Allow me to preface this by saying that cat poop and enemas are about to be discussed so you might want to skip this post if you’re easily grossed out.

No? Bien. I figured that J.J., having resumed eating after five days of nothing in his system, was about to have some problems evacuating the digested food for an assortment of reasons. And lo, I was right because this morning he started straining to poop but nothing was coming out.

Bless Google, I looked up “how to give a cat an enema” and I’m glad I did. Turns out you CANNOT give a cat human enema fluids; it’ll wreck their kidneys and could kill them. Since that is the result we are desperately trying to avoid I decided to go with a warm water enema and order some feline-specific medical enemas online (they’ll arrive tomorrow, thank you Amazon).

As our vet gave us two doses of a painkiller for J.J. in very small syringes that would fit easily (well, relatively easily) up a cat’s anus, I squirted one dose into a glass bottle and stored it, then washed out the syringe and filled it with warm water, oiled the business end, and had Lyndon hold down J.J. while I administered it. He wasn’t happy about it but wasn’t wriggling or vocally complaining so I think it made him feel a little better.

And lo, about four hours later I came down and found him eating from the food bowls with a little nickel-sized turd next to his tail. After praising him loudly and disposing of the nugget, I realized he was still trying to poop but it just wasn’t coming out.

I summoned Lyndon and we got J.J. back into position, I refilled the syringe, put it up his poor straining pooper duper and injected the warm water. I then started massaging his belly to help soften the stool and make it easier to pass. To my surprise I discovered that he was so skinny I could actually get my fingers around his straining colon.

Very, very carefully, I helped him push out a stool about 1.25″ long and .75″ wide. It was clay hard, poor sweetie, and if you didn’t know a cat could let out a sigh of relief I am here to tell you that they can. The chamber was empty after that so I cleaned his anus and oiled it, then put him on a bed here in the library where he can relax and enjoy a patch of sunlight. He’ll be getting stool softener every day from here on in, and I’ll administer a medical enema tomorrow to help everything that’s still in his small intestine work its way out painlessly.

So I now have a new skill and know how to extract a constipated turd from a cat’s ass. You wish you had my life.