Today’s National Cat Day, and it’s a good opportunity to reflect upon how valued a member of your household your cat is. Especially now, with everyone’s world turned upside down with economic worries, cats are purrfect sources of solace, and can brighten the dreariest of your days.

So here are ten random acts of kindness you can do for your cat(s) today:

1) Heavy Petting
Who doesn’t love a little heavy petting? Most cats love the attention, and it might help decrease your blood pressure if done regularly.

2) Spa Session
Grooming: Groom your cat to remove loose hair. This helps reduce hairballs, and makes your cat feel better. Older cats have extra grooming needs because they can’t groom themselves as thoroughly as youngsters. It also gives you the opportunity to feel for lumps, hot spots, ticks, and tender spots.

Pawdicure: Give your cat a nail trim. Not trimming your cat’s nails can result in damage to you and your cat. If the nails rival Howard Hughes’ in length, they can get stuck in carpeting or other material, and your cat could pull out the nail to extricate herself. If left long for too long, you can run the risk of the nail curling around and growing into the paw pad.

3) Tell Her You Love Her
Cats have a limited ability to understand language, and I have no doubt that they have emotions as well. When my Siamese, Mao, is cuddled next to me and I say, “I love you, Mao”, he begins purring. If I say it again, he’ll rev up the purrer even more. He does not react to random phrases like “broccoli books and funny hats”

But that’s just my unscientific observation. What if, twenty years from now, it is proved that cats understand every single word we say? Wouldn’t you then like to go back and say “I love you” to every cat you ever had? You can start today.

4) Buy a Pet First Aid Book and Kit

You can buy a pre-made kit, or put together your own.

PetFinder recommends that a basic Pet First Aid Kit contain the following:

• Sterile gauze pads (3″ x 3″ and 2″ X 2″) and gauze bandage rolls (1″ and 2″)
  
• First-aid adhesive tape, 1″ roll
  
• Cotton swabs (Q-tips®)
  
• Tweezers
  
• Scissors
  
• Plastic freezer/sandwich bags
  
• Small bottle of 3% hydrogen peroxide
  
• Styptic pencil or cornstarch (stems blood flow from minor cuts)
  
• Antibacterial ointment
  
• Antiseptic cleansing wipes
  
• Kaopectate® or Pepto-Bismol®
  
• A current pet first-aid book
  
• Eyewash
  
• Eyedropper
  
• Mineral oil (a lubricant and laxative when given by mouth)
  
• Digital or rectal thermometer in a plastic case
  
• Leather work gloves (to protect you from being bitten)
  
• Latex gloves
  
• Leash
  
• Thin rope
  
• Splint materials (tongue depressor, 12-inch wooden ruler or thick magazine)

Click here for Pet First Aid books.

5) Tag and Microchip Your Cat
If she’s already microchipped, take a few minutes to ensure that your contact info is accurate.

When buying tags, we recommend a pet recovery service like Together Tag which allows the finder of your pet to go online and find out who your pet’s vet is, any meds your pet takes, and out-of-area contacts (good in the case of emergencies like wildfires, earthquakes and flooding.)

Both tag and microchip work together to ensure that your cat can be returned to you. For more information, check out The Cat’s Meow’s Guide to Pet Recovery.

6) Play with your Cat
Cats rarely get enough playtime, especially if they’re under five years old. Spend some quality time with your cat and play her favorite game. Then resolve to spend 15 minutes (or more) each day in playtime.

7) Volunteer at an Animals-as-Therapy Group
If your cat has a mellow disposition and is a good traveler, consider volunteering for a therapy animal program. It will give you a chance to spend quality time with your cat, and help out your community.

8] Buy your cat a water fountain.
One of the best pet inventions ever. Provides your cat with pure filtered running water 24 hours a day. Most cats LOVE them. Drinkwell has an extensive line, with a model to suit every need.

9) Channel Mr Clean
Wash your cat’s bedding (use fragrance-free laundry soap) and empty and scour her litter box. Both off these tasks should be done weekly, but time often slips away from us and before you know it, neither bedding nor litter box has been cleaned for a month. Do both today, and set a weekly reminder.

