A Tale of Cats and Stones: litter-box usage before & after bladder stone cystostomy
August 26, 2024
A Tale of Cats and Stones: litter-box usage before & after bladder stone cystostomy
Posted by ginopono
1 comment
Data collected from my litter robot
Tools: R with tidyverse (dplyr, lubridate) and ggplot2
My cat was going to her little box with alarming frequency and the vet found bladder stones. I got the fancy litter box in order to track her progress, if any, especially during those first couple months, during which time the vet gave us prescription food that would have dissolved the stones if they had been a different kind.
The gap in early-mid April is after her surgery, after which time I had to use a different litter box that was easier for her to get into.
Yes, I’m aware that the label on the Y axis of the “Time of Day” should probably be “Timestamp” instead of “Visits”. Oops. In any case, I thought it was interesting to look whether there was a pattern relative to when I was at work. The lines for 0500, 0700, 1600, and 2000 were chosen because those two pairs of hours are the beginning/end of when I was generally both at home and awake. From mid-April on, I’ve been home pretty much all the time, but my wake-up time has been constant (thanks to Artemis), and I think the concentration of visits after we wake up is neat.
The litter box has the added benefit of helping to objectively track changes in her weight, which isn’t directly related to the stone situation.
1 comment
Data collected from my litter robot
Tools: R with tidyverse (dplyr, lubridate) and ggplot2
My cat was going to her little box with alarming frequency and the vet found bladder stones. I got the fancy litter box in order to track her progress, if any, especially during those first couple months, during which time the vet gave us prescription food that would have dissolved the stones if they had been a different kind.
The gap in early-mid April is after her surgery, after which time I had to use a different litter box that was easier for her to get into.
Yes, I’m aware that the label on the Y axis of the “Time of Day” should probably be “Timestamp” instead of “Visits”. Oops. In any case, I thought it was interesting to look whether there was a pattern relative to when I was at work. The lines for 0500, 0700, 1600, and 2000 were chosen because those two pairs of hours are the beginning/end of when I was generally both at home and awake. From mid-April on, I’ve been home pretty much all the time, but my wake-up time has been constant (thanks to Artemis), and I think the concentration of visits after we wake up is neat.
The litter box has the added benefit of helping to objectively track changes in her weight, which isn’t directly related to the stone situation.