I know that there are a bunch of different reasons why a cat might be losing its hair, but I'm not even sure if this is something that needs to be looked at or if its something that I caused.
I use a Furminator on my cats and while they all put up with it, none of them let me use it for more than a few minutes at a time. Then there's Marmalade, who apparently LOVES the furminator.
I was brushing him last night and he was purring like crazy and kneading me while I was doing it. He is a DSH but his fur is really thick and he sheds a lot in general, so as I was brushing clumps and clumps of fur I didn't really stop to look at his coat. I just kept brushing, he kept purring and I ended up with a huge ball of fur that had been brushed off of him.
Then later that night I took a closer look at him and realized that there were patches of fur that I had brushed almost completely out. He doesn't have any specific bald spot - just a few patches where his fur is incredibly thin and you can see his skin.
He has no other health problems that I know of and sees a vet twice a year for regular checkups.
So I guess my question is - is this a problem? Or did I just brush him way too much, causing him to lose the hair?
I feel really stupid if it was my fault because based on all of my other cats, they run away from me when they've had enough of me brushing them. I would have thought he would do the same (he tends to bite if he gets annoyed about something) and he didn't. So the fur was coming out VERY easily and I think I could have brushed more out if I had kept going.
Does anyone have any insight on this? Am I just a stupid owner who didn't know when to stop brushing my cat? Or do you think he has some hair loss issue that needs to be seen by a vet? I'm honestly perplexed about this because in an obvious way it seems like I just brushed too much and pulled too much out, but why wouldn't that have hurt him or bothered him if the fur wasn't coming out to begin with?
I use a Furminator on my cats and while they all put up with it, none of them let me use it for more than a few minutes at a time. Then there's Marmalade, who apparently LOVES the furminator.
I was brushing him last night and he was purring like crazy and kneading me while I was doing it. He is a DSH but his fur is really thick and he sheds a lot in general, so as I was brushing clumps and clumps of fur I didn't really stop to look at his coat. I just kept brushing, he kept purring and I ended up with a huge ball of fur that had been brushed off of him.
Then later that night I took a closer look at him and realized that there were patches of fur that I had brushed almost completely out. He doesn't have any specific bald spot - just a few patches where his fur is incredibly thin and you can see his skin.
He has no other health problems that I know of and sees a vet twice a year for regular checkups.
So I guess my question is - is this a problem? Or did I just brush him way too much, causing him to lose the hair?
I feel really stupid if it was my fault because based on all of my other cats, they run away from me when they've had enough of me brushing them. I would have thought he would do the same (he tends to bite if he gets annoyed about something) and he didn't. So the fur was coming out VERY easily and I think I could have brushed more out if I had kept going.
Does anyone have any insight on this? Am I just a stupid owner who didn't know when to stop brushing my cat? Or do you think he has some hair loss issue that needs to be seen by a vet? I'm honestly perplexed about this because in an obvious way it seems like I just brushed too much and pulled too much out, but why wouldn't that have hurt him or bothered him if the fur wasn't coming out to begin with?