Pets chit chat thread

[Jembru]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Well, I've changed the diffuser so used one full vile and seen no change in Dolly's behaviour. I read dozens of articles and discussions about the condition and one said that something as small as changing the location of her cat litter could cause stress. I didn't change the location, but just before Christmas I got a corner tray with a lid that fit the space better and was much larger. So I took the lid off in case it was that. Since then we've noticed Dolly visits the tray a lot more than before. Often not actually doing anything. She might force out a tiny wee, or she might just kick the litter about as though burying something. So maybe it was that and she's enjoying the novelty of the tray being 'normal'.

Yet the licking and biting continues. She's starting to get a rash now too, and every week or so she makes her ankle bleed again

On my way out last night, Dolly was on the windowsill and one of the 'ginger kids' was in the street. So I can't rule out that those cats are to blame.

I'm so desperate that I did a meditation journey to ask Dolly's supporting spirits what I can do to help. I don't think the answer was correct though. I was shown Dolly hiding under the bed during the fireworks. We usually stay home with her on Guy Fawkes but last year we went out to see a display and took my mum, who would normally be our kitty-sitter. We closed the blackout curtains and left chill out music for cats playing on a loop. The reason I don't think it is that, is that the articles I've read say that the stress will be caused by something on-going, rather than a one-off event (although fireworks go off at any time from October to December, then again at new year here). All the same, a message is a message, so I won't be leaving Dolly alone during a fireworks display again.

The vet did say there are other options, but I don't know what else we could do without finding out the cause of Dolly's anxiety. It doesn't help that Dolly hates going to the vets. I'm worried taking her back and forth is just going to make her anxiety worse.

I also changed her diet like the vet suggested to see if it would stop her vomiting. It didn't, and once she was on 100% Purina, she became so distressed that she started to cry. Dolly never cried for food and short of being locked behind a door or in some place shed snuck into when our backs were turned, she never used her voice to communicate. She never had to because we just always responded when she rubbed against our legs. I of course reintroduced her wet food, but she now knows crying gets a response. She cries constantly now, and we can't always tell what she wants.

So now we have a depressed kitty who also cries constantly, asking us for who knows what. I know the vet was just trying to help, but I wish I'd had the sense to realise that this is not the time to be messing with any aspect of Dolly's routine.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Jem, the next step to rule out anxiety is to put her on medications. There are two that we tend to use in cats... Clomicalm (clomipramine) and Endep (amitriptyline). You vet should be able to get a hold of either, or you can take her to a behaviour vet (which would be the best, but is not strictly necessary).

From what you've mentioned here the three things that may be going on that jump to my mind are...

1) Anxiety. Anxiety in cats is far more complex than in dogs, and sometimes we never know what the triggers are. The fireworks episode could very well have been the initial trigger, which put her into an anxious state that has been percolating along because of other things that never triggered her before... anyone with anxiety can tell you that when your brain is anxious, you become sensitised to other things. Cats are particularly prone to this... one episode will kick start the process, then all sorts of little things keep it going... the cats outside, the changed litter tray, changes to food, someone new moved in next door, you bought a new brand of washing powder, there's a new car that drives up the street, your washing machine needs servicing and sounds different, you bought a new pair of shoes that you wear to work... a million tiny little random things that are seemingly innocuous to us will maintain a stress state in cats. I think I've told you this before, but it takes 48 hours for the stress hormones to leave a cat's blood stream, and a trigger that happens daily will maintain anxiety indefinitely. Feliway is great, but it's not always enough on it's own. The next step is medication. This is not always permanent... sometimes we just have to treat them for a few months, then wean them off and it's like their brain has reset (until the next major trigger). Very few cats need to stay on medications long term... and usually it's the ones that are in a multi-pet household or somewhere where the people can't or wont change/remove the triggers.

2) Food allergy. This can present in cats as overgrooming, mild rash and GI upset. The vomiting makes me a bit suspicious, especially as she's always been a bit vomity (from memory, correct me if I'm wrong). If there's a food allergy, it's not enough to change her food. You need to change it to a hypoallergenic diet specially designed for food trials. These foods are expensive, but they are a diagnostic tool, not just a food. The one we use in cats is 'Royal Canin Hypoallergenic', but you can also get a Hills brand one (Hills z/d) and I'm sure Eukanuba/Iams has one too. It MUST be a veterinary diet trial food. You can't just change foods to anything. It has to be either a novel protein/carb diet (which is harder in cats than it is in dogs) or a hydrolysed protein diet. You need to feed it EXCLUSIVELY for at least eight weeks, and you need to ensure that NOTHING else passes her lips in that time... no treats, no flavoured worm tablets, no flavoured toothpaste, no dental chews, no scraps off the floor, no hunted mice etc.

