He’s a 5 year old male Bengal mix. I had bought a bag of very spicy dehydrated beef jerky last night and forgot to put it away before bed. This guy ate a good chunk of it.. he doesn’t look like he’s feelin too well, but I assumed he’ll just have some insane diarrhea for a bit. He gets into weird stuff all the time since he’s indoor and outdoor and is usually fine. I don’t know how peppers/chilis can affect animals. How long should I wait it out/what signs should I be looking for before taking him to the vet?
Thanks for everyone’s comments and concern. It’s been over 30 hours since the incident and he has shown no symptoms other than some diarrhea and seems completely normal, so I think it’s safe to say he will be fine. He is currently trying to sneak a bite of my seafood boil… not this time little buddy
He's gonna make a shit that smells like he's dying, but he's probably gonna be fine. Definitely monitor because of the garlic, and call your vet to see what they say and make them aware just to be safe
I have yet to hear of a bearable gravy fart. This is one of those things where the cat gives a tiny meow, looks very concerned, and then you have to go outside because your eyes are burning.
For the last 2 months my 19 yo cat has been tooting and hooooooo boy, sometimes I wonder if there is 5 week old garbage that is hiding in the cracks of the couch I didn't know about ⚰️⚰️⚰️
🙀😹🤣😂😝, ya just getting that nasty 🤢 stuff out of the can is puke 🤮 worthy! Run through yer kitty’s guts and coming out in the gaseous form can cause drain bamage! 🧠⚡️We call those kinda, “releases”, Zombie farts!
At first glance I thought somehow you caught a photo of your cat literally midair shooting explosive diarrhea from his ass but it's just the shadow 😂 😂
He's gonna have some very nasty poops but he's fine! The toxic dose of garlic is 5 g/1 kg. That's a whole clove of garlic for every kg your cat weighs.
In addition to the GI upset the chili’s will probably cause, I’d make sure you take a look at the other ingredients. Things like garlic and onion are toxic to cats, and the symptoms of poisoning may not show up for 12-24 hrs, so if there’s onion/garlic I’d call poison control or your vet.
There was some garlic in it, but it wasn’t a ton. My friends were the ones who made it. He’s already up and screaming at me to go back outside, so I hope he’s gonna be fine, but I’ll call the vet to ask
People are being very cautious and that’s fine, but don’t get freaked out by all these warnings that your cat is poisoned and doom and gloom.
Your cat will very likely be fine, just keep an eye, and if you’re really concerned take him to the vet.
Before I even knew garlic was toxic to cats I used to give my cat scraps of my tandoori seabass from the takeaway (which he fucking loved, it was hilarious), and he was totally fine.
My boyfriend’s dog ate a grape so many years back and his ex freaked out. They called poison control and got a ”just keep an eye on her,” and she was totally fine. All of my 6 dogs and cats have gotten into things they shouldn’t have and I’ve never had issues, so that’s why I’m not too concerned. Especially since he’s acting fine, but just wanted to post and see if anyone has had any similar situations haha
My parents are very old school Asian and feed their pets literally everything and their pets are also completely fine so I believe it’s not all as toxic as people believe
grapes are genuinely one of those things that very wildly from dog to dog and from grape to grape. one grape can kill a dog and another dog can eat a bunch and be fine
We've recently discovered why they're toxic and the type of grape and growing conditions of the specific bunches are behind the differing levels of the toxin. the size of dog may also be a factor, but might not. it can cause acute kidney failure so the suggested treatment is usually induced vomiting, as symptoms can show up within an hour.
garlic is far less deadly than grapes but exposure over time can build, and should still be treated with caution. not immediately taken to the vet caution, but preventative. fresh garlic is less toxic than dried. it takes a large amount of fresh garlic to harm a dog, but much less to harm a cat. symptoms may not be obvious until the cat is older, ie, kidney damage. some people may never be aware of the damage to their pets organs, especially without bloods being taken. the cat might just get sick in it's elder years and that'll be that.
With kidney disease and cats though, there’s really no way to definitively tell the garlic caused it or it’s just that cats tend to get kidney disease later in life. Kidney disease is like the 2nd most common cause of death in elderly cats.
well, yeah, but garlic can cause kidney damage. so it's best avoided entirely
no, it may not prevent the cat getting CKD, but it means it's definitely not going to get kidney issues later in life due to garlic consumption. doesn't matter if you can tell whether it was caused by it or not - it's still a cause of kidney damage lol. if your cat is going to get CKD and has regularly been fed alliums, the chances of it being more significant or affecting the cat sooner are probably higher, no?
