Overgroomers Not-So Anonymoys

Well, it's cheaper than waxing, right?

One of my mom's dogs has skin allergies, and she often has bald hind legs from chewing at them so much. She's on some kind of medication now after my mom took her to a veterinary dermatologist.

Jennie has scolded me for not seeing this thread earlier! She of course wants to join and share her Pink Triangle with everyone......

<stop typing to take picture by luring Jennie to the bed for her favorite Rapture Game>

............however she has declined to have a picture taken of it at this time.




Her final word on the subject:



Maybe later.

By the way, if the prednisone is going to help, you should notice a reduction in the behavior pretty quickly I think.

Jennie chews in secret, because I used to make her stop.

All paws and fingers crossed here that you've got a handle on it now.

You might as your vet about Animax for any sores that pop up. I swear by that stuff for Jennie.

I don't have pictures to share, but I do have a question. For your overgroomers, have you noticed that it got increasingly worse with age?

My cat, 3 years old, overgrooms himself and also has a licking problem - he will lick any part of us that ends up in front of his face - hands, arms, feet, legs, face, etc. Even if we just pet his head, he'll lean his head back and try to lick us. On himself, he targets his tail most and I'm afraid that one day it will be all bald.

Jennie licks me, too. And she also licks cupboard doors and the underside of the kitchen table.

But on herself, it's only her Pink Triangle over her spay scar.

She is 4 1/2 (approx) years old, and her Pink Triangle has not ever gotten any bigger than it ever has been. She's been with me since she was about 1 1/2 (vet estimated between 1 & 2 years old at the time, so I went for middle ground)

Jennie was feeling generous and gave me a couple glimpses of her Pink Triangle this morning after I stripped the bed

Modestly washing


Oh..all right, here it is, are you happy now?


Okay,Mom, that's enough! (when I tried to get a close up)

Oops, I just saw this thread this morning!

I'll try to get some photos of Cricket's belly/arm for everyone. She's been on a bit of a tear this past week and her left underarm is pretty bare, along with the belly area.

If the meds Ossi is taking seem to be helping, perhaps I'll try to get Cricket into the vet sooner than February.

We tried the bitter apple spray over the weekend. Sprayed Cricket's underarm and belly. She ignored it for about an hour, then somehow was able to overcome it or its potency wore off because the grooming started again. My DH happened to get some on his hand, so he licked it and then took a couple whiskey shots to get rid of the bitterness. He said it was awful!

One of my cats does this too! I don't have any pictures of it though. She grooms her hind legs bald on the inside sometimes. She is a very nervous cat. I think that is why she over grooms. If we have company she stays hidden and she mostly only allows me, my fiance and oddly enough my brother to pet or hold her. She usually over grooms after something stressful (at least to her) has happened, like if we have out of town guests.

Hi Piikki!

My cat Chico (I know, inventive username) has had the same problem since he was young. The first 2 vets I took him to, told me it was allergies, and the very first vet, when I didn't know better, prescribed steroid shots... well, we did that for a couple years (he's 7 now) before I got tired of taking him for a $90 shot and exam every 5 or 6months, so we went for a second opinion. The second Vet told me also it was an allergy, but that the steroid, while clearing it up, (it's a miracle cure-all, apparenlty) told me that the seroid shot would eventually shorten his lifespan! As attached as I am, I said no way... so this one tried some homeopathic pills for me, and they seemed Ok, but in hindsight, I'm thinking it was fluke that his rash went away.
Now, moving provinces, we went to a 3rd vet, for vaccines just this spring, and he finally laughes (when I mention allergy), gives me the technical term (When I find it, I'll let you know) but says he basically has OCD for cats!
So, his prescription for the over grooming was, buy him this liquid 'Rescue Remedy' for cats, its a natural anti anxiety drops that I put in his water dish, and to put pure tea tree oil on wherever he's grooming. Although your house smells like tea tree oil, which can be strong, its basically a natural version of Polysporin. the cat CAN injest it, but probably won't, therefore they stop licking cuz it tastes awful!! I did find that this did work for us, finally a solution!! Hope it helps someone else out there!

Feliway plug ins have not made a difference in Jennie's licking, but I never tried using Rescue Remedy. That's a good idea.

I would not ever put tea tree oil on a cat, for one thing it must really sting, and for another, most essential oils are toxic to cats and I'm pretty sure tea tree oil is toxic to cats.

I'm glad the course of steroids seem to have broken the cycle!

Actually, if he has a terrible relapse, it would seem to me that the use of the steroids would have confirmed that his licking is due to allergies!

Our Tuxedo receives a shot of the long-acting steroid, Depomedrol. (Pred is the short-acting version). Steroids are a VERY powerful anti-inflammatory, and if they're helping, it gives credence to the idea that part of Ossi's problem is, in fact, allergies (especially if he has a bad licking relapse after the course of steroids ends!). They also work to suppress the immune system, which is why Tuxie's on them. He's got an autoimmune disease, and will need life-long maintenance on the depo (though thankfully the amount of time needed between his shots is getting longer and longer. ).

