Alex: Diagnosis Please (Where Is Dr. House When I need Him?)

Alex and I have been spending a lot of time recently outside on the deck. Alex claims the big chair and I get the little one.

Heart of Darkness asked me a rhetorical question: “Nick, why do dogs and cats lick themselves? Because they can!”

That’s not only a cute joke but it also is quite relevant to the cat with whom I live. I have mentioned before that Alex has been scratching himself and licking himself to the point that his pink skin is showing through his stunning white and back coat. He has also cut into his skin and, when scabs form on his self-inflicted wounds, he licks them off, too.

Therefore, last week I again ticked the elusive feline into his cat carrier and we drove, with Alex whining meows the entire way to see Caryl, his vet. Please understand that when Alex visits Caryl he evinces major changes in his behavior:

• He stops his whining and meowing the moment we walk into the vet’s office.

• As difficult as it is to get Alex into his lovely, simulated leather, soft travel carrier, in the vet’s office Alex refuses to come out of the carrier.

• When he is dragged out of the carrier, he clings to me as if he were surrounded by the element he hates most (water) and if I were to let him go he’d drown.

• Finally, when Caryl or one of her assistants carry him out of the examining room, he becomes completely submissive: they can do (almost) anything they want with him and he doesn’t complain or try to escape.

During his visit with the veterinarian, she ran (are you ready for this?) $206.00 in various tests. Alex and I remained at the vet’s until the results of all of the tests except one culture were available. The results? Nothing can be found wrong with him! Alex is as healthy as any four-and-half-year-old feline can be. There is no explanation for why he is self-mutilating! It is sort of Alex’s version of dear Susie’s (note her new blog address) WTF disease.

The best Caryl could do for the cat who owns me was to send us home with some liquid antibiotics to prevent these open wounds from becoming infected. Of course, my first attempt at one mil. dropper into his mouth was disaster. He escaped from my arms, landed on my desk, sent everything movable on the desk onto the floor, jumped off the desk, ran like a bat out of hell, and hid from me.

Of course his belly betrayed the cat, and I caught him just a he completed his favorite dinner. This time I held him tighter, like a baby in my left arm, and when Alex had tilted his head back as far a he could, I got the dropper in his mouth and sent the antibiotic to the back of his mouth. Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—the damned cat seems to like the taste of the antibiotic and wants me to give it to him more often than the prescribed twice a day. Could Alex be becoming a cat version of a Vicodin addict, like Dr. Gregory House?

Here is where we stand: (1) Alex is healthy. (2) The vet can find no explanation for his licking and scratching.

Could his self-destructive behavior be the result of some psychological trauma? I worry about my little housemate!