Providing multiple opportunities for hunting and play games, cat manipulation toys with food stuffed inside for foraging and eating, feeding both canned food and unique orally stimulating food, and offering dog chew toys as an alternative may help. Non-Medical Therapy for Plastic Eating Cats If your veterinarian explores the potential cause for plastic-seeking behavior and believes it points to a compulsive disorder, behavior-modifying drugs such as fluoxetine (generic Prozac) may be a consideration. For this reason, jumping to behavior-modifying drugs is not typically recommending for cats that seem to be strongly driven to explore and chew specific tastes and textures. A vet visit is always a wise visit to start.Įating plastic doesn’t automatically qualify as a compulsive behavior in some cats because they seem to like the way the plastic tastes or feels more than that they “need” to be doing this. Pica in cats can be caused by a number of conditions, including gut disease, feline leukemia virus (FeLV), feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), anemia, obsessive compulsive disorder, dental disease, and hyperthyroidism to name a few. Sometimes it is believed the pet is attempting to fill a nutritional void, but in cases where the pet relentlessly seeks one particular type of object, it may be an obsession and not a nutrition deficit. You may be familiar with the medical term pica: the eating of non-food objects. Cat’s Drive for Plastic: A Compulsive Disorder? If your cat does eat any plastic, I would recommend taking this behavior seriously and attempting to address it quickly. The real danger here is many of these cats ended up eating the plastic and getting blocked along their GI tract, requiring surgery. While eating plastic is one of the stranger things I have encountered as a veterinarian, there are a number of pet parents that confess to having cats that love plastic. Still, the moment he is out of the cage, he faithfully hunts down plastic and eats it with renewed fervor – I have seen the videos.Īs it turns out, this kitty is not alone. The client unfortunately has to cage the cat and she feeds him a good quality diet. This unusual habit has required three exploratory surgeries to remove intestinal obstructions caused by the plastic foreign bodies. This particular kitty will go after plastic of any kind – plastic grocery bags, bread bags, plastic cups, and larger plastic objects. A bit less predictable is a feline patient of mine whose cat is obsessed with something a little more esoteric: eating plastic. We have all probably heard that cats love to play in paper bags, and if you are reading this, you have undoubtedly seen photos shared on social media sites with cats curled up in cardboard boxes. It’s in a cat’s nature to chew, but chewing on plastic can be dangerous.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |