Thread: Losing Fur
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Old July 23rd 17, 01:19 AM posted to rec.pets.cats.anecdotes
dgk
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Default Losing Fur

On Thu, 20 Jul 2017 07:37:47 -0230, Cheryl
wrote:

Kerry, my newish cat, seems to be lacking fur on part of her belly near
the back legs. I only just noticed - she loves being petted, but like
many cats, she takes exception to belly-rubs so I hadn't looked at her
belly in quite a while. I have an appointment with the vet for her
tomorrow - I hope it's just a bit of minor over-grooming.

Anyone have experience with cats losing fur?? She certainly grew it all
back after she was spayed about a year ago, and now, a largish area is
either very thin of or missing fur.


Overgrooming? I was looking at Marlo a few months back and noticed
that her whole tummy was pink. Odd, because I had never noticed that
before, and we had her tested for everything and the conclusion was
that it was nothing organic, she was overgrooming. That's like normal
cleaning (licking) but overdoing it so that she literally was licking
away all the fur and was starting to tear the skin.

So it's behavioral. When I moved to Florida I grabbed a semi-feral cat
named Baby off the street and took her with me and Marlo, Nipsy and
Scooter. Apparently Marlo had some problem with Baby (she was
definitely chasing Baby around) and the result was some kitty social
issue (they're both X-girls and the other two are X-boys).

We tried some calming stuff and I was actually going to bring in a
behavioral specialist when I had a brilliant idea. My very elderly
mother lives nearby, and I figured that she might want a cat. Well, I
asked her if she would take Marlo for a while, and she did, and now
they're insepearable. It's been six months since Marlo went on
vacation, and Mom still calls me up to tell me the latest cute thing
Marlo did. Marlo loves being an only cat, and her fur all grew
back.I'm over there practically every day so it was pretty easy for
Marlo to adjust with me there a lot.

She also lost a lot of weight, and that turned out to be hyperthyroid,
but that was apparently unrelated to the overgrooming., Anyway, she
dropped from obese to a healthy weight and now she's on thyroid
medication and leveling off nicely. Happy ending.

Maybe you have some behavioral issue at play?