Please help me with a mystery: Here's Toffee, a sweet stray kitten we adopted from a rescue in late November, when he was about 4 months old and just neutered. He WAS quite longhaired for a kitten, with a ruff and a fat tail, ear fluff, toe fluff, you name it. Classic Maine Coon looks, and he looked more like a tiny adult cat than a kitten. Check out the two sets of "before" and "after" photos below. He was healthy except for worms; we had to give him 56 doses of a worming antibiotic, over six weeks, per our vet, along with the usual worming meds.
Toffee makes life "exciting." When he was five months old, he jumped on the stove and burned his front paws. We took him to the ER (it was New Year's Eve; luckily we live near a big 24/7 hospital). They gave him pain meds and antibiotics. A few days later, he swallowed some string with a small fabric toy (my fault). Back to the ER; they induced vomiting with xylazine (horse tranquilizer) and he threw up the string and toy. Then they gave him the antidote to xylazine, and it didn't work. It's supposed to wake cats really fast but he stayed heavily sedated for 12 hours (back to the ER....). We think the pain medication for his paws interacted with the antidote. I'm proud to say he hasn't been to the ER since: Constant vigilance!
In mid-January, within days of his troubles, he went from being longhaired to very shorthaired in the space of about a week. He lost his ruff and fluffy fur from his head to his rump. He still does have his fat, bushy tail and his fluffy belly and "knickers." But his fur is very short and he looks like a different cat!
He was at least 5 months old when this happened, so his first kitten coat was long gone. He has no issues with his health or skin, no allergies we know of. He eats a high-protein, grain-free, canned diet only (Nature's Logic and Nature's Variety Instinct). I also give our cats Omega 3 oil. My vet is stumped and she works in an all-cat practice.
Someone told me he looks like he got a mullet since he's shorthaired but with a tail almost as wide as he is. I love him madly, but have to admit he looks weird... Have you ever seen this happen to an older kitten? Do you have any ideas about what caused it? Will he be a longhair again someday? Is it normal for some kittens to change so much, or is it the result of trauma/stress, or just dramatic shedding? Thank you for reading and looking!
Toffee at Christmas
Toffee recently
Toffee at Christmas
Toffee last week.
Toffee makes life "exciting." When he was five months old, he jumped on the stove and burned his front paws. We took him to the ER (it was New Year's Eve; luckily we live near a big 24/7 hospital). They gave him pain meds and antibiotics. A few days later, he swallowed some string with a small fabric toy (my fault). Back to the ER; they induced vomiting with xylazine (horse tranquilizer) and he threw up the string and toy. Then they gave him the antidote to xylazine, and it didn't work. It's supposed to wake cats really fast but he stayed heavily sedated for 12 hours (back to the ER....). We think the pain medication for his paws interacted with the antidote. I'm proud to say he hasn't been to the ER since: Constant vigilance!
In mid-January, within days of his troubles, he went from being longhaired to very shorthaired in the space of about a week. He lost his ruff and fluffy fur from his head to his rump. He still does have his fat, bushy tail and his fluffy belly and "knickers." But his fur is very short and he looks like a different cat!
He was at least 5 months old when this happened, so his first kitten coat was long gone. He has no issues with his health or skin, no allergies we know of. He eats a high-protein, grain-free, canned diet only (Nature's Logic and Nature's Variety Instinct). I also give our cats Omega 3 oil. My vet is stumped and she works in an all-cat practice.
Someone told me he looks like he got a mullet since he's shorthaired but with a tail almost as wide as he is. I love him madly, but have to admit he looks weird... Have you ever seen this happen to an older kitten? Do you have any ideas about what caused it? Will he be a longhair again someday? Is it normal for some kittens to change so much, or is it the result of trauma/stress, or just dramatic shedding? Thank you for reading and looking!
Toffee at Christmas
Toffee recently
Toffee at Christmas
Toffee last week.
Last edited: