is anyone out there???

Here Kitty, Kitty

A few years ago our cat angel started licking himself. I know that cats lick themselves...but it was more than that. He was licking himself in an excessive, abnormal, out-of-control way. In a matter of weeks, except for a thin strip along his spine, he was completely bald. Definitely NOT normal.

We could deny that he had a problem no longer, so I finally took him to the vet. Apparently, he had "obsessive compulsive grooming disorder." Okay. What a waste. I tried to teach him how to channel his cleaning tendencies toward the greater good---I was thinking of the possibilities: toilets, kitchen floors, etc. But, he wasn't interested in anything other than licking himself. Selfish cat.

The vet gave him some medication. Strangely enough---dog birth control pills. Who knew that they even had those? I don't want to think about how they came up with that...But angel hated taking the pills (this involved my husband forcing it down his throat with a strange contraption) and at the end of the pill cycles he was back to licking himself bald. Eventually, after we started letting Angel outside, he stopped obsessively licking himself on his own. But our days with psychotic cats weren't over.

Our other cat, Bert is bulimic. He eats all of his food as quickly as possible and then throws it up. Lovely. Maybe his father left him as a kitten, or his mom weaned him too young, but regardless he has some unresolved issues. Our daughter Anna has learned how to mimic the sound of Bert throwing up perfectly. It is quite disturbing. I often worry that she'll do this in public and we'll have child protective services knocking at our door to investigate what we're doing in our home, to warrant such behavior.

It does make me wonder. Were our cats normal before we got them, and it was something we did to make them crazy? Or were they psychotic before they came to us? I guess we'll never know...