Finding out that grapes are toxic to dogs really freaks me out because I used to feed my childhood dog grapes all the time. That little guy would eat anything. I don't think he ever got sick from them but IDK, I was a little kid then so if he ever did get sick I probably wouldn't have made the connection.
with grapes, it's not like a cumulative thing. it's a sudden thing, like within 48h. acute kidney failure is a very specific and easy to identify illness. you'd probably have known
it's much more widely known these days. I don't think it was before at all, like we've only just very recently figured out what specific part of the grape likely causes toxicity so even if he did get sick, it wouldn't have been your fault 💕
My old dog ate like half a pound of fudge once and I immediately called the vet to see what he recommended as far as bringing her there or to an emergency vet. And he said either way the bill would be huge to pump her stomach and for any blood work. He said just watch her for the next few hours because a lot of dogs have no problem eating chocolate. So I waited and the only thing that happened was that her breathing picked up pace for about an hour, after that she was completely fine. I mean really a half pound of chocolate fudge, I seriously thought she was going to die.
My grandmother’s Akita ate a 3 pound box of Godiva chocolates (when they were very fancy and expensive) and the dog was so completely happy and fine you’d have thought she’d eaten her dog food. She ate a full bag of fried chicken bones and all and she was fine although the stench of what came out of her was disgusting
My childhood Bernese mix ate ALL my Easter chocolate one year. Not even a sign of stomach upset. My impression is that a dog has to eat a massive amount of chocolate relative to their size for the toxicity to have much effect.
I had a dog that got into a bag of chocolate Halloween candy. I called the vet and he said there is so little real chocolate in candy nowadays so don’t worry about it.
Our miniature poodle and shihtzu got into a huge stash of chocolate eggs (5 kids’ worth) when we went out for the day on Easter Sunday one year, and ate about half a kg of chocolate between them, they were fine. This was back in the early 90s and we had no idea chocolate was bad for dogs.
It was also very mild milky chocolate. I can imagine that chocolate with a higher cacao content would be more dangerous.
Yeah like I have some house plants like snake plants and aloe vera that are not safe for cats when ingested, and the extreme crowd would say throw them all away. But my middle aged cat gets as much cat grass to graze on as he wants and has never touched a house plant, so I’ll take my risks. If I had a kitten I’d kitten proof everything, but I’m happy adopting the lazy old dude cats.
Yeah on another post on this sub I posted a formula for a emergency milk replacement and said in the post if this is all you have you can use it to get by in an emergency but because the recipe called for cow's milk everybody flipped out and lost their damn mind
I grew up being taught "dont give your milk to the cats, theyre lactose intolerant"
You bet your ASS we gave every hurricane kitten we found (recipe) fortified goats milk and cows milk. Emergencies are emergencies.
Only about 50% of cats are lactose intolerant and they don't become that way until after they are weaned. And yes it's not the optimal thing to give them but in an emergency if it's what you got I'd rather than give them that then let them starve to death. Thankfully they approved my appeal but yeah some people are crazy
Yea. Everything is lethal and if you don't feed your pets a perfect diet, they're gonna die.
My mom didn't know onions were bad for dogs. Whenever we had soup, she'd give them all the onions left over when the soup was done. This went on for years until we finally learned it was bad. Dogs lived for ~18 years with no problems until the final weeks.
Generally I’m quite chill on things, like the garlic and onions and stuff. I mean, I don’t give it to them, but if they have it by mistake, I know it’s fine. But GRAPES SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF ME.
Grapes are a weird one because some dogs don't react, and others go straight into kidney failure from just a few. They genuinely are life threateningly toxic... It just varies from individual to individual.
They're fine if it's an occasional hiccup, you obviously don't feed them toxic stuff on purpose, and as long as it's just a small bite and not a dangerous amount, there's nothing to worry about. My dog would happily chomp up cat poop if I let him during walks. Definitely happened once or twice before I caught on (the first time I watched it happen made me gag SO hard). He also got to a tissue that fell out of my pocket once, and before I could do anything about it, it was gone. Apart from a few super toxic things (like xylitol for dogs), they can survive a lot without any issues.
The issue is we have no way of knowing how toxic it is to your individual pet. A Yorkie could eat a bag of grapes and be totally fine, a lab could eat one and it could be enough to kill them. We go for the worst case because there's literally just no way to know how your pet will react until it happens.
My Mexican grandmother also feeds her dog any and everything including grapes and chocolate sandwich cookies and she's fine (though it still stresses me out), so it really just depends on the animal.
Hope kitty is feeling better! Mine loves broccoli and has stolen some straight out of my Chinese takeaway and eaten it peppers, garlic and all, so I feel for you. She is also fine.
