Brushing a Cat

I hadn't gotten into the habit of brushing my cats until a few years ago. It seemed that they spent so much of their time grooming themselves and one another that they had no need of it.

Perhaps they don't, but I've learned that they love it. At first, they were afraid of the brush and so brushing them was pretty difficult. But once they realized that the cat brush wasn't going to kill them, they've come to love it.

Especially Lydia. She's one of the 24 year-olds, and Cutie's twin sister. Lydia's fur is a little longer than her sister's and she has had a problem with dry skin in the past, which is what led us on the route that resulted in feeding them better foods, but that's another story.

Anyhow, Lydia just loves being brushed. If I start brushing her while she is in her bed, she will turn over so that I can get the other side, and then stand up so that I can get the places that I couldn't get while she was lying down.

When I am brushing one of the other cats, Lydia will come over and line up, waiting for her turn, and she does that even if she had just had her turn. Now if I can find a way to get them to enjoy having their nails clipped.

I generally dont brush my short-haired cats except for their own pleasure - one likes his back doing but is not so keen on his underneath and the others consider brushes the devils invention and scarper at the first site of one. However I did once have a kitten that developed into a long hair- a free to good home farm kitten that turned into a long haired silver of the sort people pay huge money for - we were worried she would get stolen but unfortunately something else happened - she disappeared and we searched and found her hidden in a dark shed corner where she had died. Anyway because of her coat she needed daily brushing which she was fine with except for her "armpits" which were ticklish (at least thats what it seemed like). She used to get bad mats under her armpits and in the end the only way I could sort it was to use baby nail scissors to trim the fur back around those areas and keep it short.

My family's cat that we had when I was in HS liked being brushed once she figured out what the brush was for. She had a med-short coat but her fur type was such that she never stopped growing hair in the summer, she just shed like CRAZY instead. She got hair balls pretty bad in the summer because of that, and brushing really helped cut that down. I think she enjoyed not only how the brushing felt, but also the fact that when I was getting 3 hair brush fulls of fur out of her, it really helped her cool down a bit. It was just unreal how much fur that cat could shed over and over and over.

We learned the hard way, just how important it is to brush our long-haired cat! If we do not keep up on this routine, her fur becomes a knotted, matted mess. Being a larger cat, she has a hard time reaching all the areas, as it is, so this means it is essential, we help her out.

In our house, we all take turns. I know it sounds a little bit unusual, but it works for us. She does not actually like to be brushed, but tolerates the routine. Plus, she gets a treat afterwards. We still take her to the groomer, but without her daily brushing, we get the riot act from our vet Besides, we really love out cats and don't want them to be an uncomfortable mess.

Like a war ~ Experience once enough!