Grooming Your Cat

Your cat will spend 5 hours a day grooming itself (some cats will even spend longer). Most cats will not need any help with their grooming as their tongues are equipped to deal with the fur. However you will need to help a long haired cat, by giving it a thorough grooming everyday. This should be something you should be aware of before the cat moves into your home, because if long haired cats are left un-groomed their fur can become knotted and matted, which can cause many problems for your cat.

With long haired cats you will be able to purchase a suitable comb or brush from your local pet supplier. However if you have a cat that is unwilling to be groomed you should start it as play. Cats love attention, and in this case you should focus on stroking your cat, your cat will normally settle and let you do this quite happily. You should then consider using a glove brush to brush your cat while it is being stroked, this way it will associate being groomed with something good. Once your cat is happy with being groomed with a glove brush you can move on to normal brushes designed for the particular hair type. However if you think your cat might have fleas, having a fine tooth comb will help no matter what their hair length, as by running the comb through the cats hair you will either be able to see any fleas or you will see the debris they leave behind.

Other cats will not normally need help with their grooming as their hair tends not to get matted. However, keeping an eye on the state of your cats fur is a good idea. Cats hate to be dirty, and they will clean themselves profusely to make sure they are clean. If your cat accidentally gets covered in something it will clean itself until it feels clean, this is usually a good thing, however sometimes it can be something in their fur that they cannot clean off, this may result in excessive cleaning on their behalf, which can use skin problems from over cleaning. This is when you have to step in a give your cat a little help.

Blood can also be a problem with fur, especially if your cat has cut its mouth (e.g. bit something a little too hard, which cut its gum). You cat will try to clean itself, but with the blood in its mouth this is a thankless task, the more it grooms itself the more blood ends up on its fur. If this happens then you will need to help your cat, wash its fur with a damp cloth and try to stop if from cleaning itself until the bleeding has stopped.

For serious grooming problems, such as serious fur matting or if you cat has and unknown substances (perhaps chemicals from the garage etc), stuck on its fur, then you should seek help from your vet.

Written by Laura Marsh.
For more useful information on cat grooming visit http://www.caringforyourcat.info