# A cat that attacks herself.....



## whiteghost (Apr 24, 2005)

I am lost as to why Chloe does this.

It doesn't matter what time of the day/night it is, doesn't matter if one of my cats is near her or if all 3 are sound asleep on my bed. 

She will start attacking her tail. And I mean she REALLY attacks. Growling, hissing, going around in a cirlce, and biting it. She'll bat at it to. 

Any thoughts :?: :?: :?:


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Malibu will also turn sommersaults at the end of the hall against the closed bathroom door to catch her tail. She is having fun, catching that tantalizing thing waving its' tip at her.
I don't think Marmalade knows it is part of him...
Marmy will chase his tail. Round and round and round in circles, until he catches it. Then he growls and hisses when he catches his claws in it or bites it and it hurts him.

Sometimes I wonder if it is a form of hyperesthesia that makes them feel they have to catch and subdue their tail to get the sensations to stop.


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## my5kitties (Sep 13, 2005)

Midnight does this too, though she does mainly to entertain herself. My daughter and I say that Midnight is attacking the butt snake.

I'm glad that all she does is chase her tail, though. On another board I am on, one woman had to have part of her cat's tail amputated twice because he had literally _attacked_ his tail...biting it to the point that he had chewed the tip to a bloody pulp and then after the tip had been amputated, he started to attack his tail again to the point that another amputation was needed. Now her cat has only half of his tail, but he no longer tried to attack it because now it's too short for him to reach.


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## PhoebeLou (Feb 23, 2008)

*A cat that attacks herself...........*

My Lulu does that too. She jumps up onto the back of a kitchen chair and reaches through the chair rails and slaps at her tail. She will pull it through and then bite it. Then she screams like something has attacked her. She growls and gets so angry at her tail that her fur puffs out. The first few times she screamed it scared the **** out of me. But now it's hard to tell sometimes if she's fighting her tail again or if she's hanging by a claw from a curtain rod and needs to be rescued.


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## beth1954 (May 19, 2004)

*I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND YOUR CONCERNS*

I have a cat that also does that. I know what you are saying. It is NOT playing in any form or fashion. My cat twitches his tail around and looks at it as if it were a foreign object--not even part of his body. He then growls and hisses at it, and then will bite it-hard. Then he growls and hisses because he has hurt himself. It is almost like another cat bit him, and he growls and hisses because he was hurt. He also has episodes of rage where he will try to kill whichever cat is near at that time. He is very hard to pet because sometimes he wants to scratch and bite me too. If I wake him up or just "barely bump him" with my leg while we are in bed, he will hiss at me and move to the other side. His pupils are often dilated. My vet put him on Prozac almost a year ago. It really helped alot at first (even stopped him from spraying) but now he seems to be going back to the tail biting. There something called hyperesthesia that is kind of like what Buddy does. Buddy doesn't fit all those symptoms, but some of them. Good luck with your kitty!


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