Expert: Karen Craft - 12/14/2007

Question
Dear Karen,

Alera is a male cat who was found on the streets by a nice man (Thomas) who lives in Malaysia and helps animals in need and pays for their medical expenses out of his own pocket. Alera was rescued when he was a kitten and he is approximately 8 months old now. He has been biting himself pretty severely. The first time he bite himself, Thomas brought Alera to the vet and the vet had to perform a secondary treatment (bandage the whole leg because too much tissues and muscles were gone and the vet is not able to sew the wound shut) They also had to put a cone on Alera since Alera would not stop biting himself. At night Thomas puts Alera in a cage to sleep so that Alera doesn’t have to wear a diaper and also to prevent other possible injuries as Thomas has other rescued animals in his apartment. Unfortunately, Alera bite himself again recently.

We are very concerned about Alera because we do not understand why he continues to injure himself. Thomas believes that it’s possibly because Alera has psychological issues - due to his disability. Thomas has two other rescued cats (similar in age to Alera), and the cats used to all play together until Thomas had to separate them and keep Alera in the cage more often because Alera had contracted urinary infection (probably from wearing diaper all the time) and needed a lot of rest and was on medication. Thomas thinks that Alera is depressed about his legs and doesn’t understand why he has to spend so much time in the cage, and therefore bit himself. Do you have any idea why Alera continues to injure himself? And if Alera is depressed, how can we help him?

Some other facts:
1) Thomas also has 3 dogs, one is blind, one has arthritis problems, and one young dog who also wears a diaper because of her injury.
2) Alera can move his legs a bit even though he can not walk on them.
3) We think Alera has feelings in his legs.

If you would like to check out Alera’s condition, you can view a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We35Ysib6T4

Sometimes Alera is on a live camera at this location, you can observe him directly if you would like: (and you can also ask Thomas questions regarding Alera if he is not offline)
http://ustream.tv/channel/living-days-livecam

If you have any ideas or suggestions, it would be very helpful. We are very worried about him!

Thank you very much!!!
Yen  

Answer
Hi Yen,

What a sweet cat. She has a lot going on. I can't give you a reason for her biting. but I do think you should consider amputation. This might be the best chance of giving her a normal life again. I've seen lots of animals get around fine with 3 legs. She could be depressed because she can't get around. Doing the amputation will help. Good luck and let me know what happens.

Ciao, Karen