For Cat Lovers Only XII - Post Pics, Ask Questions, Comments, Etc.

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Question for people who have ever had long haired cats: How do you, um, keep them clean...down there?

This is gross, but I noticed the other day when Jack walked by me that he smelled bad. I took a closer look at him, and saw that he had a fairly large piece of feces stuck in the fur below his behind. I put on rubber gloves and tried to get it out, but it was matted in. So, I put him in the empty bathtub, kept putting treats down, and was able to cut the worst of it out. I was by myself at the time, and even with the treats he was still squirmy and clearly averse to what I was doing, so I wasn't able to do a perfect job, but I got pretty much all of it out. Then I got some damp paper towels, and wiped the area as well as I could (and as much as he would let me). I was thinking of trying to bathe him - him and my other tux boy both seem to not mind water, they love to sit in the sink while the tap is trickling, and don't seem to mind the water getting on them - but all I could think of was his long fur ending up all wet and matted, so I didn't.

Is this common for long haired cats? Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to deal with this if it happens in the future?
 
What you did is what you gotta do. It doesn't happen often with my cat - once or twice a year maybe, now a little more often because he's 18 and has a little more trouble taking care of himself. I trim the fur around his butt occasionally which helps, but when he got older it stopped growing back so now he looks funny. Poor old boy. :(

I would never actually try to bathe my cat all over, though. He would go ballistic and he's generally clean all over except the occasional problem area.
 
VP, so far I've never bathed Marijke but I have had to trim off a few mats from her belly. Luckily, she grooms herself regularly and we haven't had any sanitary problems yet.

Now, I also have a long haired DOG and I keep him groomed the way I like him to look, which includes my version of a sanitary clip. I suppose the same could work for a cat. I roll him over and trim his fur from his penis back. Then standing up, I trim around his bum. He also has a long fluffy tail. I like it fluffy, so instead of shortening the entire tail, I shorten it at the base (by the butt) and trim out away from the butt at an angle until I'm not trimming at all. So really only the bottom side of the first third of his tail is trimmed. If he ever gets a little clump of something, I brush it out with a pin brush rather than have to touch it or get him wet.
 
Thanks for the advice Joyful, Lies. If it keeps happening, I'll do some preemptive trimming when I have a second pair of hands around.

I was wondering if those cat wipes would have done a better job of cleaning him than paper towel did. I've never used those.

I ordered a Furminator off of eBay recently. I got it for half the price I would have paid here in stores. I'm excited to get it, and to start eliminating all that hair floating around here.
 
The Furminator works! I do not use it on dogs (I have double coated dogs and the Furminator actually breaks and rips the outer coat), but I use one on my cats. Holy crap!! the only thing is to do it evenly. I have actually heard of people over-Furminating their cats!

Look, a new cat!
2562819279_35e5ae54e6_m.jpg
 
Tell me more about the furminator ... is it to just remove old dead hair or is it more like a shaver? My daughter decided she was going to give her Maine Coon hair cuts this summer (we're in Florida, poor old big boy!) But, of course, she's using scissors and it's really a bad hairdo. :D

Does it make a lot of noise? That'd be the clincher -- Murphy's a scaredy-cat.
 
swandiver said:
Tell me more about the furminator ... is it to just remove old dead hair or is it more like a shaver? My daughter decided she was going to give her Maine Coon hair cuts this summer (we're in Florida, poor old big boy!) But, of course, she's using scissors and it's really a bad hairdo. :D

Does it make a lot of noise? That'd be the clincher -- Murphy's a scaredy-cat.
Click to expand...

It's a brush so it makes no noise. It works similar to an undercoat rake, but it has a blade-like quality (I know some groomers who just hand strip using dull blades and get the same results). I think it works best on soft coats like cats. For dogs that have double coats and their outer coat is long and thick, I would just use a regular undercoat rake.

I got mine when I fostered two cats and was given all their supplies.
 
VintagePunk said:
I was wondering if those cat wipes would have done a better job of cleaning him than paper towel did. I've never used those.
Click to expand...

I always keep a tub of those unscented baby wipes around because with as many critters as I have you never know when you are going to need them. They are mighty handy for quick clean ups. :)
 
So I would really like to keep the cat and her kitties in our basement until they're 8 weeks old, at which point the local Humane Society can pick them up but the mother's litter is intolerable - the smell and the amount of diarrhea made me gag tonight. I'm assuming it's because she has worms or something and nothing to do with nursing?
Anything anyone can recomment to remedy this? :yuck:

Thanks!
 
ladywithspinninghead said:
So I would really like to keep the cat and her kitties in our basement until they're 8 weeks old, at which point the local Humane Society can pick them up but the mother's litter is intolerable - the smell and the amount of diarrhea made me gag tonight. I'm assuming it's because she has worms or something and nothing to do with nursing?
Anything anyone can recomment to remedy this? :yuck:

Thanks!
Click to expand...

