What on earth is this on my cat???

[Bobdude]

What on earth is this on my cat - and more to the point should I be worried about it?

Last night I was cuddling my cat on my knee and noticed something white at the top of his back leg. To my absolute horror when I looked more closely it was wriggling! It was about a centimetre long, all white, and not unlike a maggot. But when we came to take it off it was anchored at the mouth and we had a struggle to remove it with tweezers. He has regular Frontline treatment - so what could this be? 

 

[Maddie]

Sounds like some sort of tick.  My Airedale had one like that once.  The Frontline will not stop them attaching but should kill them between 24-48 hours.  I'm sure you were careful removing it and did not leave the mouthparts behind as they can cause infections.  You can get really excellent tick removal devices.  Small green plastic hooks that hook under the mouth of the tick then you slowly rotate it and the tick lets go, mouth and all.  The secret is the rotating and holding it as close to the mouth as possible WITHOUT squeezing the body.  Easier said than done.  If you've any doubts I'd take your cat to the vets. 

 

[Chrissie]

Hev you wormed him recently?......

Chrissie

(81)

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Absolutely, sounds like tenia, a sort of worm, to me... although they don't usually attach themselves after exiting... if he were mine I'd take him to the vet's today and expect to have worming jabs, one today and one in three weeks time... and if it was something else my vet would surely know!

[Bobdude]

Yuck! We rescued him from the SPA and they said he had been wormed - but I will certainly pop him in to the Vet's for another treatment. I don't think it was a tick of some sort as it didn't have any legs - but then, what do I know?

Would this be something that could pass on to my dog then? Or to Us???

Linda

[Bobdude]

Yuck! We rescued him from the SPA and they said he had been wormed - but I will certainly pop him in to the Vet's for another treatment. I don't think it was a tick of some sort as it didn't have any legs - but then, what do I know?

Would this be something that could pass on to my dog then? Or to Us???

Linda

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

If it is tenia (or indeed any worm) then it has a complicated life cycle involving more than one animal and wouldn't be passed on directly from cats to dogs.

Tenia are usually picked up by cats by eating rodents, in London as well as my part of rural France. Cows get infested by them too but pick them up from a different host.

If a cat is infested then worming will appear to clear the problem but unless it is repeated three weeks later the next generation will "hatch" and the visible signs of the problem will recur within a few months.

I've never heard of a human catching them, don't know if it's possible but imagine you'd have to eat something infested... or the worms... yuk yuk yuk... perhaps someone knows more... perhaps we'd rather stay ignorant?!

[Bobdude]

Yes we are very rural. There are cattle and horses too in the neighbouring fields. And we certainly have plenty of rodents about. He keeps leaving us partly digested rodents on the outside window sill - from which end of the cat they come we can't quite work out! YUCK! At least we don't have to chuck the poor old dog outside in the cold. Thanks for the info - I feel better knowing they can't be passed to us.