10) Adopt a Cat
If you have the time and resources to do so (and not many cats to begin with), adopt one of the 4 million cats in local shelters and save her life. Is there anything better you could do for a cat than that?

About National Cat Day

National Cat Day was founded by Pet Lifestyle Expert & Animal Behaviorist, Colleen Paige to help galvanize the public to recognize the number of cats that need to be rescued each year and also to encourage cat lovers to celebrate the cat(s) in their life for the unconditional love and companionship they bestow upon us.

Estimates reveal that there are approximately 4 million cats entering shelters every year with 1-2 million being euthanized. Often cats are overlooked and under-appreciated because they don’t usually have jobs like dogs. But cats still lower blood pressure, offer unconditional love and companionship and alert their owner of danger.

Cats have so many puuuurrrrsonalities and there is so much to love about them! Even if you can’t adopt a cat, offer to volunteer to clean a cage or sit and play with a cat for a while. Who knows? You may just fall in love!

Click here to follow National Cat Day on Facebook.

See related Cat's Meow entries:

• Lovey-Dovey Kittens Beat the Odds to Find Furever Home
• Bill Banning Gas Passed in New York
• Shelter Myths
• O’Ryan is FIV+ and a PURRfect Pal
• 10 Ways to Support National Shelter Appreciation Week

FURMINATOR GIVEAWAY
FURminator and Catster are giving away one FURminator classic a day to cats who are members of Catster’s FURminator group. Click here to enter — you can enter once each day through the end of the contest.

GOT CAT HAIR?

If you read Skeezix’s review of the FURminator a few months ago, you’d know we swear by the tool as the most effective way of grooming cats to remove loose hair and prevent hairballs. I’ve been a huge FURminator fan since the tool was launched and was recently given the opportunity to test drive a pair a new-and-improved FURminator shedding tools: the FURminator Double Edge deShedding Tool and the fur-ejecting “FURminator FURejector.”

The timing was excellent. We’d just had a couple of back-to-back heat waves that invariably ratchet up the amount of fur that the cats shed. Trying out each of the two tools on three different cats, I removed the hair shown in the pile in the photo above after just one session. Although FURminator classic scarcely needs to be improved upon, these new tools offer some benefits that might fit your grooming needs.

FURminator Double Edge deShedding Tool
<With two blades instead of one, this version of the FURminator removes cat hair twice as fast. This is a boon for two of my cats, Rocky and Trip. Rocky suffers from hyper stimulation on his back, a common affliction that causes discomfort after a only a little bit of petting or grooming. If you have a cat who recoils when pet or brushed on her back, you know what I mean. Rocky enjoys the FURminator — he settles in and purrs like crazy when I FURminate him, but he gets overstimulated quickly along his back which ends the session (I usually groom him everywhere else and leave the back for last). The back is the area that needs the most grooming, however — it’s the point most difficult for cats (especially geezer cats like Rocky) to reach.

The double-blade FURminator proved to be helpful with Rocky because I can capture twice the hair with each stroke.

Trip (shown in the photo above) is a formerly feral cat who still has the soul of a wild child, and he’s not always convinced that my grooming him is a good thing. Sometimes he glares at me with a look that cries, “Why are you stealing my furs?” He starts each session well, cranks up his purr-o-meter, appears to be lovin’ it, but half the time will get bitey a few minutes into the session. He tips the scale at 20 lbs. and sports needle-sharp teeth, so I’m not inclined to argue with him.

Since he’s young, he grooms himself more aggressively than my other cats, thus he tends to ingest a lot more cat hair, which translates into more hair balls. So he needs more FURmination.

As with Rocky, the double-blade FURminator grabs twice the hair with every stroke, so that even though many of his grooming sessions are short, they’re twice as effective. It’s a win.

