Santa
Wise Old Thumper
:wave: After a couple of years of really struggling with Milly over grooming, we have finally cracked it! First we thought it was stress, then we thought it was pain, then finally we worked out that it was something dietary. Cue a very long period of trial and error (it takes several weeks for a previous irritant/allergen to stop causing effects) and we have finally had a breakthrough. It would appear that the sensitive little soul is intolerant to cat food :roll: Yes, even hypoallergenic cat food :roll: And foods which don't have any common ingredients. Eventually swapped her onto a raw food diet (I'm using natural instinct rather than making it myself) and voila - one fully furred cat, for the first time in about 3 years!
In theory, you're supposed to re-challenge with the suspected problem food after about 8 weeks, as this can confirm the diagnosis, but as my vet says, by that point, most people are happy that things have settled and don't want to. She was right, I didn't want to - but I went away overnight a while back and my darling OH inadvertently fed her some biscuits instead of her normal food, and when I came back, she had pulled the fur off her hip again. So it's definitely the food that is doing it!
From this:
to this:
In 3 months, just by swapping to a raw food diet!
In theory, you're supposed to re-challenge with the suspected problem food after about 8 weeks, as this can confirm the diagnosis, but as my vet says, by that point, most people are happy that things have settled and don't want to. She was right, I didn't want to - but I went away overnight a while back and my darling OH inadvertently fed her some biscuits instead of her normal food, and when I came back, she had pulled the fur off her hip again. So it's definitely the food that is doing it!
From this:
to this:
In 3 months, just by swapping to a raw food diet!