My bengal leopard twitches when drinking

by Shannon
(Canada)

I have a 6 month old Bengal leopard named Sparta, he was born with a flat chest (Flat Chested Kitten). He is perfectly fine as the vet said he may grow out of it, he runs around like a normal crazy kitten, he eats and drinks, often has diarrhea but not enough to worry about. What i am worried about, however, is that when he does drink water, his starts twitching his head to one side, and does a coughing/sneezing like action. What do you think this could be? Could it be associated with his FCK or not and should i treat it as a symptom of that and leave it alone or treat it as a new problem and get him checked out?

Reply
Hi
To be honest with you i could not say. Your cats flat chest may be having an effect if the lungs are deformed in some way. your vet should have told you if this was likely or not.

Sometimes it is impossible to say if one thing is effecting another without further investigation as things may not be first apparent. If your cat already has some genetic deformities such as the flat chest it is possible that he may have other as of yet other problems too.

I would say though that my cats do drink water from a tap and they always end up sneezing and shaking their head after wards. this is because the water has got up their nose. So it is possible that while your cat is drinking from his bowl if he puts his head in too far he may breath a little water up his nose which is causing the twitching.

If it were me and if the cat does not appear to be suffering in any way. i would not worry about this but would mention it at the next routine vet check.

best wishes kate

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