DANCIN' ABBIE

[spatch]

Oh boy is Mr. Abbie ever so not happy and it's so hilarious that he's ever so not happy because I believe he has a touch of the St. Vitus' Dance and he can't help it and you can tell he's getting frustrated and his tail is lashing about but he can't stop dancing and all I'm doing to help is laugh my damn fool ass off at the little blighter because, well, it's funny.

He's got those nappy dreads again, see, those matted clumps of fur up on his back. I'm not sure what causes them but they seem to have a bit of dandruff in them and the fur tends to clump off every now and then. This is one of those times and there's one piece of fur that's clumping itself off but while it's doing so, it's brushing up at just the wrong spot on his back.

The spot where, when touched or agitated, makes him compulsively lick. I tried it myself -- I patted him and he purred and when I hit the patch of fur in question, he immediately swung RIGHT around and started to lick. He can't help himself. Cats have this reaction when parts of their back get messed with -- ever put one of those small chip bag clips on a cat's back (just the hair, mind you) and watch them try to walk? They get stuck in a perpetual slink-under and resent you even when you take the chip clip off and have a good laugh. I would turn all lights on if you get up in the middle of the night afterwards if I were you lest you find a nice present in your usual somnambulatory path.

So it is with Abbie. He's obsessed with the way that fur hits that spot. He'll lick that spot if he's sitting down and he twitches his hindquarters if he's walking and the hair moves slightly. He does this weird tail slide jumpy dance and then he sits down and whacks his tail against the floor because he's pissed about his silly involuntary reactions. I at first thought he might be in pain but I realized he's probably not since he's A. letting me touch the spot, B. not hiding under the bed in his "I'm not feeling well" spot, and C. also not yelling about it. He just seems very perturbed at the loss of his dignity and, well, who wouldn't?

I'm going to go give him a haircut now. Just a little one to remove that offending patch of fur which seems to be coming off anyway. Then I gotta figure out why he's getting it. Must be that low-magnesium diet -- and sorry, kiddo, if it comes down to either nappy dreads or a non-functioning urinary tract, I'm gonna let you have the nappy dreads, pal.

And your crazy dancing.

Comments

[arielblue.livejournal.com]

Mudpuppy gets those sometimes, just around his hips and butt. I don't know what causes it, although in his case, his arthritis makes it harder for him to groom back there. He doesn't get all twitchy about it though -- he just ignores the matty little things.

Right now, actually, he has a still-kinda-baldish spot where the vet took an electric clipper to a couple of big'uns last time he was in.

Imagine what it must be like to grow nappy dreads on your butt. That's talent.

[subbes]

Kittytwitches are pretty awesome. My uncle's cat (in South Africa) lost all the hair on that spot. It just fell out, never regrew. So the kitty had a bald spot.

[lexinatrix.livejournal.com]

Then I gotta figure out why he's getting it.

The matting is caused by the cat shedding more than it can keep up with through its own grooming. If you regularily (every couple days) brush the cat with a designed-for-cats grooming brush or comb, it should remove the excess hair/dander so the fur won't get matted.

When the matting gets bad, it is painful for the cat, since the fur is tightly pulling on their skin.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

An interesting web page here shows how those things can in fact grow sufficiently to look like wings: http://www.messybeast.com/winged-cats.htm

The mental image of Teh Incredible Flying Abbie makes me happy.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

Yep. Wetting the mat and saturating it with a light detangling conditioner will help if it gets really bad. Don't ask me how you're supposed to survive the process, though.

It can also be lazy grooming -- an effect of summer, when cats merely want to lie about being loooong, and sometimes of age. The cat I used to live with stopped grooming the hard-to-reach bits of herself, probably due to lessened flexibility, and then stopped altogether, probably due to senility and thinking she was a kitten again. Because you see, when she was a kitten, the Big Old Cat did all her grooming for her. :p Eventually it got so bad that now she always has a lion cut.

Ain't nothing sadder than an old old lady cat with a lion cut. :D

[pecosy.livejournal.com]

!

I want a wing'ed cat!

[littlegirltoast.livejournal.com]

not nappy dreads -

natty dreads, as a compromise between "knotty" and "naughty"

[moxie-fawn.livejournal.com]

Get a dematting combs, they make it SO easy to brush them out.

[spatch]

His are nappy because when he should've been grooming himself, he was napping instead.

Yeah! It all works out!

[spatch]

Your syllable accent is necessary, too. Winged cats are no big deal, but wing'ed cats, now, there's the thing.

[littlegirltoast.livejournal.com]

irie.

[(Anonymous)]

Is it possible that Gloria Estefan was actually right and sooner or later "the rhythm" is going to get all of us?

Noah ... is fairly certain he stole that from some sitcom