Strange matting on cat's hip..

Hi... I have a 3 yr old DMH spayed cat.. slightly overweight (working on that).

She's very quiet and is not particularly active possibly because we've only had her here for a few weeks after getting her from a local rescue organization. Otherwise she's eating very well, bathroom habits are perfect.. she's clean and well behaved.

The odd thing, that I've never seen before, is on both of her hips there are two symmetric spots where her fur is matted. Not a large area but they're tufts about the width of a cigarette and no matter how I brush them out and separate the fur both spots are back to being matted again within a day or so... as though something is leaking from beneath. There arent' any bumps there or anything and it's not wet.

I'm wondering if cats have glands there that may be doing this? It's about 2 or 3 inches in from the tail on the side at the top of her hips. Exactly the same spot on both sides.

I did take her to the vet when I first got her and she was declared to be in good health but I hadn't seen those spots until a week later.

thanks for any info.

Hi! It may be that because of her weight issue she has trouble reaching those spots when grooming. And when she lies down, those would be "pressure points" under her weight.

My advice is to keep them groomed as you are doing, keep working on increasing her activity level, and weight loss.

What are you feeding her? Do you see any dandruff when you are splitting the mats?

I've just remembered that when Ootay's health deteriorated and she was not grooming herself, she got mats in those spots you described. I'm not saying your girl (what's her name?) is sick, what I'm saying is, it seems like it might be a common spot for a mat to form, if trouble grooming is at issue, since it is a pressure point.

keep us posted!

Her name is Mindy.

There was a little dandruff when I first got her but she wasn't being fed good quality food by her foster parent. Her fur is much nicer now... I'm feeding her, as per my vets instructions, Hills weight formula.. half dry half wet.

She weighs about 11.5 pounds but she's got a fairly small frame. The vet wasn't too concerned about it but did say to watch it. She's sort of thick.. in a racoonish kind of way so she does have a bit of difficulty in reaching her farthest regions to groom.

I brush her numerous times/day.. she likes that a lot. She isn't in to playing very much... it takes ten minutes of coaxing with various toys to get her to do a minutes worth of excersise.