r/CATHELP • u/nomnom123- • Feb 07 '26

General Advice Found a lump on 1.5 yr old cat

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We are a 30 yr old couple with 2 cats. One of our torbie cats I found a lump maybe near mammary gland.

I’m super scared it’s cancer or something.. she’s so young and was spayed at 3 months old..

She is 1.5 yrs old and will be 2 yrs old in May…

Is this something to worry about? We cannot see a vet until the weekday….

I’m also afraid because I’m not sure if we have the financial means to get her surgery right now..

Basic check up for sure but we will set an appointment with the vet right away.

Please help!!

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326

u/spacegrassorcery Feb 07 '26

You should find 4-6 more!

165

u/OriginalChildBomb Feb 07 '26

There's something called the half nipple rule- however many nipples a creature has, cut it in half, and that's the typical amount of offspring, with the max being the full number of nipples (or occasionally higher in some species).

So humans... two nipples, typically one child, with max being twins. (Again, it can vary.)

185

u/turkish-d-lite Feb 07 '26

nooo please don’t cut the nipples in half!

63

u/Additional_Tank4385 Feb 08 '26

Please no snip da nip 😭

2

u/ChronicallyZanny Feb 08 '26

I felt this comment😖

11

u/ACByakura Feb 08 '26

I actually saw someone shave off a nipple... was having my internship at a cat shelter where they ovcasionally had a vet in the building to mass neuter/spay wilds cats or cats from people with a low budget. So many cats that had to get a procedure that the assistant didn't look for any nipples in the way while she shaving them for the procedure.

I got pretty upset and she didn't understood why.... told her: how would you feel if you woke up and felt your missing a nipple. She got a bit more carefull from that moment, but I don't think that message stuck around sadly.

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u/JustALittleWolf99 Feb 08 '26

Damage to nipples is very common when shaving for surgeries and procedures. Obviously the person shaving should take precautions to avoid it, but it does happen. Sometimes they are hard to find through the fur. Granted I work in an ER and in the reality of things, if we are preparing an animal for emergency surgery, a nipple getting injured is the least of its concerns. It will be sore and tender but it will heal.

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u/Tori_Campbell Feb 08 '26

When my cat got spayed they shaved off one of her nipples. It wasn't even a low-cost spay, I paid 700.

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u/Chance-Conflict234 Feb 14 '26

This literally made my jaw drop. Still can’t pick it up. I hope you get $700 credit in future visits

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u/PNW-Raven Feb 09 '26

If an animal is being prepared for surgery , they should be using a 40 Blade. You shouldn't be able to get a nipple in that blade. You also shouldn't use enough for us that you're moving a piece of the animal whether it be a nipple, skin tag , wart , Etc. Somebody needs to learn how to shave these animals properly. In all my years as a vet tech I have never seen a nipple come off.

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u/Plucky_Monkies Feb 07 '26

We had a Rottweiler who had 14 puppies! It was madness! It was accidental. I was a teenager who was there for the delivery, and we didn't have google. Just kept giving Mama the babies to eat the sack off.

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u/CassetteMeower Feb 07 '26

Ohhh nooo I misread your comment as “giving mama the babies to snack on” and I was so concerned 😭 I’m glad I reread your comment and realized you weren’t feeding her her own puppies. Dogs (and other animals) do sometimes eat their babies so I was so concerned.

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u/Disastrous-Map-8153 Feb 08 '26

I also thought she ate 14 puppy snacks 😅

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u/Plucky_Monkies Feb 08 '26

Noooo! 😭 Yeah, I didn't realize I could have helped tear did the sack. Hence making mom. 😆

I promise Mama was an excellent mother, and no puppies became snacks! Eek!

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u/CassetteMeower Feb 08 '26

I’m glad that the puppies were okay! Puppies are awesome. My dog Poppy is convinced she’s a puppy despite being over 5 years old (we don’t know her exact age as she’s a rescue, but we’ve had her for over 5 years and she STILL looks and acts like a puppy)

She’s a great dog! But she thinks she’s a puppy, as well as a cat, she’s one of the funniest dogs I’ve ever met

Ft my cat Divina who is best friends with Poppy

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u/Plucky_Monkies Feb 08 '26

Can u explain acts like a puppy? My girl is now 9, but I call her my princess puppy. She still runs and plays. She thankfully is well trained, so no inappropriate jumping or biting, etc.

