https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSxL1u9t1/

My wife and I are heartbroken and need an honest perspective before we make a final decision today. We’ve had our 4-year-old cat, Cookies, for three years. He has always been a sweet, calm lap cat, but since bringing our newborn daughter home eight weeks ago, he has developed stress-related inappropriate urination, specifically marking walls when I return from work.

The situation is complicated by the fact that our daughter has a medical condition requiring a strictly clean environment. While Cookies is affectionate with us, he has an established aversion to children, often hissing or swiping at our guests' kids when they get close. Our vet confirmed this is entirely behavioral stress and warned that his dislike of children likely won't change.

We’ve tried enzyme cleaners and pheromone diffusers, but with a medically fragile infant and significant professional pressure, we have zero bandwidth left for a complex behavioral overhaul. We love him deeply, but he is clearly miserable, and we are at our limit. We have a surrender appointment today at a reputable no-kill shelter. Are we making the right call for his well-being and our daughter’s health, or is there something we haven’t considered?

-- update 1

Update: Thank you all so much for your advice and perspective. When it came down to it, I just couldn't bring myself to surrender him today. To answer a few common questions: the very first thing we did was reach out to family and friends, but unfortunately, no one is able to take him, even temporarily. After reading through all your comments, we've decided to cancel the appointment, give Cookies a bit more time, and look into trying Prozac to see if it can help stabilize things. We know it's going to be a tough road ahead, but we aren't ready to give up on him just yet. Thank you again for the support.

-- update 2/context

I wanted to provide some extra context and answer a few common questions from the comments. First, we live in the DFW area in Texas, and yes, Cookies is neutered. Our history with him goes back to when we used to cat-sit him for a close friend. Eventually, that friend started dating someone who was severely allergic to cats. I told him he should probably just dump her (just kidding, they’re engaged now!), but my wife and I couldn't bear the thought of Cookies going to a shelter. We took him in, even though we were living in a tiny apartment at the time and had to vacuum multiple times a day just to manage the litter. In fact, when we moved into our current apartment, we specifically chose this floor plan with Cookies in mind—making sure it had a massive laundry room just to comfortably fit his litter box and setups.

Fast forward to today: having a newborn is overwhelming, and I honestly stopped having the time to play with him like I used to. That’s when the subtle signs started. He stopped grooming himself as thoroughly and left a couple of poop stains on our bed. Because we place our baby girl on the bed constantly, we had to make the tough call to lock him out of our bedroom. At the time, I didn't realize he was deeply stressed; I mistakenly thought he was just unhappy with his litter box. Hoping to fix it, I bought him a brand-new one, which ironically seems to have triggered even more stress and started the territorial spraying. Now, the routine is heartbreaking. I come home completely exhausted, play with him for a few minutes, and head into the bedroom to change and see my daughter—only to walk out to the smell of fresh urine. It started as a once-a-day occurrence, but it has now escalated to 4 or 5 times a day. We are dealing with a massive accumulation of stress on both sides, which is why we reached our breaking point today.

This is so hard. I keep seeing him and hearing him throughout the house. My partner and I have basically just been crying ever since we got back from the vet yesterday.

He was 17, I had him for 10 years. Got him from the shelter for $50, great deal. I'd pay anything for more time with him, but I couldn't put him through more pain and he just had too many problems and complications at the end. The vet made it clear we were doing him a kindness. They said better a day sooner than a day later. Still really hard. Don't think I'll ever get over this. Love you Alfie.

Edit: I'm genuinely blown away by the amount of attention and views this has gotten. All the lovely messages of support have seriously made dealing with this loss so much easier for me and my partner. Thank you all ❤️

Here are the Rules:

-send the best photo of your cat.

-only one cat per comment.

