Cats with dandruff

[shmokes]

I have a couple cats and one of them has always had really bad dandruff, especially on her back just in front of her tail.  I've never thought much about it, except that I wish it wasn't there, because it's not like I'm going to give her a bath every day with dandruf shampoo (not to mention that you're not supposed to use human shampoo on animals).  But I read somewhere that a cat that isn't getting enough fat in its diet will often develop dandruff. 

So I got a pottle of fish oil caplets and keep it and a safety pin next to her food.  Now, whenever I feed her I puncture a tablet and squeeze it over her food.  If anything she likes her food more now, but more importantly the dandruff problem disappeared almost instantly.  It's been about 6 weeks now and it's stayed gone. 

What made me think of it is that I went out of town last Thursday and didn't come back until late Monday night.  We had a friend coming and feeding the cats and didn't mention anything about the fishoil and, sure enough, the dandruff is back.

My cats are indoor cats so I feed them a set amount every day to keep them from getting fat, so the fix works great for me.  Not so much for someone who just keeps the dish full all the time.

Anyway...it worked so well and was so easy that I figured it would be useful for anyone who likes cats to know.

[HaRuMaN]

You have weird cats.

[Sephroth57]

one of the cats at work has dandruff like that , ill have to tell my boss

[Bones]

I suppose if you think about it, a similar animal (big cat) in it's natural environment would get a lot of fats and oils from their kills.

Being a domestic animal it is unlikely that it getting a similar range of nutrients from processed pet foods.

I suppose its body is just showing signs of not getting what it would get if it were living the wild life.

[DrewKaree]

Stuff my vet warned me to stay away from with same (similar, at least) symptoms:

Get rid of the wire brush.  The metal on the ends sometimes pokes into 'em and starts the reaction, and if you never change or get rid of the brush, same thing.

Coal tar shampoo.  You don't need to use it daily.  Do it once, wait a week, week and a half, do it again....if needed, a third time about a week, week and a half later.  We never got to the third time before it was flat gone.

Fish oil.  We were told to just get some sardines and chop one up and feed it to the cat with its regular food.  I bet your idea is way cheaper.

The only reason I started with the coal tar shampoo is it was easier, and I hated the idea of having to medicate my cat daily for the rest of its life.  If the coal tar didn't work, I had no problems doing it though.  Seeing the ease of your method, I may do it for a treat for 'em.

My cats brush themselves, they love ANY brush that much, that they'll hold it and brush themselves silly with it.  The wire brush would end up drawing little pinpricks of blood all over, they'd work that thing over so bad!

[RecycledPast]

When my cat gets dandruff I just drizzle a little olive oil on her food, it seems to do the trick.