Hello everyone, this is what my cat Copernicus usually looks like:
Laying on my sketch book of course.
He's a beautiful red-and-white bicolour shag monster, super gentle, awesome temperament and he lives with two other kitties, my three year old fluffy orange-and-white tabby Casper and my female grey-and-white short haired 17 year old tabby Smoky. They all generally get along and I have never heard them get into a serious fur flying, yowling fight. I keep all of my cats indoor where they should theoretically be safe from most harm.
Thus his current facial and dew claw injuries (?) defeat logic to me. I don't even know if they ARE injuries but something else. We've been bathing his sores with a warm, clean, fresh facecloth twice a day. His dew claw looks swollen and he has licked most of the fur off of it; like his face, it is scabby. We think he's fur mowing because it itches or hurts, yet he isn't limping. He's acting like his perfectly happy self, appetite unaffected. We haven't taken him to a vet yet because we can usually handle simple cuts and abrasions just fine and we have dealt with some pretty gnarly injuries to our cats (including missing claws and even an abdominal puncture wound which was super nasty and still makes me shudder while my mom who grew up on a farm and didn't even flinch) but his injuries are starting to seriously look like they need a professional opinion. I've thought that they might be mange, but that doesn't make sense because he doesn't go outside. (Though I am not discounting it completely!) I've also heard suggestions of 'fungal infection' and 'ringworm.' I'm trying to do research but I'm finding it difficult to find a starting point. Has anyone here ever had a cat with weird scabby injuries like Copernicus'?
Without further ado, a current photo of his poor sweet face (unfortunately I don't have one of his leg):
Ouch.
So has anyone ever encountered anything like this before? That thing on his nose bridge is a big horrible scab. We're hoping it will come off soon. (I'm hoping he will heal in general soon!) He's licking himself in the photo.
Laying on my sketch book of course.
He's a beautiful red-and-white bicolour shag monster, super gentle, awesome temperament and he lives with two other kitties, my three year old fluffy orange-and-white tabby Casper and my female grey-and-white short haired 17 year old tabby Smoky. They all generally get along and I have never heard them get into a serious fur flying, yowling fight. I keep all of my cats indoor where they should theoretically be safe from most harm.
Thus his current facial and dew claw injuries (?) defeat logic to me. I don't even know if they ARE injuries but something else. We've been bathing his sores with a warm, clean, fresh facecloth twice a day. His dew claw looks swollen and he has licked most of the fur off of it; like his face, it is scabby. We think he's fur mowing because it itches or hurts, yet he isn't limping. He's acting like his perfectly happy self, appetite unaffected. We haven't taken him to a vet yet because we can usually handle simple cuts and abrasions just fine and we have dealt with some pretty gnarly injuries to our cats (including missing claws and even an abdominal puncture wound which was super nasty and still makes me shudder while my mom who grew up on a farm and didn't even flinch) but his injuries are starting to seriously look like they need a professional opinion. I've thought that they might be mange, but that doesn't make sense because he doesn't go outside. (Though I am not discounting it completely!) I've also heard suggestions of 'fungal infection' and 'ringworm.' I'm trying to do research but I'm finding it difficult to find a starting point. Has anyone here ever had a cat with weird scabby injuries like Copernicus'?
Without further ado, a current photo of his poor sweet face (unfortunately I don't have one of his leg):
Ouch.
So has anyone ever encountered anything like this before? That thing on his nose bridge is a big horrible scab. We're hoping it will come off soon. (I'm hoping he will heal in general soon!) He's licking himself in the photo.