MESSY BOTTOM

     I know there have been other discussions about messy bottoms but my baby seems to have a different mess.   My cat  is a big boy and is 5 years old.  He can groom himself back there with some difficulty.  About 2 months ago I noticed his bottom was a little crusty and irritated.  This is the messy I am referring to, he does not have diarrhea.  He also started scooting his bottom on the carpet.  I assumed this was his anal glands or worms and took him to the vet, who said the anal glands needed expressing and he had no worms.  He was given a blood test and everything was normal. I assumed it was the anal glands. The irritation then went away and the butt scooting went away.  Well now all of it is back.  I did start the change over to grain free food about 2 weeks ago but he had this problem before with grained food.  He is acting normally with no issues.  As with a human,  I think he may just need some fiber in his diet.  The vet suggested canned pumpkin but he wouldn't touch it.   Any other suggestions for fiber?       

If you don't feed him a mostly canned food diet, I would start there.  Dry food can cause hard stools which can become painful to pass.  Also, if you switch to canned food, or if you already feed canned food, add a couple of teaspoons of water to the food.  The extra water will help as well.  You could also mix in some plain canned pumpkin to the wet food and maybe he'll eat it that way.  You can substitute squash baby food for the pumpkin.

I do one meal wet and one dry. I will try the squash baby food and mix it in his wet. Hopefully he won't mind it. Thanks for the tip!!

Have you tried this kind of food?

http://www.almonature.ca/

The one I'm referring to is the chicken with pumpkin. It's meant as a supplement, so a small meal once a day in addition to his usual food should be fine. My fussy cat will eat this, whereas he will not eat pumpkin if I try to sneak it into his wet!

I will try that too hopefully something will work. Bottom seems ok today which is the puzzling part in a few days we will be back to square one.