Steroids can be used in cycles, and that will likely avoid the long term problems with their use. But those long term problems - the worst of them, are liver problems and diabetes (in cats). Obviously either one could shorten a kitty's lifespan. With our Tuxie, he'd be dead without them, so obviously a potentially shorter life is better than death. We keep a VERY close eye on his blood work (every six months now).

I just posted last night about noticing that Chumley's abdomen seems to have less hair than it should. It's not pink and hairless - but I'm wondering if it's heading that direction. He has been very itchy/scratchy since we rescued him, and we don't actually know whether it's overgrooming or allergies. We did eliminate food allergies. He's on cetirizine (zyrtec generic) now, and it does seem to have helped a little bit. But this thread caught my eye in time, because I think we should ask about a course of steroids. We did discuss it, and she discouraged it because he's FIV positive. But if he's in enough distress to be turning his tummy pink, it may be worth exploring the short course of steroids just to see if he does respond - and we can figure out what to do if it basically confirms he's got allergies.

We regulary use Feliway and Bach's Rescue Remedy. Spooky had a stress fit a few years ago that resulted in her total overgrooming and peeing outside the box. The Rescue Remedy didn't help her at all - with either.

Some cats do respond well to the Rescue Remedy. We add it to the water every day when we wash and refresh their water dishes, and while it may be helping with the 8 cats in a small space thing we've got going on, it doesn't seem to be helping Chum (and for a while we did try dabbing it under his chin, behind his ears and at the base of his tail as well as putting it in the water) with whatever he's got going on with the itchy-scratchy.

for Ossi!

Thanks for the update on Jennie's pal Ossi. Jennie seems to be getting worse. She just went through a course of her animax, a couple of weeks ago, and she is already getting another sore spot.

I am looking deep inside myself to think if perhaps she is being neglected a little.

All the cats get plenty of play, grooming and lovey time with me, but before I do anything else I am going to make a conscious effort to give her more one on one attention.

Whether she likes it or not.

I just wrote a really long response and lost it! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Long and short of it was.... Tuxie's situation is completely different. He had severe anemia, and his bone marrow had essentially stopped producing red & white blood cells. We had to give him a blood transfusion so he could undergo the surgery to have a bone marrow aspiration to find out if his bone marrow was capable of producing them. It was, so he went on meds to stimulate his bone marrow into producing red & white blood cells. The steroids were to suppress his immune system to prevent his body from destroying them.

He was initially on prednisone (pill) and it stopped working. Our vet consulted with the top cat blood expert in the country, and she recommended depomedrol. Thankfully, it worked when the pred stopped. It has a slightly different mechanism of action, though is essentially the same drug.

So he needed shots every two weeks for quite some time. Then every three weeks, then every month, then every six weeks, &etc. This went on from some time in 2004 to now. His last shot of depo was about this time last year, I think. We're due to take him in for blood work again in November - but he's running around here looking really pink, so hopefully his numbers still look really good.

When in "normal" range bloodwork-wise, when he gets the depo shot, he definitely gets VERY active for a few days. He tends to be aggressive anyway, so we have to play with him a LOT or he'll take all that energy out on the other cats. He also gets really hungry - but that's a good thing, because he needed to gain weight. He's good now - so we don't feed him extra when he gets a shot now. But he calms down again after 5 days - a week or so.

I know others have had bad experiences with it, but I don't remember what they were. You may want to search in the health forum for "depo" or "depomedrol".

There may be other steroids that are given via injection. I just know depomedrol is a long-acting steroid given by injection.

The problem is if Ossi has a weak immune system, the steroids suppress it further. You may want to talk to your vet about how to proceed. Short courses of steroids when he has a flare-up may be best - you may also want to talk about an antioxident kind of vitamin to help boost his immune system. If he goes back to having insane itchies - maybe try allergy meds (we're using cetirizine because it's not bitter like benadryl - it's a newer generation antihistamine. The brand name of cetirizine is zyrtec - both the brand and the generic are available OTC now). Our vet has Chumley on 1/2 pill of cetirizine 2x a day (one pill in 24 hours is a human dose equivalent).

I had a cat (who lived to be about 18 or 19 - can't remember now) who over-groomed her belly. She loved turkey cat food, and actual pieces of turkey, too, of course. I used to joke that if I ever won the lottery (it was new then and I did buy tickets then), I'd buy her whatever she wanted - which was probably a turkey all her own as big as her (about 8 pounds).

I can't remember how it happened, but eventually I figured out that she was ALLERGIC to turkey. I stopped giving any to her, and the over-grooming stopped and she never did it again.

Poor thing never got her favorite food again.

Anyway, I thought I'd pass that on, for what it's worth.


Robin