Sore on cat's tail

Question

My daughter was playing with her cat tonight and noticed some blood-- she was checking the cat for injuries and found this bare patch on her tail that was raw and slightly bleeding. It looked like it was oozing a bit as well.

I've read that the common causes are overgrooming due to stress or allergies to fleas, but I'm not sure if that looks the same as this, or if it gets bad enough that it would bleed?

We'll take her to a vet tomorrow, but I wanted to see if anyone could confirm what this is. I was worried that she had gotten into a fight, but there's no sign of tooth / claw marks and she seems fine except for this.

Answer 1

Your vet will guide you.

Is he an outdoor cat? Maybe he got beat up by a dog or an evil neighbor kid. Or even another cat. Or maybe he got stuck in a fence or something and had to drag himself out.

Keep an eye on kitty to watch for things like chewing on the spot. If cats are stressed they can do anxiety grooming, licking and chewing on one spot to excess. Usually if they do it on one leg they will do the other side to some extent. Have a look at the other legs, the tail, even the ears.

If that's the case, you may need to put him in "the cone of shame" for a week or two in order to get him to not chew on himself long enough for it to heal. Then you need to figure out why he's stressed.

Also, watch out for the usual suspects: Exposure to something like poison ivy or wet paint or road tar or anything he might want to chew off. Infestation by ticks, fleas, etc. Various other possible infections. Your vet will check for these, but kitty may have chewed off the evidence.

Answer 2

My cat recently gotten something like this after wearing a medical vest for the past few days. I didn’t think anything of it as she was licking her arm repeatedly for a while, assuming as it’s her only spot she’s just cleaning that. Now I sit down tonight and she comes to see me her skin is red much like this but a larger patch on her upper left arm on the inside. I am worried it was some sort of burn at first, being the red and colour. She didn’t seem to react when i gently touched however, causing doubt on the theory of a burn. I scout the web to see anything on this stuff and your post appears. Her being in the vest for the past 4 days makes sense to it being a stress lick, but I don’t know if I can put her back in a cone as to stop her licking it further. I’m hoping that she will stop now that the vesting is off- I took it off to get a better look, the scab on the cause she was originally wearing it had fallen off meaning it was time to take it off tonight anyway. I’m really hoping she hasn’t gotten some sort of burn magically on her arm, it’s slightly hairy so my best guess is stress grooming. I have a after operation checkin with my local vets this Wednesday, they can give her a look. Determine what happens now. I feel worried that I’ve let this grow without noticing though I have had work and I haven’t been with her enough to monitor her. Well that’s what the vest was for as the cone proved awkward for her. She wasn’t depressed or anything with the vest on, she quite enjoyed it.. I guess she just kept licking the same spot? Her mood never changed. I don’t know. It’s 1am the time of writing this, I’m pretty anxious about her.