You know, you’re right, Lair. This blog doesn’t have enough kitty pictures.
Tig reads my books. This one is Michael Oren’s “Six Days of War.”
This is what Gracie’s belly used to look like before she licked off half the fur. No, I haven’t figured out how to stop her, yet. A trip to the vet is in order.
My cat, Anna, has similar fur issues. She looks a lot like Gracie, too, except she’s tan-colored where Gracie is orange.
Anna doesn’t exactly lick the fur off – she pulls it off. Just grabs it in her teeth and yanks. She isn’t breaking the skin or hurting herself, but it looks very odd and *feels* wrong when I witness it. It seems like obsessive-compulsive behavior. She enjoys it and fights my efforts to make her stop. Of course – she’s a cat!
I’ve talked to three vets about this. She’s been tested for allergies, checked for infections and fleas, you name it. Everything comes back negative. Her food has been changed several times, to no avail. So the general consensus is that it’s a psychological thing, she’s doing it to soothe herself somehow.
I can buy that. She is a skittish cat. But we’ve been unable to trace it back to any particular trauma; her life is like honey. One vet tried to solve the problem by giving her valium, but it did NOTHING. Her behavior didn’t change one bit, so I took her off it. Another suggested kitty prozac, but I decided against it. Since the hair-pulling isn’t actually hurting her in any way, it seemed drastic to put her on something so strong. So since then I’ve just been in a holding pattern. If it shows any sign of doing real damage or getting any worse, Anna goes right back to the vet. But until then, it’s just something we live with…
The current vet thinks this approach is fine since we’ve tried everything else, but I still feel guilty sometimes.
Good luck – let us know if Gracie finds a cure!
I’m pretty convinced it’s neurotic behavior. I have all the stuff to stop it, but she’s so skittish I don’t want to put bitter apple on her. Or give her Valium.
She’s started scratching her neck lately, though. Maybe it’s a skin condition. Anyway, that reminds me — time to call the vet.
Piper’s overgrooming is due to neurosis.
She’s not as bad about it now since you-know-who departed.
Sounds like an allergy of some sort.
Have you changed her diet or the litter?
Since they go outside, has anyone nearby been spraying insecticide, weed killer, or fertilizer?
OTOH, cats do get neurotic…has your new job changed anything in your routine?
Tom
If you have had her tested and it isn’t allergies, I would suggest that you look at Amitriptyline as an OCD treatment. Untreated, the licking can lead in spots to something called a lick granuloma, which is just an unappealing area of roughened skin where all the fur is gone, sort of like a callus. We have one dog who in times of stress attacks his right front leg in just such a fashion. The medicine has to build up to a certain level in the bloodstream, so it must be administered for a long period of time, but it is not expensive. Sometimes the animal can then be weaned off of it, although every time we try that with George he starts up again.
Prozac (fluoxetine) is also inexpensive, and is an alternative approach to this problem.
I am not familiar with Valium, except that I had to take it after surgery once, and I had trouble standing up afterwards. From that effect alone, it seems to be in a different class of drug than the other two.
Well, I’m not going to do anything before I have her checked out by the vet. She’s always had a bit more dander than Tig, so it might be a skin thing.
I can tell you that when I say “Enough, Gracie!” in a very stern voice, she stops for a while.
I strongly suspect neurosis.
Agree about the stress relief. She needs a hobby.
More reports have come out regarding cat training. It’s not something you can tell a cat to do, it’s more a matter of persuading the cat. Much as you would train a bear or adolescent human.
I’m thinking something like the feline version of agility training for dogs. But damned if I know where to start.
You can’t get any of the medications that have been discused without a prescription from the vet anyway, so that’s not an issue. Generally they’ll be cheapest at Costco.
However, I will also say that we have our dogs on a kind of permanent agility training (a professional trainer who works with them all the time) so unless this is a problem specific to cats, a “hobby” isn’t likely to work. And would take more time (for a normal owner) than is normally feasible, even in the off chance.
Also, regarding the vet, I will also note that sometimes they can propose $500 in tests when they could just try one or two $30 treatments and see if they work. Strangely enough, that also worked with my wife and an allergic problem she was having, where we spent about $4000 in tests (all the while she was on steroids, yuck) only to discover from the doctor of last resort that we should probably just have spent $30 and tried a couple of other medications until we found the one that worked (which turned out to be the first one we tried).
Half her belly fur? The Hairballs! The Hairballs!