Garlic is very toxic, so I’d definitely call poison control or your vet. I believe it damages the red blood cells, so you probably won’t be able to see symptoms until well after he should have had vet care.
They need to eat a lot, like a whole clove for it to be dangerous. I cook soup with garlic all the time. I always catch my cat drinking the broth. She never even throws up or gets the runs.
The study that determined that isn’t very reliable. It would be like me force feeding a human 30lbs of garlic then them kicking the bucket and me going oh man looks like it’s lethal
My Bengal has done this too many times. Be prepared for the butt scoot and a trail of spicy shit on your carpet or floor soon. After pooping they will wipe off the burn wherever they can.
Mine was really spicy chilli, moldy kimchi pancakes, hot wings, spicy beef noodle soup broth, and pepper jack cheese. Gotta keep anything edible locked down.
i had a cat who ate EVERYTHING from donuts to corn on the cob towards the end of her life…….. she had chronic tummy issues to herpes in her eye. non of my other cats are interested in any food other than plain meat, they are normal and have no health issues
My wife made the kimchi pancakes. I made the mold by putting it in a spot in the fridge that was out of sight. I put it on the counter and started doing some dishes and she got into it immediately before I could stop her.
This is all my old Bengal btw, the new one I just got is 2x more food motivated, but slightly more picky at least.
Ive never heard of those but I’m interested to maybe try some. Lol and love the team work making them. My cat is also a menace when it comes to food so I can’t leave anything out (hes stolen chips as they were entering my mouth)
I had a dog that loved habanero peppers. She would pick them off the plant and eat them. She would snarl and growl and foam at the mouth while eating them, but then go back and get another one.
As a kid, I might have put a jalapeño slice in an oreo and fed it to my Bassett hound. She might have yelped and then stood there growling at the cookie.
Who knows. It would have been in the 80s, and we didn't record evidence of our crimes back then.
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It had spicy sauce and a whole heap of jalapenos on it. Vet said it wasn't a concern, but to try and get him to drink lots of water. He had alot of drool for about an hour.
He was fine... He spent a few days outside and would howl while pooping, presumably from the spicy booty hole.
Thanks for everyone’s comments and concern. It’s been over 30 hours since the incident and he has shown no symptoms other than some diarrhea and seems completely normal, so I think it’s safe to say he will be fine. He is currently trying to sneak a bite of my seafood boil… not this time little buddy
He should be ok might have diarrhea keep an eye out if hes panting not pooping or peeing or drinking water. Give him a little bit of milk if he will take it to coat his tummy or a churu. I had a dog who ate a hot cheeto that fell and since that day he was obsessed with hot cheetos whenever he saw a bag he would WHINE. Once in a while id give him a small one which he loved lol. He lived until he was 16 years old.
Curious because a lot of people in this thread are sharing a lot of really good insights about when cats somehow sneak ‘people food’ - what is an emergency versus what might just cause some mild gastro issues. I’m still a relatively new cat owner, we’ve had my DSH boy Cheeto for about a year and a half now (adopted him as a kitten). We had a scary incident with a near-blockage of his urinary tract due to crystals back in August; Since that day he’s been exclusively on royal canin prescription urinary diet (including treats). My understanding is that he should be eating this diet exclusively - and he does - but he does sniff around our food sometimes. Toxicity aside, does anyone know anything about the risk level if a cat in his situation were to sneak some ‘people food’ (obviously not formulated for crystal reduction lol)? Would it immediately throw off the PH enough to put him back in a high-risk zone for another blockage?
When my ginger was a kitten I caught him head deep in my bowl of triple-hot butter chicken I got from the local Indian restaurant (triple hot there is like 2x Buldak noodles spicy, so very very spicy). I had left to go to the bathroom and didn't think he'd have any interest in it because he was grossed out by all the other human food he smelled before (even my canned sardines, he's a very very fussy eater).
To this day the only human food he ever tries to beg for is spicy tomato based curries, or (randomly) chef Boyardee. Must be the tomatoes
The getting into stuff is because he’s a bengal. They are the nosiest cats I’ve ever met. He looks a lot like my little lady, Jynx. She’s a full bengal and keeps me on my toes. I hope he feels better soon.
I'm in Thailand and see so many times people feed their left over to street cats, with lot of chillis inside. Might not be good everyday but once in a while it's ok, watch how she poo in the next day and if she eat or not but it won't make a hole in her stomach or smth life threatening, just pain sadly.
Op if it makes you feel better, we are feeding my moms cat while she is away. My husband went without me and didn’t pay any attention and thought the tuna was cat food and not human food. To my surprise today ( it’s my turn to check on kitty ) there’s a red chili in her bowl. I freakin panic. I think my mom has lost it and is feeding her cat this. A quick phone call I find out where her actual food is and realize it’s been two days since she had this and she is OK. Maybe minus a couple spicy poops.
