I shot the photo at the top with my phone. When I sit at the computer, my cat sometimes joins me and it’s quite cute how she finds a comfortable position at the desk. But I want to talk about something else today. Still related to my cat but an issue I discovered. I noticed that Shyna got a very bad breath, like really bad. I started to wonder if she might have dental problems. I checked her denture, which is of course not easy with a cat but if I could see something at all, it’s maybe dental calculus. A friend who has cats too wondered “Isn’t it normal that they sometimes have bad breath after they ate something?” and I thought “Yeah, maybe that’s it”. The reason why I thought it might be the case is that the bad breath isn’t always there because I checked it if she was nearby. It actually disappeared for a while. And one of the major issues with cats is that they don’t show you if they’re in pain, which is bad if there is a hidden problem, as they just endure the pain. This was also a problem for me now.

Last week I noticed it again and today I also noticed that she does drool. Small droplets of transparent saliva are running out of her mouth and I thought “Nope, we definitely will make a vet appointment for you after the weekend”. So, I thought I forget it until Monday because we can’t do anything right now on a weekend. But I couldn’t forget it and started to research the few symptoms I noticed, and I found a very good website of a vet with lots of information about the same symptoms. It might indeed be the case that my cat has dental problems. I never noticed that my cat has issues to eat, but I definitely could check some things on the list, like salivation and bad breath. But something on the list clicked, they mentioned that the cats sometimes touch their face with the paw as if they would want to clean their lips or mouth. I noticed it too but I didn’t think it was related, but after reading the symptom list, I thought “Yeah, that’s it”. The face touching was very infrequent but a new behavior, especially since it didn’t happen after eating, which would be normal.

So, I will call the vet on Monday, we need to check what’s going on. I hope it’s just dental calculus and not a Gingivitis. I hope they won’t have to pull out many teeth. But I am pretty sure they will put her under general anesthetic because how else will they be able to look deeper into the mouth. So, yeah, I just pulled out the cat transport box so that my cat can get used to it again this weekend. Fortunately, she was curious about the box and is now relaxing in it. The last vet visit wasn’t very stressful for her because she got used to the transport box beforehand. Visiting the vet right now will probably suck, due to the Corona safety precautions but at least I know that appointments with our vet always worked well, without much waiting time and so. I hope I get an appointment for the coming week. Let’s see.