I don't know what to do - one of my cats seems to be losing all his hair, starting at the head and now descending down to the shoulders. He also has a bit of a balding patch at the base of his tail.
We took him to the vet and they tested him for this and that, said it could be mites or ringworm...but he tested negative for ringworm, and the mite medication we've been putting on him is doing nothing. Now my other cat has a bald patch at the base of her tail too!
They do have some fleas, although we put Advantage on them they always come back. We've been reasonably consistent about this because the other cat gets skin irritations if she has many fleas.
They haven't been on a consistent type of cat food, and the problem doesn't seem to coincide with any particular food change. We were feeding them bulk organic dry food from the health food store for a long time, until they decided they didn't like it anymore. Then we went through kind of a "junk food" period - Whiskas, Chef's Blend, Purina, Friskies, etc., all in turn until they got tired of them. This lasted several months. When the hair loss started a couple of months ago they got put on better food - first a bag of Purina One, and then Nutro Natural Choice Complete Care since then. Thank god they like that and will eat it!
Throughout all of this, they have also had the occasional can of canned food - either "natural" food such as Nature's Kitty or Natural Value, or something from the grocery store like 9 Lives or Friskies. They get a can about once every week or two. They also get frequent, small amounts of table scraps like fish, beef or chicken. I often cook up the cats' meat scraps separately without any seasonings for them.
We had thought maybe it was an allergy until the other cat also started losing fur...now we are really at a loss. We're taking them back to the vet again but it's frustrating because the initial visit cost $230 with no helpful results, although it was good to learn that it's not ringworm. I guess that's the one potential cause that would have been transmissable to us.
Here's Cassius, back when he had all his fur:
He has a light undercoat which shows through, but you can see his coat is full and glossy.
And now:
The hair loss is accompanied by some flaky skin and reddish, irritated-looking patches, although not too many.
The vet basically didn't have much in the way of suggestions - anyone here seen anything like this before? Any ideas??