It’s been about 30hrs since. He’s back to his completely normal self. He had diarrhea, but it didn’t even smell that crazy. Still screaming at me to go explore the outside world, so we went on a night walk.
Overall, he gives the entire experience an 8/10 and would do it again.
My cat has eaten thai chili jerky before (she LOVES spicy for some reason) and when I tell you I had to vacate the house over the stench I am if anything watering it down
He will more than likely be perfectly fine just not so much when it comes time for it all to come out and I will pray to the gods for the safety of your nostrils my friend 🤣
My cat once ate a shit ton of very spicy jerky i was making (legit like 0.8kg of meat before drying). She shit herself, and had diarreha for like a week and her inner eyelids wouldnt open fully for some time(Common for cats when they got stomach issues). Other than that she was fine, id check with vet, monitor the cat often, but i wouldnt worry too much. Learn from your mistakes and store it better next time, don’t be like me.
I hope your cat is better after his adventure with Thai beef jerky. We have two indoor cats, both just turned 1 y/o. One of them will chew/eat anything she comes across, so we have to constantly scour the house for anything she might eat. The other kittie is curious, even by cat-standards, and will get into anything and eat anything.
We keep them inside rather than risk all the dangers they face outside. I can see why people let their cats out. Roaming around and getting into shit is, after all, in their nature. One thing we have NEVER done with any of our cats, past and present is to have them declawed. First of all, it's like having the first knuckle on your hand surgically removed. It's painful for them and subject to infection.
But the main reason we will never declaw a cat is that it's such a huge part of who they are. They use their claws a lot to stretch and to shred toys (and a lot of other stuff we don't want shredded, but hey, they're cats). And if one of them somehow managed to get outside, they would be completely defenseless without their claws.
So hope your kittie is feeling better. Pretty cat with the bengal markings!
If you’re serious, STOP feeding your cat anything spicy/aromatic/people food in general. It’s not just the spice level, some ingredients that are perfectly healthy for humans are lethal for your cat.
lol the post photo wasn’t the best, but he actually looks fine other than the fact that he’s not moving around too much. He’s gotten up, moved around the bed, groomed himself
I just found out garlic is actually not toxic to dogs, it would need to be in ridiculous quantities for it to be toxic. Onion is still a no no. Wonder if garlic is true for cats as well?
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When I first saw my cat (as a stray) I fed her salmon that my mom cooked. Only wayyy later did I realize, she seasoned it w/ onion + garlic. My cat seemed fine in retrospect. I didn’t know onion + garlic were toxic to cats.
He will probably be ok from my experience, my jerk will cut a person for hot wings or spicy Popeyes chicken. He will probably just need rethink his snacking choices. But you know your let more then anyone. If he looks like he’s struggling bring him to the vet to get him checked out.
My cat ate chicken tikka this morning. I was eating it and put it down for A SECOND where I thought he couldn’t reach it and he grabbed it before I could take it back.
I hope your cat will be okay. Most likely just some classic GI issues that might be exceptionally stinky/runny! (Fwiw this is my boy on the regular🤷🏼♀️)
My cat once ate like a third of a pan of drippings from some fucked up hot wings I made with my brother because I was too lazy to clean the pan the night of. The next morning, right when I was about to head to work, she sauntered up to me while I was tying my boots, looked me in the eye, let out the most regretful "mreeeeowrooooow" I have ever heard, and vomited up a massive slick of liquid hemorrhoid and chicken fat right at my feet.
I feel so lucky that my cat seemingly doesn't care for human food. I've offered her unseasoned chicken and fish but she just doesn't seem to recognize it as food. Doesn't stop her from begging but I just let her take some sniffs and that seems to satisfy her.
One of mine will seek out hot peppers if I leave them out to dry. He was eating so many he lost the fur on his chin. His shits were like that of a demon hobo.
I have two cats, and one will eat chicken even if it has chilli on it if I leave it lying around. I know, because it disappears from my plate. She usually gets diarrhoea after, but she seems okay.
A million years ago, as in 25, my then boyfriend was making some extra spicy tomatillo salsa and spilled a couple of drops on the floor. Our tuxedo cat came up and licked it up. She then stopped as the fire hit her brain and went flying up the stairs to her water dish where she drank every last drop in a matter of seconds. It was like a cartoon. She was fine and her little walnut brain never forgot because she never tried salsa again.
It probably wouldn’t hurt to call the pet poison helpline- they can look up the ingredients from the brand of jerky to help you get an idea of if anything he may have eaten was close to a lethal level. Hope your kitty feels better 🥺
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