Cat drags butt on carpet when it's playing??

Hey everyone, I am new to The Cat Site forum! I am the cat mom of a sweet little 6 year old blue semi-longhair lady called Ipa. 
Ipa doesn't have any known illnesses and has a clear medical history. This furball has been living with us (me and my husband) for 3 months and she is my first indoor cat. For this reason, I have some questions regarding some issues.

Now, I have researched about the whole cat-dragging-butt-on-carpet topic quite a bit and everywhere I have looked - including on this forum - the reasons where quite obvious. It's either cling-ons, cat has diarrhea/constipation, anal sacs full, worms.... Well, of course, I can't take worms or anal sacs being full out of the equation just yet (Ipa is just in the middle of her de-worming treatment exactly for this reason), but I find no other connection to her habit of wiping her ass on our carpets, which DRIVES ME NUTS!

The only thing however I noticed is that the majority of the time this occurs when she's playing! She never does it after pooping. She would be chasing a toy and she would suddenly snap out of it by doing 'the drag'. Maybe I shouldn't tell her "No" when she's doing it but because I can't see an obvious reason for it, I have started to believe that she's just doing it out of some stupid habit. I am aware it could still be anything, but her butt looks normal and she doesn't stop to lick at it way too often either. She would lick it after I tell her off for dragging her butt. And very rarely it the whole thing just happens out of the blue but that's much rarer. 

So, I am now wondering if there's anyone who has dealt with this case of "the drag", and what was the reason behind it. If it's really worms, of which I haven't found visible traces, when should I expect the de-wormers to take effect regarding the butt dragging? Is it just that her hair is starting to grow longer there?(before she moved to our place she had a lower body shave due to matting and the hair is just starting to grow back to it's original length.)

I am interested to hear your opinions on this. 

(Obviously, if the dragging won't go away soon after the de-worming, I am going to look into the anal sac issue with a vet, but my budget is very limited)

To cater to your cat-viewing pleasure here's she
View media item 352633

Hi @earlylavender, welcome to The Cat Site. Wow, she's pretty! Congratulations on your new cat.

But dragging usually is a sign of worms. Even if you can't see any and sometimes even if a fecal smear doesn't detect any there is a possibility that she has them in her system. What are you using to treat her worms with? Most of the spot-on treatments that are applied on the back of the neck need to be repeated every 4 weeks for 2 ~ 3 months to get rid of all the worms in a cat's system. What was her history before she came to you? Had she been an outdoor cat?

One of my long haired cat's get's a regular sanitary shave, but he doesn't drag his butt at all. I think with a shave it's likely to itch a couple of days later, like when you've shaved and the hair starts to grow back, but after a week or so it shouldn't itch at all.

I think I'd continue with the worming treatment and then ask my vet to take a look if the butt-dragging continues. I don't think cats do this just out of habit. There is usually a reason for it so once you've got to the bottom (No pun intended  ) of that she should stop doing it.

Thanks!

I know that not every worm has visible traces, and when I adopted Ipa her temporary caretaker told me about that she had Axilur vet 250mg (I live in Finland btw, so I don't know what is Axilur's equivalent in other countries but as far as I know it's quite wide-spectrum medicine, according to the packaging it's recommended against tapeworms, roundworms, hookworms, whipworms and lungworms) and that I should repeat it sometime later. I don't know if ringworms or heartworms are treated with this but I hope Axilur will sort out the issue. Oh yes, and this is in pill form, so I crush it into a powder then mix it with some cat puding or something of that sort (that was also interesting that the first time I offered her it this way she lapped it up without missing a beat, but yesterday I had to force it down  maybe today's dose will be a struggle too).

I don't know much about her initial home, but when she was up for adoption she was living as an indoor cat with 4 other cats in a temporary home, and like I mentioned she was given de-worming treatment. I did actually teach her to walk in a harness so I took her to walks around the neighbourhood so she was under supervision, but she could have easily collected something still while eating grass or something, as there are lots of pets living in this area, dogs and cats alike who are taken out for walks. So yeah that could be one factor.

Actually, I was just wondering about the sanitary trim last night, as I thought about how much her hair has grown and what if that's the problem? I've got to admit that I am kind of sensitive to the tidiness of our home but also the health of the cat and whenever she does the butt-drag I can't help but feel frustrated, like, "why do you do this to meeeee!?" - I know she doesn't do it to piss me off but it still does