Can Cats Get Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? Yes, they can, and often do. To understand why, it helps to take a look at why people get it.
It’s a side effect of stress and results in a variety of strange, but mostly benign behaviors, including things like twirling hair, biting nails, washing hands, etc. In cats, we often see excessive grooming (to the point of balding themselves), sucking on household items such as furry slippers or socks, and eating non-food materials such as paper or plastic.
Since cats are very sensitive animals, they are quite vulnerable to stress in their environment. But since they don’t have human intelligence, it can be much more difficult to interrupt the cycle and make it stop a particular behavior, which may be necessary if they are hurting themselves.
Eating paper or plastic, for example, could lead to a bowel obstruction, and constantly pinching your own fur and skin can lead to sores that turn into infected ulcerations. Once the stressor or causal situation is identified, it’s not like we can sit down with the cat and explain why you’re doing something, and then you can quit. By the time it becomes a real problem, it is already an ingrained behavior or habit. And habits are hard to break, even for humans who figure out why they do it.
To find ways to manage a cat’s obsessive behaviors, the first approach might be to identify the stress that may have caused it and eliminate it. If their reactive behavior is not very ingrained, they may relax and stop doing some things. Still, it could be a challenge to stop the activity.
Some causes of stress-related compulsions include:
- Taking a kitten out of its mother too early, interrupting the time they need to nurse, and learning social skills with their siblings.
- A chaotic home where the cat cannot relax. Sometimes grooming is comforting behavior, so they will groom themselves more often, even constantly.
- Changes in your environment. This is a list that could be quite long, but briefly, the usual ones are moving, rearranging furniture, different food, loss of a human pet or friend, new baby or pet added to the family, staying alone too long or too often . , being ignored … and more.
Remedies may include:
- Spend more time with the cat, either playing or just sitting together.
- Feed a quality diet to ensure optimal health. Feeling good physically promotes feeling good emotionally.
- A veterinary wellness exam to rule out any health problems and to discuss relaxation methods your vet might be familiar with. In extreme cases, a time series of tranquilizing preparations can help during a behavior modification program.
If you can’t solve the problem on your own, this might be the time to ask a feline behaviorist for help.