Now, the tricky this is that allergies and anxiety can play into each other. Some cats have mild food allergies that don't cause them obvious problems until they have a stressful event, in which case everything flares up all at once. Which can then make treating the food allergy harder because you have to change foods and deal with the potential stress of that. Sometimes we actually have to treat both. Personally, I would start with the anti-anxiety meds, and if there is no significant difference after 4 weeks start a food trial.

3) External parasites +/- allergy to them. Fleas is the obvious one, and don't be fooled... you will almost never SEE fleas on your cat, and you won't even see much in the way of flea dirt if they are overgrooming because of them. Fastidious cats will groom every bit of evidence off themselves before you have a chance to see it, and then it's like itching a mozzie bite... but the mozzie comes back to bite you every day, so it's just an ongoing cycle if itch-scratch (or itch-groom, in the case of cats). Cats can also be allergic to fly bites, mozzies, lice etc. They can also get mites (demodex or sarcoptes), which is rare in cats, but not unheard of. If you haven't already got her on a monthly flea product, start now. Do it for at least 3 months in a row, preferably 6. And preferably use one that also kills lice and other bugs (like Frontline Plus or Advocate). If you vet hasn't done a skin scrape on her, ask him to... that's where you scrape the hair follicles from the bald/itchy spot and look at it under the microscope to see if there are microscopic mites living in her skin. It's better to do a few from different places, because sometimes you can get false negatives if you didn't scrape deep enough or there are not trillions of mites.

So basically, there are LOTS of places we can go from here, but they'll all involve a vet (bar the parasite control).
- anti-anxiety meds
- food trial
- parasite control
- skin scrape
- antibiotics if she's creating rash and sores (they get infected quite easily)
- and down the track if none of that works then biopsy of the skin to send off to the pathologist to check for weird skin conditions.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Ity-Bity kitty has had probplems... She licked herselved bald from the waste to her her butt.

It may have been a condination of fleas + anxiety... And most likely was.. But she got over it, and is currently fine. Cats seem to be much more sensitive to environmental conditions than are dogs, in my experience. Follow Rea'ya's advice, and all should be well...

[thalassa]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

3) External parasites +/- allergy to them. Fleas is the obvious one, and don't be fooled... you will almost never SEE fleas on your cat, and you won't even see much in the way of flea dirt if they are overgrooming because of them. Fastidious cats will groom every bit of evidence off themselves before you have a chance to see it, and then it's like itching a mozzie bite... but the mozzie comes back to bite you every day, so it's just an ongoing cycle if itch-scratch (or itch-groom, in the case of cats). Cats can also be allergic to fly bites, mozzies, lice etc. They can also get mites (demodex or sarcoptes), which is rare in cats, but not unheard of. If you haven't already got her on a monthly flea product, start now. Do it for at least 3 months in a row, preferably 6. And preferably use one that also kills lice and other bugs (like Frontline Plus or Advocate). If you vet hasn't done a skin scrape on her, ask him to... that's where you scrape the hair follicles from the bald/itchy spot and look at it under the microscope to see if there are microscopic mites living in her skin. It's better to do a few from different places, because sometimes you can get false negatives if you didn't scrape deep enough or there are not trillions of mites.

Unfortunately, fleas here are resistant to OTC flea control. We have fleas just from walking the cats and taking the dog to the dog park. We sprinkle the few carpets we have weekly with death-to-flea powder, vacuum ever day, plus frontline...we've had the apartment treated. There's a flea treatment that you have to go thru the vet for called Revolution, which (since it's new) seems to work...but really, because the ground never really freezes and the soil is sand (not sandy, actual sand)--if you don't treat your yard (and we are in an apartment rental), there's always a flea or 12 coming in.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Unfortunately, fleas here are resistant to OTC flea control. We have fleas just from walking the cats and taking the dog to the dog park. We sprinkle the few carpets we have weekly with death-to-flea powder, vacuum ever day, plus frontline...we've had the apartment treated. There's a flea treatment that you have to go thru the vet for called Revolution, which (since it's new) seems to work...but really, because the ground never really freezes and the soil is sand (not sandy, actual sand)--if you don't treat your yard (and we are in an apartment rental), there's always a flea or 12 coming in.

