Grooming products possibly can. A lot of people don't use grooming products on their cats. If you're using an aloe and oatmeal type shampoo, we don't tend to see problems, but some of the other products, sure. We can. If you're using some type of a scented spray on your cat, something along that line, then sure. We can see sensitivity and contact dermatitis from that.

It can. Cats are very temperamental, and they tend to be, as we have said, great groomers, but over-grooming can cause hair loss and secondary skin irritation, and secondary skin infection. One of the reasons that cats tend to overgrow is they're stressed. What stresses a cat, and what doesn't stress a cat? Everything. You name it. You change your furniture, the litter, there's a stray cat outside, there's a new dog in the neighborhood, and your mother-in-law comes over for the day. I mean, you name it; it can stress out a cat and cause them to lick. We definitely will see some of those cases, and then it's a matter of trying to determine what's causing the anxiety and then relieving it in some way or the other. Pheromones might be a help there. There are some diet changes we can do there. There are several things we can do to help.

Yes. The allergies issue in cats is honestly not as bad as it is in dogs. We do see allergies and cats. We see more food allergies in cats than we do anything else, and that's a difficult syndrome to work through. It requires putting your cat on a special diet for an extended period of time, which can frequently be difficult because cats tend to be finicky eaters and don't want to eat it, and they won't eat it. And then what do you do?

Unfortunately, that's not a question that can be easily answered without seeing the pet. When it's itchy and where it's itchy, both matter, and there are many things that cause itchiness. We really need to see the cat to kind of hone down and figure out why it's truly itching because most skin conditions and cats cause itchiness.

Dermatitis is a general term that means the skin's inflamed. There are many things that cause inflammation, including the things we just talked about, infections, abscesses, ticks, fleas, all parasites, and allergies, those types of things. We see a fair amount of food allergies with cats that we have to deal with. We can definitely see some pollen atopy allergy issues with cats as well. A fungus, like ringworm, which is not a parasite, can also cause skin issues. It's a fungus that affects the skin and can cause hair loss and, unfortunately, can be given to you. We see bacterial infections on the skin as well. We have mentioned fleas already because they're such a common issue for us.

We commonly see parasites in cats. Fleas are always a concern with cats. We also sometimes even will see ticks with cats. We see skin infections, fungal infections, and bacterial infections. Cats get abscesses very frequently. Food allergies are a problem with cats. There's a syndrome called an eosinophilic granuloma and eosinophilic plaque in cats. So there are lots of different things that we see with cats.

There are. One of the big things is keeping your cat nice and lean. How about that? Most people didn't think this was going to be a fat talk. Cats are great groomers, as long as they can reach the spots to groom. If they groom, they tend to keep their skin nice and healthy. But when they get overweight, the hair, especially down the back, over their tailhead, they can't reach it. And if they can't reach it, it builds up and mats up, which leads to some really severe and nasty skin issues. Keeping your cat combed, if they'll allow it, would be great. Bathing cats, if your cat will allow it, it's fabulous. That's the rare cat who likes to have a bath, and I sure don't want you scratched or bitten trying to bathe your cat if they don't like it. Once again, cats are such good groomers that they don't need bathing as frequently as dogs. Also, keep fleas under control.

Anytime your cat comes in, we're going to perform a full physical exam to make sure the overall health of the cat's good. We're going to check it for fleas to make sure that we don't have any fleas. Fleas can be difficult to find in cats, and sometimes we'll treat for fleas, even if we don't find them because cats are such good groomers. They groom the fleas off quickly. Yet the itch remains. Many times, we will take a skin sample to test for infection or fungus and then work from there. We let those things lead us to where else we may need to go.