Bloody stool in cats

Bloody stool in cats can be caused from the simplest of things to more serious diseases. Here are some of the conditions that can lead to bloody stool in cats:

• Food allergies
• Stress
• Eating something bad for them
• Parasites
• Infection
• Medication reaction
• Anal gland problems
• Colitis
• Pancreatitis
• Ingesting something toxic
• Blood disorders
• Cancer
• Wounds in the digestive tract
• Constipation

With the exception of stress, which you can work on at home to lower, everything on the list requires a visit to the vet if your cat has been exhibiting symptoms for more than a few days.

Bloody stool in cats can appear in many different forms. The most common are bright red, dark and tarry, or mixed in with diarrhea. Bright red blood can come from damage in the lower digestive tract. The color shows that it hasn’t really been processed much by the body before coming out. Dark and tarry blood can show upper digestive tract damage; the darkness shows that it’s been partially digested. Bloody diarrhea is different from bloody stool. It’s not well-formed and can often be indicative of a larger problem, like ulcers or panleukopenia.

If your cat’s bloody stool doesn’t resolve in a couple days, you’ll need to get a fecal sample and take them to the vet. The vet will test the stool to determine the root cause, and then treat the underlying issue, like colitis or food allergies, that led to the bloody stool in the first place.

Typically, if there’s a larger problem causing the bloody stool, you’ll see symptoms of the root cause of your cat’s bloody stool, such as auto-immune disorders, digestive tract wounds, or cancer. These symptoms include the following.

• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Vomiting
• Mucus in the stool
• Lethargy
• Weight loss
• Increased thirst
• Loss of appetite
• Accidents outside the litter box
• Unusually smelly stool