Help!

[melpepinla]

Sorry just pulling this thread up cause I'm having a problem with one of my cats and was wondering if anyone had ideas/advice.

My male cat has always had a thing for licking/grooming me which I've gotten used to...just lately he's been licking himself bald. His front legs are nearly completely bare and he's starting on his back legs. There's no fleas that I can find here at my apartment (they usually chew me to death and I haven't gotten any bites, and I've checked out both cats, but with them being black fleas are very hard to find so I have to trust that if I'm not getting bit they aren't here) and I haven't changed anything else as far as their products or anything I use around the house. Any ideas why he might be doing this or what I could try and do to get him to stop??

I would suggest taking your cat to the vet. That is always the best thing to do when you notice a change in behavior. I had noticed that my cat was licking his back leg excessively and creating it to go bald. Took him to the doctor, got a bunch of tests done and it turned out he had ringworm (kind of like athlete's foot for cats). My vet said that even though my little guy was an indoor cat, I could have brought the virus in on my shoes or some other similar way of travel. After 2 months of treatment, he was good as new. When all was said and done, I ended up spending less than $200 for the office visit, medication and culture. So in closing, take him to the vet! Good luck libra22!

[Tirlittan]

Long story short on that one is, to a cat, his urine is "clean" unless he's sick, and he won't put "unclean" urine in his catbox...as I said before, catboxes are sacred to cats.

That is an interesting piece of information. We used to have a cat and she got UTI once, and was peeing on our bed instead of her box. I never thought of the point you made about "unclean" urine.

I agree with taking the cat to vet just in case, we did not realize at first our cat had UTI either (we just thought she had gone nuts), and it got pretty bad before we realized the real state of matters. I feel bad about that one time, so now I am carrying pets to vet fairly fast if something seems out of normal routine/behaviour.

[G.G.]

I felt terrible too, Tirlittan. He had always been an indoor/outdoor cat in Montana and when I got to Florida, I told him to forget that! He pee'd on my bed one afternoon when I was napping and I was SO MAD. Once he started treatment, I felt terrible for being mad at him. The vet said he was very close to not making it by the time I took him in. The ONLY good thing about it was he ended up on Valium for about 3 weeks. He's not a very affectionate cat, but while on Valium, he followed me everywhere and loved to be loved. I had to set up a box next to the computer so he could snooze by me or else he'd sleep in my lap.

Three days off the drugs, he was back to his usual mean self.

[tracylee]

Sorry just pulling this thread up cause I'm having a problem with one of my cats and was wondering if anyone had ideas/advice.

My male cat has always had a thing for licking/grooming me which I've gotten used to...just lately he's been licking himself bald. His front legs are nearly completely bare and he's starting on his back legs. There's no fleas that I can find here at my apartment (they usually chew me to death and I haven't gotten any bites, and I've checked out both cats, but with them being black fleas are very hard to find so I have to trust that if I'm not getting bit they aren't here) and I haven't changed anything else as far as their products or anything I use around the house. Any ideas why he might be doing this or what I could try and do to get him to stop??

Have you changed the food lately? Some of those high in corn content cause skin irritation.


And congratulations, dagwood! I had a persian that never did learn. He'd walk right behind the TV and pee while we were watching! My parents house still stinks on warm, damp days even though they replaced the carpet and it's been 7 or 8 years. It's amazing what parents will put up with .