Hi, I'm Dr. Fiona Caldwell and I'm a practicing veterinarian at Idaho Veterinary Hospital, and I'm answering questions from Pets Best Facebook page.
The first question is from Crystal who asks, "My 13-year-old male cat, Jake, is limping and holding his paw in the air. It's a little sensitive to the touch but he doesn't like to be touched anyway. Any ideas, and what do I need to look for? Thank you."
You're going to have to go to a veterinarian for this one. There are a lot of things that could cause a paw to be sensitive. It could be something serious, like a broken bone, or a thorn in there or an infected nail bed. If it's sensitive and he's limping on it, it probably needs to be evaluated.
The next question comes from Tannan [SP] who asks, "I have a 6-year-old Persian cat that I adopted last December. She has recently, since I came back from a long vacation, been losing hair around her neck. What could be causing this?"
There are some stress-related conditions in cats that can make them lose their hair. For example, we leave for awhile and come back, or something changes in their routine. Usually they don't really lose the hair. Instead, they're licking that area and causing the hair to come out.
This is generally cosmetic and goes away when the stressful situation goes away. There are some other things that can cause hair loss, like ringworm or parasites, or you put flea medication on there and it's causing a reaction. These would need to be diagnosed by your veterinarian.
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