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Cat is biting the end of it's tail until it bleeds...

48K views 26 replies 5 participants last post by  Heidi n Q 
#1 ·
Hey - it's me! The irregular poster some may remember with the screwed up cats. lol.

So about a month ago, I had to work a lot of overtime. Like - 12-14 hour days. I'd leave home at 8, get home at 9 or later. My cat Fred is a bit needy, and shortly after all the overtime ended, Fred started chasing his tail (more than usual). Sometime's he'd bite it and meow like it hurt. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first.

Then I saw quite a large gash in his tail. Maybe about a centimeter long, 1/2 centimeter wide. I took him to the vet (my normal vet was out and had to go to another), and she said it looked traumatic as if it got stuck in something or the other cat did it. I was kind of sceptical, as there isn't really much in my home to do that and he'd been catching his tail a lot. sometimes he would get on a chair back and chase it almost falling off (sometimes he did) so I was thinking maybe he stepped on it and it tore while he was running around in circles trying to hold on.

Anyway, the biting continued, and it took forever for it to heal as he was licking the scab, biting it off or just biting his tail and breaking it open. I tried pretty much everything. Clipped his nails, sprayed the tip with some of the bitter stuff so he would be less prone to bite it. Maybe that was a bad idea. I'm giving him anxiety relief drops too. And I play with him for 10 minutes or so when he starts on it, which means I'm playing with him like every 30 minutes. He's been chasing it less lately, and the scab that wouldn't heal finally fell off last night (he hadn't really been able to touch it the last week).

Last night I heard him yelp again and inspected his tail. The very tip has a smallish scab on it. Then I got home from work today to blood splatters and drops in the living room. There's a big mass of dried blood in the hair on the tip of his tail. I guess this is going to be an ongoing issue.

I was hoping it would go away - that maybe he had had some kind of trauma, and the healing of the scab bugged him. Maybe it itched, or he didn't like the feel of it. But now that he's made a new sore it's looking less likely. Any ideas on how to stop him? My vet seems to not have any ideas.

I've heard it could be anal glands, but this is the end of his tail and it seems to be a game for him. He gets his tail going, and then sees it and goes after it. Might be a bit anxiety related as it happened after the overtime. I've also read it could be a neurological disorder, which sometimes results in an anti-depressant type of medication, or in tail amputation. Is that what I'm faced with?

My other cat has also started having minor seizures. She's quite old, and I'm not 100% sure what that is either. I had he into the vet once, but there was no set verdict as she looked fine afterward. They seem to happen after my two cats have an altercation, when she's prone to a lot of physical/emotional exertion. It doesn't happen a lot, but both the last times have resulted in a seizure. I don't know if that has but the younger, tail biting cat on edge.
 
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