My Cat Does Weird Things. Why?

arnicae — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:31:34 -0800

Cat-filter: Can cats go in reverse? Why does our cat compulsively sit on my laptop? How does the groomer trim his butt fur and nails without getting scalped? Is there a way to treat his dry skin? After some advice from the ask.me community we adopted a feral FIV+ cat last year. He is the greatest of cats, and we love him dearly, but he puzzles us occasionally and hoped the great hivemind could help elucidate some of his more odd mannerisms.

For example, we've never seen him walk backwards. If he wants to back up, he often just falls over and rolls onto his feet in the opposite direction. Do cats walk backwards?

Also, he sits on our laptops all the time. My partner just set his laptop down to come and check out my ask.me question, and the cat is already lounging on the keyboard. He also does this with a little less alacrity with books that are open and being read. Why does he do this? He also sits on laptops when they're not on or being used.

Next, he is a bit of a ferocious wild thing when we try to clip his nails. First time with a cat that it has been a problem. We gently but very firmly hold him down (it is a 2-3 person job) and cut his nails but he hisses, growls and tries to bite the whole time. We definitely aren't hurting him. We took him to a groomer the first time and the groomer told us that he was "a peach!" and "the easiest cat to groom, EVER!"

How is the groomer pacifying our savage beast? Ditto for butt fur- we try to trim it because our cat doesn't groom "down there" and he goes nuts when we try to do it, but the groomer had zero issues with it. How do you give your cat the lion cut on the butt he so desperately needs?

Finally, he's got dandruff, mostly on his back, and pretty thin fur up there. We got him a humidifier, and the vet says that he isn't allergic to anything (common causes of cat dandruff are fleas and parasites), we don't have new carpeting and he isn't sunburned. Should we moisturize him? Use olive oil (which I use for *my* dandruff) on him occasionally? Any ideas?

Thanks for any thoughts about any of the above!

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My Cat Does Weird Things. Why?