Nini's self-cleaning methods

I have two cats, Nini and Lali, siblings.

Nini was born in early 2021. He’s three. He uses walls to help him stretch his neck toward his back without falling over or losing his balance. This allows him to lick/clean himself more comprehensively. In this video, we can see that without the wall his body might slide on the wooden floor or he might fall onto his back:

We see the same technique again here, using a table leg:

Here we see Nini stabilizing himself in a different manner but for the same purpose:

Here we see Nini licking his crotch. He has eczema there. I believe it’s from dairy. I stopped giving him dairy—ghee, butter, cheese—five weeks ago and his eczema seems to be improving. It’s probably the vitamin A in dairy that is giving him eczema. Garrett Smith calls eczema a “retinaldehyde problem.”

Retinaldehyde is one of the animal forms of vitamin A, along with retinol and retinoic acid. All vitamin A originates in plants in the form of carotenoids, including beta-carotene, the most famous one. In animals, one molecule of beta-carotene is broken down into two molecules of retinaldehyde, also called retinal.