll they got from a real breeder. Her coat feels much different, too. Smaller than a Ragdoll should be, as well.

[DeepBlueC]

13. one of my cats just mouths a meow

Actually I'm told (National Geographic documentary I think)that me=ow is two separate verbal signals, the "me" part sort of a general greeting or acknowledgment and the "ow" part says "but keep a respectful distance". I talk to my cats (more of a "maa" than a "mee" and they do answer.."sometimes it means "I'm okay, Mom" sometimes it's "So you want me to come in now...are you sure?" But Marcus just moves his mouth for me to lip read. I don't know why. I do know that he can vocalize because he has a special low throaty sound that says "come here" to Felix, a younger cat with whom he shares a very close bond. My vet says Marcus might think of Felix as his kitten (though he is now 9 years old) but as I have seen Marcus mounting Felix in many many private moments I think it may be more romantic than that. Whatever the basis the two are pair-bonded. Marcus only vocalizes to call Felix when he is out of sight. When Marcus is mouthing communications to me we are looking right at each other so perhaps he thinks that vocalization is superfluous.

On the other hand if it is making air sounds it could have some respiratory problems. Marcus also "whoofs" sometimes, not a cough or a hiccup or even a wheeze. He is hyperthyroid and that may have something to do with it but as he never does it when the vet is here so I have no answers. If he is very thin and eating ravenously he may have a thyroid problem. Usually cats who have been starved can't eat a whole bunch at once...you have to do small frequent meals. That I learned by screwing up with a stray who ate & ate & puked and puked until she was dehydrated.

So, having taken a long time to say it, I guess I really don't know, but I hope it's okay. Siamese cats really do have a very loud vocalization. To me it sounds like a human baby wailing. But this kitty may just be weak and dehydrated and thus the vocal cords aren't vibrating at full frequency.

Hmmm...sometimes too many answers is no better than none...sorry. I had one thought and then as I wrote a few more popped into my head and then I realized that, hell, you really need the opinions of someone more expert than me. But some things to think about...you'll know if any make sense.

Good for you for giving refuge. I love people who feed the hungry and care for the lost and the sick and particularly so when they are kitties. I like most if not all of them better than a lot of people.

[DeepBlueC]

14. anyone got a pic of a ragdoll?

I have never heard of this kind of cat, and I am intrigued.

[grasswire]

17. there are lots of pics of them on the internet

Here's a link to a funny page of them:

http://rfwclub.org/flop.htm

[DeepBlueC]

19. they are gorgeous...and, now, familiar

I don't know why I didn't think of going to the intertubes. I had never heard of ragdolls before & didn't realize that they were a recognized breed. In fact I now know that I once, briefly, had a ragdoll kitten. He had long hair and the blue eyes and the chocolate face && ears & tail & front paws. The girl who gave him to me called him a Burmese which I know now is way wrong. He looked like a long-haired chocolate point Siamese. I called him Hector and he was a ball of fuzz and fire and incredibly agile for such a young one. A friend/acquaintance had stopped by my apartment one day, as he did from time to time, and he thought this little guy was great, as he was. They way Nelson dropped in was almost literal, and a telling part of the story. He climbed up the wall in the alley to access my second floor roof deck. The door out back is always open for the kitties in the summer. A few other friends have also used this approach (years ago when we actually had the physical equipment to do so) because I can't hear knocking or the doorbell from the back of my apartment. The next day I went out shopping for 20 minutes, came home and the back door was SHUT and Hector was gone. I searched my apartment & my roof deck exhaustively, but I had a feeling that he was not there. He was a greeter, not a hider. I put up signs, I PROWLED the neighborhood, the stores, the alleys & the bushy no-man's land around them, and set off a couple of motion detector lights in doing so and had to answer to irate homeowners (it WAS the middle of the night, granted; I looked around the CLOCK for the first 4 days). I immediately intuited that Nelson had come back, didn't find me at home, and catnapped Hector. He had been very taken with Hector's cuteness and even more so with his agility and his abundant spunk. Mr. Kitten Personality. This is a small, funky neighborhood, mostly a market area of small single product stores & street selling, and all the people who live here know each other at some level. I asked all the denizens and the store owners and no sign of him. And Nelson was also MIA. Odd because he lived with his mother smack-dab in the area, an out-of-the park homer away from me, had no job, and could usually be seen any day, hanging out at one place or another. When I did run into him finally he had already heard the scuttle that I thought he might have taken my kitten. I said yes I did think that and he grinned and shook his head. And then LATER IN THE SAME CONVERSATION he told me that he had bought a Siamese kitten for his mother (with whom he lived and from whom he sponged). I could not drive a chink into his story which was pretty vague (bought it from a guy I know, a friend of a guy I know neither of whose names I'm really sure of). Short of staking out his mother's house from the backyard brush and peeping and possibly getting arrested, there was nothing, nothing at all that I could do. One of his friends to this day, about 11 years later, still asks me, smirking, if I ever found my cat. He still seems to think it quite amusing that I was insane with grief and relentless in asking the locals and searching the locale for my kitten. If he was out there I would have found him or I would have had reports of sightings at least.

So Hector is a ragdoll. I hope he is well. I still miss him.

I hope your rescue has a happy story in the end.

[Sy Kopath]

18. I Have One Persian and One Himalayan Cat

..............and neither of them "meow" like normal cats do. They both kind of squeak (especially the Himalayan). The Persian kind of caterwauls (sometimes loud but she's only loud in the middle of the night - LOL) but it seems like these breeds do not have your typical cat meow.

I am glad you found this cat.