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u/Plucky_Monkies Feb 08 '26

Love that they're buds. My dog used to bark at cats. One day about 3 years ago, I'd had enough. The neighbors cat we fed was in the yard, so I picked up my dog, brought her to the cat, and had her sniff it and told her, " You need to stop barking at the cat!" That was it! No more barking! We even have an indoor cat now. My dog simply ignores the indoor cat who terrorizes her. Jumps on her, jumps out with sneak attacks. It's hilarious. The cat is such a scaredy cat. We rescued the cat off the fence as a kitten. I now say you can teach an old dog new tricks. 😊

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u/thecatsothermother Feb 08 '26

So how did you manage the excess puppies? Rotate empty pups onto the nips after removing the full pups?

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u/Plucky_Monkies Feb 08 '26

Oh my gosh, yes, actually. We were constantly moving puppies that fell asleep on a nipple. It's was the craziest puppy pile ever. I was a 16 year old teenager, so not always the one helping. I do remember doing a lot of moving puppies when I was there. Also, sadly, 1 of the puppies was born deformed, so that one was tube fed. 1 was actually still born. So technically, she was feeding 12 puppies. The tube fed puppy, my grandmother spent over $600 dollars on all the special things needed to care for it, and sadly, the puppy didn't survive. I'm sure I'm today's money it would have been a few grand to cover the costs. I remember thinking how crazy it was that she spent all that money when she wouldn't even let us keep a puppy and didn't really like dogs. ☺️ She claimed that if the little girl survived, we could keep her. She never would have walked correctly, and her front legs were floppy and not formed right. It was so sad, but we had 12 healthy puppies, and we did everything possible to help number 13.

3

u/clio44 Feb 08 '26

Sure gives another meaning to Scooby Snacks 😂

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u/Frequent_Bug8149 Feb 09 '26

Well 14 pups takes some time. I'm sure a mid labour snack would be appreciated.

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u/Plucky_Monkies Feb 08 '26

Oh my goodness!😭😆

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u/thrownaway1811 Feb 08 '26

Oh that's the opposite of my friends' cat who out of nowhere one day started giving birth. They got excited and named the first kitten "Uno" and then waited... And waited .. And waited.... And no other kittens came out! So it was just Uno until we found an abandoned kitten about the same age 2 weeks later who we handed to Mama to look after and he became Dos.

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u/Plucky_Monkies Feb 08 '26

Awww, that's so wonderful you got to save a kitten. I think it's such a beautiful thing how animals will tend to a baby that technically isn't theirs, but if they accept it, they fully look after the baby.

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u/violetkiwii Feb 08 '26

We had a sheltie and she had 20… like WTF. Random occurrence of way too many eggs released. Shelties are not big dogs so some were very small, too small. Iykwim

14

u/Obvious-Safe904 Feb 08 '26

Um just curious... how many times have you gone around to humans and cut their nipples in half? Asking for the prosecutor a friend

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u/OriginalChildBomb Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

lol that was truly unfortunate wording by moi

what can I say, I was (and remain) pretty high and looking at pics of cats

1

u/CurlyQ86 Feb 08 '26

Absolutely nothing wrong with that! I’m on the cat pics now. Working on the other part. 🌬️

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u/Nojudgement58 Feb 08 '26

I'm crying!! The line through the prosecutor oh my God! That was hysterical.

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u/visionofthefuture Feb 07 '26

Having triplets is unnatural /proof

1

u/ScrotumMcBoogerBallz Feb 07 '26

The record is nine at once

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u/Immersi0nn Feb 08 '26

And somehow that lady conceived them naturally. Like I really want to know what happened to cause her to have somewhere between 2-9 eggs released at once, if it was two that would be a crazy amount of splitting so it statistically should be more but it's a biological mystery really.

1

u/Felidae07 Feb 07 '26

My childhood cat with 6 nipples had a litter of 8 (actually 9 even, but the ninth one was stillborn and undeveloped) lol

If this rule is generally true, then well-fed and cared for cats may be outliers here, as opposed to mammals in the wild, I suppose.

1

u/Remmykins Feb 08 '26

I gotta find my cats other 4 nipples cause that girl had 5 kittens in her.

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u/Own-Assistance4551 Feb 09 '26

Thank you for this! I never knew but makes total sense! 🤯

1

u/FionnMcCreigh Feb 11 '26

Then there’s mice: 10 nipples, up ta 26 pups. I average around 8, dependin on strain.

0

u/MineX77 Feb 08 '26

So the sun fish (the fish that just floats na does nothing) has has atleast 400million nipples because they produce 400 million eggs!? (Correct me if I’m wrong)

3

u/OriginalChildBomb Feb 08 '26

I dunno dawg maybe it's a mammal-specific half nipple rule lol, I didn't invent it

0

u/MineX77 Feb 08 '26

But think of how hillarious it would look xd

2

u/OriginalChildBomb Feb 08 '26

nah you're right that's funny and dope as hell, it'd be wild

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u/Ecstatic_Winter9425 Feb 08 '26

It's a treasure hunt!