We have a similar problem with the older supermarket flea controls, but most of the veterinary ones still work fine. We've had Revolution in Australia for years and years... the newer ones are things like Activyl, Comfortis and Bravecto. Unfortunately, relatively few flea products also kill lice and mites... Frontline Plus and Advocate are the two main ones, though bravecto also kills lice.

Warmer climates sometimes need to treat fleas all year round. The other problem with the US that I've heard is that a lot of your urban wildlife carries fleas that will infest dogs and cats, whereas here it's very rare to have urban wildlife carrying fleas, aside from feral cats!

[Kiesha'ra]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

We use Vectra 3D here for topical ,its great not one problem with it for my pets! Some people I know use NexGuard oral flea and tick but apparently it can cause neurological distress and hypertension in some pets especially if they are already prone and can't be used on pets with seizures. I like the Vectra the best out of all the flea and tick products, mainly because it has mosquito repellent.

[Jembru]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Thanks for the advice Rae'ya. I'll make an appointment tomorrow morning and discuss the possibility of trying the medication. We have noticed that Dolly is more highly strung than she used to be. She will run away if there's a sudden sound. So I think you could be right that the fireworks were the trigger and now she's just generally in a state of high anxiety. I feel terrible for leaving her that night now.

If the anxiety medication helps, I might ask if we could put her on it every November to help her through the firework season.

Our vet couldn't find any sign of fleas but suggested we treat Dolly for fleas for the same reasons you put forward. We generally only treat her through the summer because she doesn't come into contact with other pets, but we might bring eggs or fleas in on us during the summer when they're more prevalent. I just used a basic treatment that I picked up from the supermarket. I might get some frontline while I'm at the vets.

I'm a bit nervous about messing with her diet just yet, but I'm interested in ruling out a food allergy, so I'll speak to the vet about that too.

[Jembru]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

I couldn't get an appointment for yesterday because they're a vet down so don't have as many free slots as they usually do, so I got one for late afternoon today. The vet they're missing must be my regular vet too because I had to see a guy I'd never seen before. He was pleasant enough but had his own radical theories on what's causing Dolly's grooming. Now keep in mind that I've not only carefully read and digested Rae'ya's advice in this thread, but have also researched the condition a bit. I had already spoken to my regular vet about the possibility of it being an allergy and she said that the areas Dolly is grooming as more characteristic of psychogenic alopecia. The articles I have read all describe how the groin and inner legs are the most common places for over-grooming.

Yet the vet was insistent that based only on the fact that a) the Feliway hasn't worked, and b) the steroid cream we were given for the open wound on Dolly's leg (and that other than the fact that Dolly had caused the wound through grooming had nothing to do with the alopecia) had helped the wound to heal, the grooming is probably due to an allergy of some sort.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FU.... sorry, I thought I'd got the vulgar ranting out of my system. I wanted to tell him about the litter tray, about the fireworks, and all the things I'd planned to discuss with my regular vet. I got as far as, 'well after we were told it was stress related we started to think about what could be causing it...' but he cut me off and said that if it were stress the feliway would have worked and then repeated that the steroid cream working was a positive sign. To which yet again I explained we ONLY put it on her leg when she pulled the scab off. Then we'd stop when it fully healed.. then she'd make it bleed again.. It was like batting my head against a wall.

The room was very hot too and I started to get head stroke. I had to get outside for air and felt terrible. At that point I just wanted to pay up and leave.

So Dolly now has some steroid tablets that she's to take for a week to see if the licking stops. If that doesn't help (it won't), I'm to take her back. Which I will do.. and I'll take JP with me, and I'll make sure I see my regular vet that knows what she's talking about. Poor Dolly. She doesn't deserve this.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Well look at it this way, Jem... when the steroid tablets don't stop the licking, you can rule out primary allergy completely! It actually is another diagnostic tool, it's just not one that all vets use as a first step. Steroid tablets (I presume it's prednisolone he's put her on) will halt any licking due to itching. It wont necessarily stop licking due to a food allergy, but it will stop any actual physical itch from things like flea allergy, or environmental allergies (atopy).

