Why My Cat Is Licking All The Hair Off Her Belly? – This is a good one, sometimes owners confused in this question and says, my cat is licking all the hair off her belly? but I don’t see anything on the skin? What are the reasons behind that? Can I worry about them? So, don’t worry this blog gives you all the answers.
So let’s come to the topic Why My Cat Is Licking All The Hair Off Her Belly?
Why My Cat Is Licking All The Hair Off Her Belly?
This is really interesting when I see this question in my facebook group I can almost make a diagnosis from the question and I refrain from that because I always want you to take your pet to your veterinarian for a physical exam and consultation, just to make sure there’s nothing wrong.
Usually, something that happens with cats very commonly is, cats usually they’re supposed to be out there hunting things, they have natural instincts and we bring them into the home where their life is a little slower, not as stimulating, so they can develop behavior problems, frustrations, things like that.
They Have A Condition Known As Psychogenic Alopecia
And one thing that cats do, is they have a condition known as psychogenic alopecia and alopecia means hair loss, psychogenic means it comes from the mind and so it’s a psychological issue and so when they’re lethargic or depressed or not getting the stimulus, what will happen is they’ll often lick their belly and they’ll lick all of the hair off of the their belly and they’ll have a bald patch.
How To Know Your Cat Is Traumatising The Hair?
Some cats will do it so badly that the skin opens up and they have a lesion in there. Now, the ways you can know that this is really what’s happening is if you look really closely at the hair because it’s being licked out.
The hair will look what we call barbered meaning that not all the hair is just gone, there are actually hairs that are broken, so you’ll see here is that are longer and some hairs that are shorter.
That’s how you know your cat is traumatising the hair. So we know the hair loss is actually from the licking by seeing that.
The other clue is that on the skin there’s really no other reactions, there’s no inflammation, there’s no redness there’s no pimple like things that are consistent with a bacterial infection and this is the only place obviously that it’s happening and this is classic for cats when they have this condition psychogenic alopecia.
What You Do About It Is You Address That Stress?
Now whenever I talk about stress to a cat owner they say what talking about my cat doesn’t have any stress. Well just being a cat inside a house can be stressful for some cats.
Even a cat just being overweight can be stressful for that cat even though we’re not chasing it around terrorizing it, it can still be stressed out and developing some of these conditions. So I talk about environmental stimulus, playing with them more, getting them toys but then there’s also anti-anxiety things you can do.
There’s devices you can plug in the wall that emit a calming hormone into the air. Those things work extremely well for cats to calm them down and then there are natural supplements as well, such as a milk protein that comes from sort of the Queen’s milk and it with the kittens basically it calms them during lactation periods.
They’ve taken this protein that put it in a supplement and it really has a calming effect.
How To Stop A Cat from Licking Its Fur Off from belly?
If this condition is really bad, then you can go to medications that are anti-anxiety like prozac or something called clomipramine and you’re definitely going to want to talk to your veterinarian about that, do some blood work before you start it, make sure it’s safe to give.
Really start with the simple things so that we’re not having to put them on a medication but this is a classic common problem we see in a lot of cats. Your cat may even be doing it and you may not know, you should lift them up and look at their belly and you might find that some of the hair is missing and they’re actually doing it from time to time without you knowing.
Also, read Why Do My Cats Grooming Each Other? IS It Good Or Bad?
Final Words From Me
So this is a great question I think that’s the diagnosis but you’re going to want to run it by your veterinarian and have them take a look at the area and make sure they don’t see anything that’s more concerning, where they think it might be a different cause for this.