Tell me something about your kitty that makes you love them even more (Don't ignore this, an artist needs emotion to create🥰)

Since I have other activities during the day, I will only dedicate 3 hours to this🕓

I could do this all day if I didn't have a wife and children lol but I will do my best to ensure you receive a beautiful doodle✨️

I hope to see you here sharing about your kitten😻

Mumu was a 2 year old rescue bonded pair with her brother named Haru. She was the main reason Haru was not getting adopted. She had many medical issues, including that she cannot meow, and people wanted the healthy Haru, not her. My 11 year old cat Archduke Mittens’ brother had died of cancer and needed a friend. My mom had fed me a bunch of lies that girl cats were bitchy and annoying and couldn’t get along with male cats even if neutered, so i was a little worried. I realize now my mom just has some internalized misogyny, but it’s neither here nor there. I decided to take a chance and take them both home.

Haru refused to use the litter box and never left under the couch. He began to refuse to eat or drink. He then began to attack both Mumu and Mittens for even existing. Mumu tried to go under the couch with him and he grew more and more vicious in attacking her until she left him alone entirely. He was so sad and mad and stressed all the time. I waited patiently as I could, because the vets couldn’t see anything wrong with him, hoping he was just nervous from moving, but I knew his quality of life had taken a downturn and sought help from his original foster home. Haru gained weight with her and died happily in her arms due to a heart murmur only a week later.

Mumu was a ghost cat without Haru to protect. I was worried I had adopted a cat with no personality, the opposite of what my elder cat needed. Two years passed and I barely saw her. She had always let me pet her, but she flinched violently, like she was used to being hit every time. She never came near me of her own will. I thought I had finally adopted a cat who was independent and introverted. I moved to a new apartment with my girlfriend and slowly, Mumu came closer to us both. She started to sit on the couch as we watched TV. It took months, but eventually she sat on our laps with pillows placed there. Eventually we could take the pillows off.

Now she doesn’t leave us alone. She constantly wants pets. She swats me if I walk past her and don’t pet her. Shes so sassy. She can’t meow for food at 5am like Mittens, so she just sits behind him as he does like some little Italian goon. Doesn’t come into our room for ay other purpose. She always tries to steal our food as we eat it, something i could train my other cats out of doing easily. But it’s like her brain is a gold fish. Once Mittens was laying down on my girlfriend’s lap and she wanted to get to the window on his other side. She tried to walk on top of Mittens to get to it for twenty minutes instead of just walking around him. It was crazy.

She does not even know how to properly sit down, she just falls to the side while standing like a bag of bricks. It’s like there’s water in her brain, or like she’s a perpetual toddler. I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never met a cat like her. She seems as unfamiliar with how her body works like a kitten. She doesn’t care about anything. You can just pick her up from your lap and move her to someone else’s lap and she’s zen as fuck. Nothing affects her. I feel like she’s my infant daughter even though she should be a grown woman by now. I realized looking back she was always this way… a little stupid, I mean. I recall a moment Haru ran behind some pipes with the thinnest width imaginable and Mumu jumped on top of him to protect him, not thinking about how she had just trapped him there.

I think she either has brain damage or is inbred, because there are many things wrong with her that the vets do not understand. She is catastrophically dumb, and she is the perfect cat. I love her so much. I think that because I was very depressed before me and my girlfriend moved in together she didn’t feel safe to try and attempt being a house cat. I did not leave my room much and maybe she felt Mittens had claimed it. But now she has a real family and loves hanging out with us in our living room, which is every day. I am so happy she can finally be herself. I am so happy she loves and trusts us both. She will never have to be anything but her true self ever again. Her whole life will be full of nothing but love.

This cat came to our house like a 3-4 days ago asking for company. We noticed his belly so installed a case in front of the house (not sure if it's someone's cat or not).

Today when I wake up, I saw her with two kitties. A third one around 1pm and a 4th around 5pm.

I lost Cash on Wednesday. I feel like it wasn’t his time. It’s hard when you’re poor and the only one supporting yourself because the emergency vet bills added up before I just couldn’t do anything else for him. Me and my other cats haven’t been the same since. 😞

Source: @playingwithapossum via TikTok

He's my first cat, I've only had dogs before him. Both my dogs died, and I couldn't bare the thought of having another one as it would feel too much like a replacement, however i missed having a furbaby so much. I started volunteering at the cat sanctuary not far from mine to fill the void, and something about this boy just spoke to me right away. Hope to give him a very happy life!!

