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Please Note: It may take up to 14 days for the answer to appear on the site, advice has to be of a general nature because the animal is not present. MOST IMPORTANTLY if your pet is ill you must seek attention from your veterinary surgeon.

What is causing hair loss?

Hi Emma, I have an 8 year old female Ocicat & earlier this year she lost almost all the hair on the underside of her tail. I took her to the Vets & she asked did she bite at her tail & that I had never seen & she is wormed on regular basis, nothing was given but eventually it grew back beautifully, but this morning when she came in she had at least a 4 inch section on the top of her tail with all the hair missing, now there is no soreness or bad skin. What can this be??? Hope you can help. Regards
Suzanne Hughes

Without doing a full clinical exam and also a behavioural consultation it’s very difficult to say. Hair loss on the tail is most commonly due to fleas but these tend to be accompanied by scabs and obvious signs of irritation because hair loss tends to be in allergic animals so you would tend to get more signs on the skin and not just hair loss. The most common cause of hair loss with skin that looks smooth and unaffected is behavioural over-grooming. This can be because of chronic stress or bullying from other cats or animals or children living in the same house. Cats groom a lot anyway so excess grooming can be very easy to miss and can lead to hair loss most commonly on the belly and inside the back legs but could affect any area. I would make sure she is treated with a good flea treatment like Frontline or Advantage regularly even if you never see a single flea and continue with regular worming. If it continues or spreads then a return visit to the vet would be prudent. If it is behavioural you could try a plug-in pheromone diffuser which can greatly help to relax some cats but if she is being stressed outside the house this may not help. Some of the more exotic breeds of cat are much more prone to this kind of behavioural stress so it could well be something along those lines. It may be that a new cat has moved into the area. Sorry not to be more help and I’d be interested to hear if anything else happens.


Emma


Pain on toiletting
I have a 2 year old male German Shepherd cross with an Alaskan Malamute dog and recently he has been having trouble going to the toilet.
It has being going on for about a month now; it started when he had quite a hard poo which made him cry out. A couple of times after that, when he had a poo, his anus bled a little and he kept spinning around in circles and crying out again.
Now he holds it in and refuses to go outside, i have consulted a vet nurse who said he could have split his bottom after having a hard poo which opens up everytime he goes to the toilet but there wasn’t much they could do. I spoke to my dog trainer who recommended putting oily fish and bran into his food which i have and has made his poo's soft but he still cries out and spins around in circles when he goes.
The vet nurse checked his anal glands and prostate which she said were normal.
It's really distressing and just want to help him!

Nicki

In short, go to a vet! You’ve seen a nurse and a talked to a dog trainer when you should really be speaking to a vet. No disrespect to the nurses who do a brilliant job but nurses are not in a position to diagnose animals. If a problem is persisting your dog could become really frightened of going to the toilet and the situation could just get worse and worse. Bran does help with passing faeces but does so by bulking the poo up so this might actually make it worse for your dog. Your vet will be able to do a proper examination and rectal exam and recommend a suitable stool softener or diet if necessary along with any other treatment that might be needed. Please do this soon and if you have time I’d be keen to hear the outcome.
Emma


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