The FURminator FURejector deShedding Tool
This FURminator has an ejector blade that self-cleans when depressed, making grooming faster and easier. This is handy; I really liked the feature. It’s an excellent solution if you have squirmy cats and need a hand free to hold them in place during a grooming session.

SUMMARY
Both are exceptional grooming tools. The pile of cat hair shown in top photo resulted from just one FURmination session with three of my cats.

The Double Edge FURminator cuts grooming time in half, very helpful if your cats don’t tolerate grooming very well, or if you want to get the most bang out of each minute spent grooming. The FURminator FURejector is especially handy if you can benefit from one-handed grooming, as you might when dealing with energetic, squirming cats. I eagerly await a double edge version of the FURejector.

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH ALL THAT FUR?
Here are some suggestions:

• It’s a great material for birds to use as nesting material. Put the fur in a clean wire mesh suet container or mesh bag and hang it in a tree in the Spring and early summer.
  
• Make your cat a wig.
  
• Make a cat hair handbag.
  
• Make a felted animal figure representing your cat.
  

See related Cat's Meow entries:

• Product Review: The FURminator®
• 10 Ways to Celebrate National Cat Day
• Three Essential Summer Tips for Cats
• Contests and Giveaways!
• Contest: Win a Free FURminator

Hey, evrybody, Skeezix heer! Today I’m gonna review a grate grooming product on the market called The FURminator®.

I don’t have many furs, but the cats I live with do. Rocky the Geezer Cat often wakes up the Food Lady with the sownd that NOBUDDY wants to heer at 6 am: bwah …. bwah …. bwah …. bwaaaaaahhhh! It’s disgusting. We’ve tride other fur-remooval tools, but the FURminator is the only one that has reely done the trik. Rocky loves it, and you wood not believe the amount of furs it remooves! Heer’s whut we got off of Rocky (left) and Mao (rite):

That’s enuf furs for a squillion hareballs! You have to be careful with it cuz it can scrape the skin if you furminate too hard. Rocky, like many cats, is hypersensitive on his back. So tell yer person to take it easy, and stop when yoo’ve had enuf. Both Mao and Rocky purr and purr win they have it done, cuz it’s kinda like going to the spa, and they love all the attenshun. You probly alreddy know that grooming has long been touted as an exsellent way for people to bond with thare cats, providing an oppertoonity to look for lumps and tiks and sensitive spots, so that helth problems can be identified wile they are still easily treatable. And, grooming is the best defense against hareballs. With the FURminator, you’ll say, “Hasta la veesta, hareballs!” Seeriusly, folks, hareballs are no laffing matter. Aside frum making yer lady skreem when she steps on them barefoot on the way to her litter box in the morning, they can cause a total intestinal blockage, wich can be life-threatening. You can find owt more about hareballs from Dr Eric Barchas, on Catster’s Vetblog. Now, you may be wundering what to do with those mountains of fur you end up with after furminating. Glad you asked! I use them for a pet project: I make my own cat-hare wigs! You can fashion many different styles. For exzample, heer’s my Amy Winehouse Bride-of-Frankenstine beehive:

And my personal favorite, the soft serve:

Go ahed, make yer own wig and send me the fotos! I’ll post the best ones heer. You can try a mullet, a pompadoor – the possibilities are endless! So as you can planely see, the Furminator is not only an important tool in maintaining yer health and wellness, but it can also supply you with the raw materials for a vary fun craft project! It comes in many kyoot colors as well as different widths (to accomodate widebody cats), and has a rubber handle that is easy to grip (for those with opposable thums). My only consern (and I coodn’t test this cuz nobuddy at owr howse has long furs) is that it may not be good for long-hared cats (at least, not if the fur is matted or tangled), becuz the teeth are vary close together. I give the FURminator 4-1/2 stars. Check out FURminator.com

See related Cat's Meow entries:

• FURminator® Launches Two New-and-Improved deShedding Tools
• 10 Ways to Celebrate National Cat Day
• Three Essential Summer Tips for Cats
• It Sucks! Check out the Dyson DC28 Airmuscle™ Animal Vacuum
• Contests and Giveaways!