Lousy Grooming Habits

Hi all. My wife and I are new here. We have three cats here at home, all of which are really good pets. One of them however seems a little less interested in grooming herself than the others and her coat is quite a mess. Not to mention, she smells BAD! Her coat is full of tangled hair balls and we are wondering what to do about it. We have even thought of shaving her completely but I wonder if we should even attempt this. Also if we were to do such a thing would it do anything to solve her bad grooming habits. Once the hair grows back would the bad habits continue. The cat (Kissa by name) is quite young, being only 3 years old at this time and is quite a loner too, not spending much time with her two companions. She can usually be found somewhere where the other two are'nt. She is a little more skittish than the other two but all three are house cats and although they have all been fixed they have not been de-clawed (a cruelty). Does anyone have any clues or anwers for us? We'd love to know.

First of all, welcome to the site! This place is really awesome...we've got some very knowledgable people on here and always give great advice.

As of Kissa (what a cute name by the way!), is she overweight? Sometimes cats who are overweight aren't able to groom themselves very good. It's probably best that you take her in for a vet check in case if something physically is wrong and thats why she isn't grooming herself.

As for shaving her, I have done that in the past with my now deceased Mimi. She was constantly getting really bad knots and they'd get really close to the skin. So, I took her to a groomer and they shaved her down. It was a lot cooler for her in the summer time and absolutely no hassle with fur knots. I know that some people shave their cats, but honestly I think it would be easier on the kitty to take her to a Professional. It can be pretty stressful on the kitty and you might accidently cut her if you do it yourself. As for the problem returning after you shave the kitty, I didn't have any worse problems that before. She was getting older and couldn't quite clean as good as she should. It's hard to tell if Kissa will groom better after the shave.

Well, I hope that this may help you some. Welcome to the boards and hope to see you around here!

first I would like to welcome you both on this site . It is a plesure to have you here . Then I like to say something about your cat . Sometimes cats don't groom any more when they are sick , but then on the other hand some cats just don't groom well . I do have one female and she don't groom a lot she smells like a normal cat . But you also said something about a smell . So that made me wonder . When was she the last time by the Vet ? Cats normaly don't smell bad . So I think you may need to let the Vet ck her out just to make sure you cat is ok . I had to shave a cat before to , well my groomer did it for me , with one of my long hair cats . I got him from the shelter that way . After that I just comb him all the time and there was no more bad hair days .