Curiosity Leads to Cat Eating Litter

Background

Chantelle M. enrolled her cat, Squirt, with Embrace Pet Insurance because working in the veterinary field for many years taught her first-hand how quickly one injury or illness can lead to a very expensive vet bill. She never wanted to be in a position where she couldn't give her fur babies the care they need because of the cost.

When Squirt stopped acting like his normal self, she didn't delay taking him to the vet because she knew her Embrace plan would be there to help. Chantelle shared her story with us.

"Squirt had a couple of howling episodes over the course of a few days. They were short-lived, and he would quickly return to his normal self, so I wasn't too concerned -- I just thought that I would monitor him closely at home to see if it happened again or if any other symptoms appeared.

A couple days later, I realized there was definitely something wrong with him. He didn't want to eat and was very lethargic. I brought him to work with me so our veterinarian could examine him. The color of his gums was very pale (turns out he was severely anemic), and radiographs revealed the presence of a mineralized substance throughout his GI tract.

I rushed Squirt to a nearby veterinary emergency specialty center where they did an emergency blood transfusion, ultrasound, and ECG (the severe anemia had caused an enlarged heart). Squirt responded well to the blood transfusion and other treatments administered at the emergency hospital. The internal medicine specialist suspected that the mineralized substance in his GI tract had caused a GI hemorrhage. After spending a couple more days in the hospital under observation, Squirt was released.

When I brought him home from the hospital, he went to his litterbox right away. I noticed he was in there for a while, so I went to check on him and caught him eating his litter! It dawned on me that the mineralized substance that was in his GI tract was probably ingested cat litter! The day before his first howling episode I had changed the cat litter box and filled it with a new brand of litter. The litter granules were slightly larger than the old one I was using, and I guess Squirt found them so interesting that he wanted to eat them. I immediately changed the litterbox and went back to the brand of litter I had used before. He has stopped eating the cat litter and everything has returned to normal."