Dirty Behind

My Milo doesn't seem to be grooming himself properly. I always notice his little behind is dirty. I clean it with a damp cloth every time I notice it, but I remember reading somewhere that a dirty butt can cause health problems. I've never witnessed him trying to clean himself there. He's 16 weeks old, so I don't know if it's because he's a kitten. (Although, Teddy never had any problems... )

Anyone have any insight?

I've noticed that some cats have dirty butts, and some cats don't. Don't tell Connie, but her butt is less than fresh a lot of the time. She's Miss Priss in this house. Lucy, who is a combination of a velociraptor and some sort of demolition machine, always has a perfectly clean butt. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, and mine have lived to well past old age with dirty butts.

I'm sure I'll be no help, but Amadeus had a really dirty butt for a while until I switched his diet. He is still overweight, and slowly and healthily losing, but when I switched him to a high quality wet food, the dirty (and irritated and swollen) butt went away.

I'm not sure if that will help since your guy is only 16 weeks. I'm sure he's not overweight at this stage of life. Seems like cats wouldn't want to have dirty butts though! Maybe he doesn't clean it because he knows you'll clean it for him?

Well, I guess I won't worry too much about it yet. Hopefully he'll grow out of it. I guess I'm just the over paranoid meowmy. lol