Cat Compulsive Disorders

Compulsive disorders in cats are not among the most common. For various reasons, some of them similar to those suffered by people, cats and other animals develop behaviors that we classify as compulsive. The main cause of compulsive behavior in cats is stressful, especially when cats feel strongly in conflict with two opposing options. Cat Compulsive behavior is what we call "wool sucking" or wool-gum - to suck or chew on non-food items, including not only wool, but cotton, synthetic paper and materials even more surprising.

More commonly, cats groom excessively or withdraw its own fur, called excessive grooming. Or they may attack their own tail or paw at their faces (in the "rolling skin syndrome", or feline hyperesthesia). Some compulsive behaviors seem to be passed from parent to kittens. Other behaviors that may develop due to a cat was weaned too early, or because you are feeling anxiety, frustration, separation anxiety, or cognitive conflict.

This is especially true if such conflicts or frustrations recur frequently or persist over an extended period of time, such as when a cat who has separation anxiety is left alone every day with nothing to occupy or entertain him and no companionship, human, feline, or otherwise.

What do I mean by “cognitive conflict”? Your cat is conflicted when she feels the urge to perform two opposing behaviors, such as an urge to greet you and an urge to avoid you for fear of punishment. Or when she wants to run away from another cat and she wants to confront him. Similarly, if you call a dog and he wants to come but can’t tell if you’re angry, his brain may short-circuit and his response may be to start spinning around.

A cat gets frustrated for the same reasons you do. He wants to do or have something and he can’t. Maybe he’s indoors, looking out a window, and he wants to attack the cat walking across his territory. Maybe he wants to play, hunt, stalk, kill, eat, but he has nothing to play with or no food. All animals have their characteristic ways of responding to boredom, frustration, and stress. In zoo environments, wolves, foxes, and polar bears may repetitively pace, crib, and self-mutilate, while giraffes sway and big cats pace. Gus, the famously neurotic polar bear at the Central Park Zoo, compulsively swims back and forth. Horses may chew repeatedly or weave as they walk, and pigs will bite their bars. Cats with separation anxiety may grow upset when their owners leave home, and if left alone for too long may overgroom themselves.

Cat Compulsive Disorders, as overgrooming and wool sucking, which is based on behavior, that are already part of the natural repertoire of the cat, but that has become abnormal because they occur repeatedly, the context in which there is no clear objective, and sometimes in ways that are destructive, not only the environment in which they live (yours!), but the cats themselves. If you enter the stressor continues, the behavior can be initiated only small amounts of stress, the original, but totally unrelated to the stress factors and, ultimately, the stress factor does not need to do a cat to perform the compulsive behavior .

In short, a cat may develop compulsive behaviors because it was weaned too early, because one is anxious, and the second due to a genetic predisposition, for example, do not chew food.

Some compulsive behaviors may be harmful to a cat, and others can damage property. Viewing or listening to another - lick, lick, pause. lick, lick, break - may just feel like Chinese torture. Most cat owners and even the majority of veterinarians are at a loss how to intervene effectively to deal with compulsive behaviors. The most common compulsive behaviors overgrooming and wool-sucking. These are some behaviors more difficult to diagnose and treat things as may be, or act as physical health problems (such as food allergies, for example).

Cat Compulsive Disorders