So it wasn't actually a wasted visit. I know it feels that way right now, but at this point in time what we're doing with Dolly is crossing things off the differential diagnosis list... and a course of steroids will help us to cross one off. If she still licks with steroids on board... either she's not on a high enough dose or it's not an itch-based licking!

[Jembru]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Would the steroid also help if she was itchy from a rash? Her bald patch has been blotchy and sore looking for the last few weeks and since she had her first tablet yesterday she has left it alone. She's still biting and grooming her legs though, particularly the front legs which she only started doing recently. When I hear her licking it's my instinct now to look up and check where she's licking and other than biting her legs, she's just been grooming normally, licking her back or side.

So I'm wondering if she could have started the grooming due to stress, but kept going after I used the pheromone defuser because she'd made the area sore, and the steroid is helping to break the cycle. Is that possible?

[Rae'ya]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Would the steroid also help if she was itchy from a rash? Her bald patch has been blotchy and sore looking for the last few weeks and since she had her first tablet yesterday she has left it alone. She's still biting and grooming her legs though, particularly the front legs which she only started doing recently. When I hear her licking it's my instinct now to look up and check where she's licking and other than biting her legs, she's just been grooming normally, licking her back or side.

So I'm wondering if she could have started the grooming due to stress, but kept going after I used the pheromone defuser because she'd made the area sore, and the steroid is helping to break the cycle. Is that possible?

Yep, steroids at the appropriate doses will stop ANY itch for ANY reason. It suppresses the body's natural itch response.

And yes, once the itch-scratch cycles starts up, the pet licking/scratching can become the reason that they continue, even when the initial trigger is gone. Kind of like itching a mozzie bite... the more you itch, the itchier it gets. So it's possible that stress started it, and it continued because she irritated the skin and created secondary rash +/- infection. Also remember that while Feliway is a great product that I recommend A LOT, it's not always enough on it's own.

At this point we're all really just speculating, and working our way down the differential diagnosis list. Like an episode of House... we gotta try some treatments and changes to see what works and to rule out some of the options. It's frustrating when we can't diagnose something right off the bat, but sometimes it's a bit of a process. We'll get there

[volcaniclastic]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Yep, steroids at the appropriate doses will stop ANY itch for ANY reason. It suppresses the body's natural itch response.

Huh, so that's why I have to go to the hospital and get steroid shots after I use my epi-pen...

[Jembru]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

Hmm. Our vet opens late on Thursdays so I'm going to take her back then so JP can come with me. I've asked him to observe her too and he hasn't noticed her licking her groin either. I thought she was going to this morning but she saw me watching her and then started cleaning her leg.

She is still biting at her front legs though, so we're getting closer but still not quite there yet. I'm sitting at the window a lot now and Dolly seems to be sitting there mainly when I'm with her. I'm a bit of a deterrent for the 'ginger kids' so I think she feels more secure when I'm with her.

I'm also going to stop using all the cleaning products I've been using and switch to one of those sprays you can get for cleaning pet cages and bedding, and of course vinegar cleans most things it would seem!

[anunitu]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

I am hoping Dolly is doing better. I am VERY much a cat person,and I know that cats are very special animals. I did have a little dachshund wire hair that I loved,but I am more a cat person. I do like Dogs as well,but never on the same level as cats.

[Jembru]

Re: Pets chit chat thread

I know what you mean. I adore dogs and have a great deal of respect for the support and devotion they've shown us, but I have a deeper sense of affinity with cats.

JP and I have kind if an ongoing joke that he's s dog and I'm a cat, because we share so many characteristics with those animals. JP is loyal, affectionate, helpful and rarely complains if asked to do something. He has a small friendship group but spending time with the boys is very important for his mental health. He shouts at the TV if he doesn't agree with things and I have to tell him to stop barking!

I love afternoon naps and am a natural night person. I am affectionate but only on my terms and can be distrustful of people I don't know well. I enjoy solitary activities and rarely crave human company beside JP and I'm rarely the one to initiate text conversations and so on. I have a vicious streak and while usually quite calm and quiet, I have periods of extreme hyperactivity. Oh and I have a habit of putting my feet up on JP just as he was thinking about getting up to go to the toilet!