Distemper?
The friend’s dog had no contact with other animals. He started showing signs of illness four or five days ago. They opened a new bag of dog food nine days ago.
Cats do not get canine distemper. We considered that he could have contracted something from the other cats who were being adopted via PetSmart on the day we adopted him. However, I contacted the man who runs the shelter, and he said that to his knowledge, none of the other cats were having any problems. I’ve also considered that the cat could have eaten something in our house, but we don’t keep poisons around our house because we have young children. No one fed the cat any pain killers. (that was one of the first things the vet mentioned because a lot of people think pets can take Tylenol or Advil or whatever. Those meds kill pets, and we sure didn’t medicate the kitty.)