What is momma cat eating? I know my some of my new strays are really smelly and sometimes have the runs when I first take them in until they get adjusted on the cat food I give them. Worms certainly could upset her digestive system, but I'm not sure what you can give a nursing momma cat to fix that. I haven't had kittens in ages so I'm not sure if any of this has to do with having kittens but I don't remember any of our momma cats having this kind of problem. I hope someone with more experience can offer some advice.



And Mad1 your kitties are adorable! :love:


Love that Stealth Cat video too. :lol:
 
indra said:
What is momma cat eating? I know my some of my new strays are really smelly and sometimes have the runs when I first take them in until they get adjusted on the cat food I give them. Worms certainly could upset her digestive system, but I'm not sure what you can give a nursing momma cat to fix that. I haven't had kittens in ages so I'm not sure if any of this has to do with having kittens but I don't remember any of our momma cats having this kind of problem. I hope someone with more experience can offer some advice.
Click to expand...

That might be it actually :hmm:

I was initially giving the stray IAMS, the more costly, better quality stuff I gave my Siamese but since she's eating so much I bought the stray some of the cheaper stuff (Whiskas or something like that). Perhaps I need to revert back to IAMS....

Good point about not giving a nursing cat something for her worms - thanks! :up:
 
I'm not sure if you are feeding the mom cat kitten food, but I would do that until the kittens stop nursing.

Also, I've found that the pure crystals cat litter (I use Tidy Cat) really helps keep the smell down. I have my litterbox under my kitchen table because I have no where else to put it and many people that come into my apartment say they wouldnt even know I had a cat (no smell).
 
It will help the babies :) I think VP was feeding her mom cat kitten food.
 
indra said:
I always keep a tub of those unscented baby wipes around because with as many critters as I have you never know when you are going to need them. They are mighty handy for quick clean ups. :)
Click to expand...

That's a great idea! Much less expensive, and they'd probably do the same thing. Thanks. :)

ladywithspinninghead said:
So I would really like to keep the cat and her kitties in our basement until they're 8 weeks old, at which point the local Humane Society can pick them up but the mother's litter is intolerable - the smell and the amount of diarrhea made me gag tonight. I'm assuming it's because she has worms or something and nothing to do with nursing?
Anything anyone can recomment to remedy this? :yuck:

Thanks!
Click to expand...

When my cat was pregnant, for the last 4 or 6 weeks of her pregnancy, her litter was gag-inducing. Think of the grossest smell ever, and multiply it by 10. :shudder: I can't remember for sure now, but I'm pretty sure it continued for a while into nursing. How old would you say the kittens are? Diarrhea's not typical, though. I'd guess that it has something to do with changes in her diet. If you're not having any success with the Iams, I used Purina One (not the regular Purina line, Purina One is a step up from that). It's typically a bit cheaper than Iams, and my cat and kittens tolerated it really well. Nutritionally, it's very similar. I think I got them one bag of Iams while I was still shopping around, deciding on a food for them, and they weren't too fond of it. I later read online that a lot of people have had digestive upsets when their cats were on Iams.

Sicy said:
It will help the babies :) I think VP was feeding her mom cat kitten food.
Click to expand...

Yes, female cats need the extra calories and nutrition that kitten food provides while they're pregnant and nursing. Because of my situation with having eleventy cats, even when the kittens were weaned, I left Kitty on the kitten food for convenience sake. My vet said this was okay, it wasn't a big deal. She started gaining weight very rapidly after weaning and getting fixed (she's normally quite small-framed). After reading Beth's recommendation that kittens get switched to adult food at 6 months, I switched them all over a month ago. Since then, Kitty has lost a visible amount of weight, and the kittens are still growing like weeds. :cute:

Lady, it's also very normal for pregnant and nursing cats to eat an insane amount. I think mine ate about 4 times as much as she did when we first brought her in the house (when she would have been just days pregnant). That's fine, let her eat all she wants. She needs to make up for what the nursing is depleting, nutritionally.

ladywithspinninghead said:
Do you think it will help with the huge amounts of diarrhea and the unbearable smell?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, probably not with the smell, but with the diarrhea, perhaps, if the cause of it is food changes, or getting accustomed to cat food period, after being on the streets. I know the smell is frustrating, but it will get better in time. About the only thing you can do is try to put the litter box in an out of the way place, maybe sprinkle some baking soda into it daily, and plug your nose when you're cleaning it. :yuck:
 
Thanks a lot VP! :up:

I will def try out your suggestions - you're right, she IS eating an insane amount. She (whom I've dubbed Minou) weighs half the size of my Siamese, Misha, but eats double perhaps triple the amount of food. I'll try Purina One in kitty food and see how Minou tolerates it.

I really want to keep them until the kittens reach their 8 weeks but I'm not sure if my bf will be fond of that idea if it continues to smell this badly. (And I've tasked him with removing her litter since I gag every time)

The kitties are absolutely adorable - they turned 2 weeks today - the last one just opened her eyes yesterday.

I don't like to take too many pics of them for fear I'm hurting their eyes but here's one I took where they're looking away. I love how the mommy has her arm around one of them:

Ignatieff290.jpg


Ignatieff220.jpg



Thanks to everyone for their suggestions - I was getting increasingly frustrated from the conflicting information on the web.
 
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