My cat has been excessively licking herself on her back side, around the tail area and on her paws. So much so that now she has a bald spot on her rear end. This has been going on for a week now, from what I have noticed. I have tried brushing her to look for flea evidence but I have had no luck. She also doesn’t let me see her paws. She has been eating fine and nothing has been different in the home like food wise or litter wise. She occasionally goes out side just onto the deck but not lately due to the heat. What could this be? None of my other cats are showing the same behavior. Do I need to get her seen?

My rescue cat has always been sort of aggressive, her rescue didnt really get her any type of evaluation to determine if there was any underlying issue causing her to have this aggression. So we kept her because I knew it would be difficult to adopt her out and I didnt want her going to petsmart for boarding, bounce around from home to home or worse be put down for behavior. This was over a year ago, she has since adjusted to our family, our pets and for the most part seems over all happy, Well last night she suddenly began to freak out, kept licking her lips excessively, her back along w her ear and paws were twitching. She would seem to be trying to catch something around her but there was nothing there, almost like hallucinations? She was running back n forth looking at her back, bottom, and she just looks stressed out. Her eating has slowed down as wekk as her water intake, she goes outside and doesnt want to come back in. I just feel her behavior changed almost over night. Ive made an appt w her vet and its scheduled for next week, in the mean time I did some online searching and it looks like all sgns point to hyperesthesia? It says it could be due to fleas , parasites amongst other things however she is on revolution she doesnt have worms, I even bought a flea comb just to see if maybe that was a possibility but theres nothing! Im concerned about her since she looks uncomfortable. Is there anything to do or give her till her appt to keep her calm and less uncomfortable

-EMERGENCY-

Hello Everyone,

I very much need help. To preface this I am located in Los Angeles. On August 18-20 I noticed my cat’s behavior change. He started peeing outside his box, and was irritable. When I noticed glitter in his urine and I white pus material I knew from past experience that he had a UTI.
We took him into the vet and set up a urinalysis. While getting the urine sample his litter box behavior’s was erratic. But no more crystals, and I never saw any blood. And he was always able to go to the bathroom.

This past Saturday (9th) I noticed very early in the morning he was going to the box and nothing was happening. He did it twice in a few hours. He also started licking his private areas. I knew from past experience he was likely he was blocked. My mom is a vet in another state so I was able to bring my concerns to her.
We both agreed I needed to be on our vet’s doorstep that morning when they opened.

Long painful story short I took him in and we determined he was blocked. After going through all the options with the vet and his cat dad we were barely able to afford unblocking him. We waited that day hoping they would call us with good news. SO SO HAPPY! He got unblocked and I was able to come get him and bring him home.

They gave us both pain meds and doses for his crystals, every 12 hours and he got them consistently. We switched to only wet food back at the first vet visit. And since the Sat visit he has only gotten prescript for urinary cats (Royal Canine/Hills)

He was fine for a few days, peeing and pooping normally. I was monitoring everything. Then yesterday morning he stopped going to the bathroom again. All day yesterday, nothing.
We waited all day yesterday. His belly is bloated and he’s getting irritable again. He is off the pain meds now, but still mostly laying around.

This time around he doesn’t even try to go to the bathroom. And he has started licking himself again. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to be in pain. He is eating normally.

We could barely afford to have him unblocked the first time, this past Sat. Applying to Carecredit and Fetch both yielded no results. My roommate and I are trying to figure out a way to have him unblocked again. But with the strike and everything things are just so limited. I don’t want to loose him because we can’t afford to help him.

I have reached out to multiple charities and called so many vets. It’s all taking too long, and we know that it will escalate fast. I’m going to call the vet today and see if maybe we can at least drain the urine. Ideally, we can get him drained and I know there’s a procedure they basically snip the end so it won’t happen over and over.

We can we do?!! Please help!! Call me directly, I don’t even care. I just want to help him 619 931 3747

I have included a picture of our dear boy, he’s 7 and 6 months..so almost a senior. This is his first UTI bout. His name is Jerry, and he’s wonderful.

