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October 16th, 2009
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Clipping a long-haired cat in critical spots can reduce the work and misery for both of you. If there are already mats, then you need to have them cut out professionally, either by your vet or by a highly-skilled groomer who specializes in cats (and realizes they are not “little dogs”).
The areas to clip short are in the armpits, inside the back legs and chest area, or anywhere you have noticed matting on your cat in the past. Radio show host and pet expert Tracie Hotchner is the author of The Dog Bible and The Cat Bible. Click here to follow her on Twitter. |
CLIPPING LONG HAIRED CATS FOR MATTS WOULD NOT BE NESSESARY IF THE CATS WERE FED THE RIGHT FOOD. THERE WOULD BE NO MATTS TO CUT. THEREFORE THE CATS WOULD NOT GO THROUGH THE STRESS.
EQUILLS HAPPY CATS!
Apples and oranges! Don’t confuse the two. I have two long-haired cats who have matting on occasion, and to which my other half and I remove with a pair of electric clippers. No, they don’t like it a bit since it tickles, but it beats the alternative – painful tangles that grow worse and truly pinch the skin.
It’s not the diet, as much as a daily brushing that will keep the matting away. It also takes firm but gentle pressure to make sure the cat doesn’t wiggle or they risk getting “cut” by the clippers. NEVER use scissors!
What about a short haired cat, mine is matted all the time and I can try to separate them little by little and then they fall out but at least she is not in pain when it matted. Can I do anything to prevent the matting?
My cat Tizzy have very long fur, about 2 – 4 inches thick. She’s ALWAYS getting knots in her fur. Always in the back and sides though. I don’t see how a diet would affect her fur, please do tell this may help her!!
No one at my house has the time to brush her everyday since everyone works and sleeps at different times and has fully packed schedules.
I never take her to a professional groomer. Mostly because she’s my parents cat and we can not afford to take her. However I usually do cut the knots out, very carefully, and with scissors. However I do not recommend people using scissors to do this. I have been doing this for years for this cat. I know her well and she trusts me since I’ve done it several times. Even if you do have a trusting cat that you know well, if you have not done this before with scissors, DON’T!
It’s kind of funny though, after I’ve gotten all the knots out of her fur she starts staying in my room all the time and loving on me LOL. She’s so sweet!
Believe it or not, some cats will actually tolerate being vacuumed gently, and a few even consider it a treat! Vacuflo makes pet vacuuming attachments for central vacuums. Pets seem to tolerate these because of the low noise level of central vacs and is less alarming to their sensitive ears.
Website address is http://www.cleanhomeideas.com/healthyliving_cat.html
Try a furminator. This is the most amazing shedding brush! I use it only once a week on my sweet kitty girl and it makes a big difference. I thought the ads and videos were exaggerated but they are not
The most important advice about mats is to prevent them happening in the first place. And it is actually just as easily done as said! Brushing with a slicker-type brush that goes (gently) right down to the skin on a long-haired cat is necessary every single day – which Misty points out quite rightly is pretty unrealistic for most of us! So instead, the best management is to clip those areas mentioned above and keep them short. Any place else where your individual cat seems to develop mats should also be kept nice and short. Or you can keep all your cat’s long fur trimmed down in a stylish “summer cut”! Scissors with blunt ends made for grooming animals work fine – if you cat has really fine hair then you could probably use a scissor with blunt ends made for cutting childrens’ hair if you already have a pair. The only cause of mats is hair which is really long, and/or thick and/or fine – it has nothing at all to do with what you feed (but I always welcome a chance to tell you to avoid all dry food at any time for the health and life span of your cat, who is an obligate carnivore). Mats are truly painful for the cat, since as the days go by the mats can get tighter and larger as more hair gets involved. If you leave them there for any amount of time they can wind up breaking the skin beneath the mat and causing infection and even more pain. They develop so close to the skin that three is too much possibility of you cutting the skin and then causing even more problems (including a cat who won’t ever let you try THAT again!!) So at last for the first time a confident professional (whom you should watch so you can learn the technique) is usually essential. Although I love the Furminator tool as a general grooming device, it would be the very worst thing once you have a mat because it would just pull against it and cause misery. Using a Furminator BEFORE and after a mat is a dandy idea. Vacuuming is a curious idea, but would do nothing to relive or fix a mat.For a person with a short-haired cat getting mats. it cannot truly be a short haired cat! There isn’t any fur to mat up on a shorthaired cat, so that must mean he’s a medium-length haired cat and needs the same management as outlined above.