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.

If you see some swelling or an abscess. I tell people that anytime there's a hair loss, or if there's inflammation or bleeding, we need to take a look at that. As long as it's anything more than just a minor irritation, we need to take a look at things and, again, get this thing under control pretty quickly. The other thing with cats is anytime you see a lump or bump, we need to see it sooner rather than later. Cats do get skin tumors, and, unfortunately, they tend to get bad skin tumors. So the sooner we deal with those, the better off they'll be.

Just like you or me, minor abrasion or cut irritation that we may clean up will heal on it. We don't have to see a doctor for that. A cat's immune system may help a minor skin infection, but anything much more than that needs to be seen because if we don't deal with it soon, then it becomes a bigger and bigger problem until we're dealing with a major problem that's much more difficult to get under control. I found that having had a lot of cats in my life, that one little claw that's punctured the skin can quickly become an abscess and get infected, and you don't know it until possibly the abscess is ruptured, and you're just shocked, or it gets really swollen and painful.

Most veterinarians should be skilled enough to deal with most skin issues. Our veterinarians are highly skilled and can help you deal with the vast majority of skin issues in a cat. Very rarely will we have to refer a pet to a dermatologist. Although, those are available if we feel like we need to. I feel that skin issues seem to be a joint thing where you make the recommendations and give the plan, but it's really up to the owner to follow that plan and follow up with the medications. And that kind of goes to the point that skin issues are complicated and frequently time-consuming regarding treatment, which requires you guys to do some work at home. That's the hard part about skin. It's rarely me giving a shot that fixes it. It usually takes some continued care at home. That's labor-intensive sometimes.