Male Devon Rex with skin/allergy problem

I have two, 2 yr old chocolate and white Devon Rex's. The girl has a lovely rippled, glossy coat, but her brother has a drier, thinner coat. His skin on his hocks and in his armpits breaks down about every six weeks necessitating a trip to the vet, antibiotics and steroids. He loves the antibiotic paste so much he opens his mouth when he sees the syringe! The next step is a Cat Dermatologist. I have him on twice daily antihistamines when he is not on the steroids. I feel he is too old to introduce bathing now. I have both cats on Omega 3,6,9 oil which has helped the feel and shine of their coats but Mort continues to have skin breakdowns. Does anyone have any suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Peachey on January 6, 2012 at 20:26

Sadly I have no ideas but I do hope he gets better soon......

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Permalink Reply by Nathalie on January 7, 2012 at 8:12

What do you feed them? Skin allergies are regularly caused by a food allergy. Then it is wise to eliminate types of food. The best result you get on a complete raw diet. A lot ot cats I know of do so much better on a raw diet and don't have these kind of problems anymore.
A grain free diet could help also...some brands do better then others.

I do would try to bath him with a hypo allergenic shampoo...i don't think he's too old to get used to it and most devons are easy to bath.

It's sad he needs this much medication at his young age, hope you find something that helps him to do well on
Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Jo-Ann Sim on January 7, 2012 at 9:32

Thank Nathalie, I have them on a hypo allergenic high quality cat biscuit and a very small (they share an 85g can) feed of mostly fish nightly. They will eat anything so I will try the raw diet. As we are out all day I like to leave them the biscuits to graze on. Mort has just tapped my leg to remind me he hasn't had his medicine, which is pretty sad in a way. My husband said " put him down" after the second trip to the vet but hasn't said it again,but it would be like murdering your own child. We all (including my husband)love them very much.

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Permalink Reply by Marjan Boonen on January 8, 2012 at 4:28

Hi Amanda,

sorry to hear about your troubles.

please check out this link with info on food, allergies and fish!

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/01/03...

Good luck and please keep us posted.

Best wishes,

Marjan Boonen

www.boonland.nl

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Permalink Reply by Jo-Ann Sim on January 8, 2012 at 14:18

Thank you Marjan. I ready the article and am now even more determined to change them to a raw diet. They probably won't mind as they love anything we will eat. A vet told me that Devon's are the Labrador of the cat world- they don't know when to stop eating!

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Permalink Reply by Leia on January 8, 2012 at 17:03

My older boy Boots has a severe grain allergy that caused him to scratch/gnaw on himself until his hair would fall out, I now have him eating grain/milk product(another allergy)/by-product free dry food & wet food (when Krit gets wet food boots gets the other half of the can - about once a week) that have either no fish or fish as a third lesser type of protein which I've gotten all 3 of mine on now (except mishie REFUSES to eat any wet/moistened-in-any-way food so she's on just dry)(it's also 100% Canadian with all the ingredients grown/raised here and from a small company that is willing to disclose anything you want to know about the food). I've heard of tuna being contaminated so we avoid tuna-based foods and go for other types if I can't find the fish-free that is also grain/by-product free (I don't always buy my wet food from the same company as the dry because I also refuse to feed them beef and the other 3 flavours of wet food contain either tuna or beef liver). Have you tried other protein based foods? It could even be a fish allergy. You could try lamb - my kitties love lamb and so do my roommates cats.

I pay more for my cat food by A LOT since it's considered holistic (and often the stuff without by-products is significantly more expensive) but I feel my babies are worth every extra penny (and I did struggle at first with the jump in cat food cost - went from $20 a month (bought from my vet - turns out it contained grain AND by-products) to $40-$45 (holistic and half the size of the vet bag + wet food) and then after I got the kitten up to $70-$75('breeder bag' - about 3 times the size of the former bag of holistic but same food & wet food)).

Where do you get your cat food?

Not all cats do well on a completely raw diet (my boy didn't and my girl wouldn't touch it no matter what I did) but I wish you luck with your boy :)

I should also mention that my cat food is made with human grade ingredients (thus costing me a small fortune every month)

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Permalink Reply by Jo-Ann Sim on January 8, 2012 at 20:34

Thank you, Leia, tonight I offered tinned chicken with their usual omega 3,6,9 oil, which they ate half of. Then I finely sliced raw pork schnitzel which they finished quickly and then looked at me for more. I live in Australia and feed them RoyaL Canin Hypo-Allergenic biscuits ad lib. I am going to see if it was the fish I was feeding them.when you think about it cats did not evolve catching deep sea, high up the food chain, fish. So it would make sense to feed them a diet based on land animals.i would be interested in feeding them a diet of small crunchy mammals but the RSPCA might have something to say! Thank you for your advice.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara on January 10, 2012 at 19:07

Hi Jo-Ann, I see you've tried raw pork. I have no idea wether that's a risk in Australia, but it might be a good idea to look into that.

Over here in Europe there is a pig's disease called Auzjesky's, which isn't a danger to anyone (including the pigs themselves I thought), except cats. Thankfully it's neutralised with cooking. Even though over here in The Netherlands the disease is practically never found in pork anymore, it can still occur. Therefore catowners over here are strongly advised never to give pork raw to cats, prepared meat is fine. (never on the bone though, heated bone can give nasty splinters, as opposed to raw bone)

I'm not aware of any precautions for other species of animal in feeding the meat raw to cats.

As for "small crunchy mammals", my Pixie is the only one of my cats actually eating whole prey animals (dead, frozen, shop bought), and he absolutely adores it. So far he's munched on chicks, mice, hamsters, rats and quails. All of my cats are on a raw meat diet, but the others just like their dinner a bit less recognisable ;-).

@Leia: Yes, tuna being the top predator, and a fatty fish, means they accumulate toxins, metals etc from every other animal down the food chain in their body. Feeding tuna is fine, should one want to, but not too often.