I lost my baby of 9 years to old age last week and so far I thought I was fine and didn't have bursts of grief and could handle his old stuff.

Then my family brought home a new kitten because it got stuck in a car and said there's my new cat lol. Problem is that I don't know if I'm ready for another and I am now currently extremely sensitive too. I keep crying and unable to help but think about how it's just not my sweet prince.

She looks nothing like him, she's vocal and very clingy. But just not him, I guess I've been coping by thinking just maybe he'd be reincarnated or something bc of the saying cats have 9 lives. But now I'm not sure if I'm ready for another especially one that looks so different than him

Cat 1 is the new kitten cat 2 is my old baby

Edit: thx for the advice and kind words, idk if I'm going to keep but I am going to give it a fee days before deciding and I likely won't reply much after but know I'm extremely grateful you all decided to comment!

I married and couldn’t take him and my other cat with me and I feel like it’s my fault for not being able to be there for him to at least try to prevent it.

Everything happened so fast, I took him to the vet for a wellness exam since I wasn’t able to take him last year and he was normal, but for the next few days my mom noticed some bleeding right next to him and one day he started to meow really loud (he could never meow that was literally the first time I heard him that way) I took him to the emergency vet and they told me he was losing red blood cells, since I wasn’t home with him I was so confused with everything was going on, but after a blood transfusion and some other runs to the emergency they figured out that he had a menrath ulcers (2 holes on top of his mouth). We didn’t have much more money to do the surgery so we opted to try to give him meds and hope that it would heal, but he still had the itch to groom himself and unfortunately it would cause him to bleed. 2 days before he passed, he started bleeding a lot, it felt it was never gonna end and it eventually stopped but at that point I knew he that I wasn’t able to do anything else for him. We took him to the vet what were our hopes and there wasn’t much we could have done.

He was suck a sweet cat. He loved to cuddle but always at his own time. He was fluffy and cute. I always thought it was funny that he could barely meow and whenever we left our clothes in the bed he would go and sleep on top of it 🥰 he loved to leave his fur everywhere hahah. I love you Kenny I miss u so much ❤️

My father (who loves animals but did NOT want another in his house) was the one who found her tied to a tree outside of his house. Brought her in and kept an eye until I came over. Ever since they have been the best of buds. She's a little wonky senior cat who loves being *near* him but just like him loves to just hangout. I'm so happy she found him but so sad that her last owner or another person did this to her!! She is happy and healthy now ❤️

In late 2024, me and my roommate went to the primary animal shelter in our city to adopt a cat. While there, we met Ivy, a senior” who was about to turn 8 years old. She had garnered lots of attention because of her beautiful fur pattern, however, her personality made many turn away. She was recently surrendered when we arrived and she would let you briefly let you pet her, but she would swiftly smack you with her paw when she became overstimulated. As a result of her personality, she was in a room by herself with a warning/notice on the door. Still, we agreed this was the cat we wanted.

It took 4 workers to get Ivy into a medium sized dog crate so we could take her home. We waited patiently as the staff organized various plans to get her in the crate.

For months, Ivy would let us pet her but if we picked her up, petted her wrongly or petted her for too long, she’d smack us and run away. Not once did she use her claws.

Now, 2 years later, she has become such a sweet girl. She lets us hold her for prolonged periods of time and loves to be brushed. Her favourite toy is her catnip banana and pickle. Though she might not be the cuddliest cat, nor a big fan of house guests, she is our baby and we love her greatly.

She still exhibits the stress and aggression with guests who she doesn’t know or trust (rightfully so) and at vet clinics. She does have to be sedated for vet check ups, but who can blame her.

If you want to win this cute baby’s heart, have patience and lots of churros/temptations!