Rottweiler, female, spayed, 11 years old
Just recently lost a toe to nailbed squamous cell carcinoma (hind foot). And now this has cropped up on her front foot. Not limping yet, but some weight-shifting away from it and licking at it. What are the odds that it’s the same thing again? 🙁

PYOMETRA SURGERY QUESTION: I have a question for Dr. Krista. Below is background information and I will include cost info for anyone that might be searching for cost information in the future and stumbles across this website. (also uploading a picture of doggie with stitches to gallery)

My 7.5 year old Shepherd/Husky mix just had surgery for pyometra. It was approximately $2000 at a pet hospital in Tennessee for the surgery. (actual surgery was a little under $900 and then additional things such as anesthesia, overnight boarding charge, IV, antibiotics, e-collar, medication, etc ended up racking up the charges to almost $2000.) Her symptoms that caused me to go to the vet were not eating, depressed, excessive drinking, constant licking her private areas, and I did notice she was drooling a lot as well. Her not eating was the main thing that had me worried as this dog will eat anything and gobble her food up in seconds and then lick the bowl clean searching for any missing bits under normal circumstances, yet she even turned her nose up at her favorite foods. I had initially been worried about blockage since she had eaten some table scrap bones a few days prior (which I now know not to do for future reference), but after googling , I came to the conclusion pyometra was more likely. She had just finished her heat cycle a few weeks prior, so everything lined up on her symptoms matching pyometra. The vet did an x-ray and blood work and it did end up being Pyometra. I had never heard of this before and really wish I had as this was an expensive lesson for us to learn and painful for our poor doggie. If we had spaded her when she was younger, it would have been $250 at the exact same place I just paid $2000 to for pretty much the exact same surgery. (though now much riskier and doggie sick) The vet did the surgery the morning following her initial examination. (the initial exam was $425 for exam, x-ray and blood work and was not included in the cost of surgery. I received a 25% discount off of this price for being a new customer) She had the surgery at 10 AM and stayed the night to get extra fluids and antibiotics as she had a pretty bad infection and keep and eye on her. I picked her up at 2 PM the day after her surgery. My doggie was happy to see me when I picked her up and seemed to be feeling much better. She wagged her tag and happily jumped in the car and was excited about going in our house. Once in the house, she visibly drooped, though. I thought that was probably normal after having surgery and she slept a lot. She ate that night and I gave her the medicine in her food. This morning, however, she once again refuses to eat- even her favorite foods. She drinks normally, but doesn’t eat anything, so I also cannot give her the medication, which consisted of an antibiotic and pain pill. I tried forcing a piece of bread in her mouth with the pill inside it but she just spit it out. My question for Dr. Krista or anyone who has had experience with pyometra…. is this normal for a dog not to want to eat a couple of days after surgery? It has now been almost exactly 48 hours since her surgery. She went to the bathroom a little bit ago and both urinated and had a wet bowel movement. I have tried offering all different kinds of foods and she shows no interest. She is just laying around. She is still drooling more than normal, but seems in better shape than when I initially took her to vet… but worried about her lack of appetite. How I can give her the medication if she will not eat. Any recommendations?

My dog got spayed on August 1st, she is a 13 year old poodle mix. She also had a mastectomy along with her spay so she has a very big incision. She is on her 4th week and the lower half of her incision does not look like the top half. The surgeon said it may take a while to heal because of the placement but I noticed a bump at the base of her incision at day 4 that has not gone away. She keeps licking at it and the surgeon suggested we must let her heal and later investigate. Also, at day 10 I noticed a white tiny pimple sized thing trying to come through under her skin. I really checked it out today since it has not gone away and it feels like something sharp poking under her skin, she has two of these that feel the same. I am scared she might have torn her internal stitches but the surgeon did not seem too worried. I notice when she eats she seems to look like she feels uncomfortable. She threw up yesterday but I took it as maybe her pancreatitis acting up. I am freaking out and don’t know if I am making a big fuss over nothing. She did not run during her recovery but she would stand up on her hind legs no matter how much I attempted to keep her calm. She did slip 3 times and land on her tummy, twice at day 8 because I had her on a short leash and she would try to run, the third slip was at day 13 and for the same reason of the short leash and attempting to run. I feel so sad and don’t have peace of mind. I feel guilty she slipped on me those three times but then again don’t know what to make of that lump at day 4. After the two slips at day 8 and after on day 10 she started having severe diarrhea. I contacted the surgeons team and they suggested boiled chicken and boiled rice, but at day 12 the diarrhea was a soft serve ice cream consistency and then she thew up so I took her into emergency immediately. At emergency they checked her vitals and incision and could not figure out what may have caused the stomach upset since from her pancreatitis history did not have the swollen tummy and her incision looked fine. They attributed the upset to possible pain med side effect and prescribed a probiotic and to stop the gabapentin. It’s has been a tough healing process for her. I will attach pictures of of what the incision looked like at day 7, 10, and now. I hope it’s not what I am fearing but it’s better to know if I should advocate for her and have them check again. Thanks guys, sorry for the long story but this is my little girl who is my first owned dog and who has been by my side for 13 years. I love her so much and it pains me to see her uncomfortable. Fyi her appetite is always good no matter what and her bowels are back to normal since the 18th of august and they were fine before the 10th of august as well.

