Please pay important attention to this!!!This is not cute or aesthetically pleasing!!! If you see you’re animal doing this take them to the vet immediately!!!
This is called “head pressing”, an animals compulsive act of pressing its head to a solid surface for extended amounts of time.
This indicates damage to the nervous system or a neurological condition or illness.
The causes of head pressing behavior can be varied, but may include:
-prosencephalon disease (in which the forebrain and thalamus parts of the brain are damaged)
-tumors (eg brain or skull)
-liver shunt
-toxic poisoning (e.g. lead poisoning)
-metabolic disorder, such as hyper or hyponatremia (too much, or too little sodium in the body’s blood plasma)
-stroke
-encephalitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. Many things can cause encephalitis. Infectious causes include bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi and tick-transmitted disease).
-hepatic encephalopathy (metabolic disorder as result of liver disease)
-an infection of the nervous system (rabies, parasites, bacterial, viral or fungal infection)
-head trauma
Head pressing can be just one symptom among other behaviors and symptoms of neurological or metabolic distress. Other behaviors and symptoms can include:
-constant pacing
-walking in circles
-face rubbing (pushing head into ground)
-damaged reflexes
-visual problems
-seizures
-getting stuck in corners
-staring at walls
By recognizing head pressing and other neurologically-related symptoms in your dog or cat quickly and efficiently, you could potentially save their lives!