Apparently my cat has anxiety...Symptoms: she pulls her hair out

I said to the vet..."What on earth does a well-pampered cat have to be anxious about?"

The vet said " Its common with the breed - Tonkanese"

Who knew!!

I also came out of the vets with Paw Paw Cream to help with the healing (I'm still laughing about that one!)

That is hilarious - about the Paw Paw cream. Just fyi if you need to replenish the cream Ingrid, I have seen it for sale at P n S. It's a fantastic cream for insect bites, wounds r anything. I even had one friend who used it on her horse's wounds. Great for either 4 or 2 legged creatures

I've got an anxious cat too. We've tried a few months of progesterone, and that helped, but probably not enough. She's licked her tummy, inner back legs, bottom and half her tail almost completely bald. She's 8 and only started doing this in the last 9 months or so, after a boy cat moved into the next property to us and would come over at night harassing our 3 girls. Next step will be xanax!

For cat anxiety I strongly recommend Feliway. It's a plug-in that dispenses a synthesised pheromone that's odourless to humans but to cats it smells very soothing and like everything's OK. You can also get it as a spray, which I use on areas around the house my anxious cats like to urinate on for an extra boost of calmness. It's incredibly effective. The only drawback is that it isn't cheap in NZ - the prices online range from $48 for a diffuser + bottle of Feliway/$40 for a refill bottle up to a terrifying $85 or more for a diffuser + bottle. (A bottle is a month's supply.) It's a lot to spend, but on the other hand it works really, really well.

A relative's cat, who also has an overeating issue I believe is caused by anxiety, was constantly gnawing the fur off his front legs and would start compulsively doing it if you touched him in any way on his back, particularly near his tail. I knew the owner never gave him any flea treatment so one day I said I'd put flea treatment on him to see if that was related in any way to the sensitivity and leg fur gnawing. It fixed it - the cat no longer gnaws and all his fur is grown back. Unfortunately it's meant I've had to continue supplying the flea treatment as the owner isn't interested in doing it.

I mention this in case it could be relevant/helpful to any of the fur pulling other people's cats are doing.

J1 - my vet suggested the same thing, that in our case, the over-grooming could be caused by flea allergy dermatitis, even though the visible skin had no irritation, and I dutifully flea all our cats with Frontline Plus every 5 weeks. We switched to a long acting flea collar, in case the frontline just didn't suit her, gave her a 10 day course of prednisone (talk about an overeating cat during that!), to settle any skin irritation down. She seemed to really perk up after that, the licking slowed and fur started to return, but after a few months she's back at it, even with no evidence of fleas. I comb her a couple of times a week to check... so the vet is back to the anxiety theory.

It is very kind of you to provide the flea treatment for the cat, I'm sure it thanks you even if the owner doesn't appreciate your efforts!