Hi!
For a couple weeks I have noticed my dog chewing on his back paw… he normally has pretty strong allergies this time of year and he is a licker anyway.. however tonight when I got home from work I took another close look at his paw (it was looking very pink) and noticed that he is missing a nail.. it’s completely gone ! He is in no pain as it seems.. hes walking, running, playing and eating as normal.. the only thing is he is obviously licking the area where his nail was.. it’s not bleeding and doesn’t look infected…
what advice do you have for this type of situation? I have been reading and watching videos about this but it’s half and half of I should take him to the vet or if I can take care of this at home.. Thank you

My 4yo Labrador Retriever Hank recently (two weeks prior) underwent a Tibial Plateau Levelling Osteotomy (TPLO) to repair the torn cruciate ligament in his back left knee. He gradually increased activity in the affected leg, but now seems as if his progress has halted. He’s very hesitant to put anymore weight on that leg. He won’t walk up a small step to get into my bedroom (this was the case before the surgery too). He moves around somewhat freely in the yard, but reverts to standing on three legs or doing a three-legged hop to move around at times. He has taken a bad step two to three times that resulted in a loud cry out. He must be coaxed to move around at all and appears to have developed a plum-sized seroma at surgery site of the infected knee. Could this be leading to the halt in activity/progress? He allows me to massage the muscles above and below the affected knee. We have also been doing some range of motion exercises on both legs.

Seroma?: He allows me to touch it and it is soft to the touch. It feels like a water balloon filled with a slightly more viscous fluid. It is directly above the incision site and the fluid appears to rest directly on top of the knee joint. Per vet recommendation, I discontinued the use of Rimadyl to try to reduce the size of the seroma.

Other symptoms: Licking at the base of tail to the point of seeing some blood in his fur. Excessive licking of the blanket he sleeps on.

Possible anal sac issue? I am currently unable to drive due to a tbi so I’m trying to figure out if this can wait until Monday or not. She is a 4 year old lab mixing started licking the area last night. Other than that, she’s going to the bathroom fine and she has a little area of concern which I’m attaching the picture for. She’s acting normal, eating, drinking, playing.

My dog is a 7 year old beagle cross that loves to wander in our lush paddocks. Yesterday morning he came back from his morning border patrol rather sheepishly and i noticed a red swollen patch on one side of his muzzle. It was obviously sore the way he didnt want me to touch it and he quivered his lip. I decided to monitor it closely to see if it warranted emergency vet care and it seemed to remain the same throughout the day. It didnt swell up anymore and he seemed to be ok with it. So I decided to not rush him to the vet. However at dinner time I noticed him trying to lick his lip repetitively and then i was shocked to see a weird round bump had appeared. It was clearly uncomfortable for him but there was no vet open at this time of night so I decided to watch him over night as he sleeps in bed with me. He is eating and drinking fine. He has been licking it most of the night but the lump seems to be the same size. It is now 4 am and I am wondering if I should take him to the vet today? What do you think could have caused this? I thought perhaps he just got bitten by an ant or stung by a bee or something.