Scruffy Cat !!

skyclad72

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My wife and I are at the end of our tether. We have 2 cats, one of whom is very long haired, but no matter how often we groom her (which is every day) she always seems to get matts of fur either side of her body near the base of her tail.

We have 3 items we use.

1 - A rubber massage brush with big blobby bits on the end. We use this to "space her out". A couple of minutes with this and you can do pretty much anything with her.



2 - A narrow toothed (double sided) comb/brush. (See below). This is great as it gets out lots of hair and goes through her coat quite well. However she'll only tolerate this for a little while before she starts getting fractious.



3 - A comb. This is just to tidy her legs and rear end area.




The other thing we have noticed is that her coat sems to be quite oily at the base of her back near her tail. The fur "feels" different - somewhat coarser and not as soft. Do cats suffer like humans with "greasy hair"?

She is such a pretty thing and quite tolerant when we groom her, but she just seems to get so many matts - almost on a daily basis. We can brush them out but she squeals a little and obviously hates it.

Can someone offer any advice here please?
 

zissou'smom

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Have you thought about getting her trimmed? This would prevent mats, and make her easier to groom in general, so you could keep them from coming back. As for the greasy fur, have you tried using pet wipes? What breed is your cat, and are you supposed to be giving her baths?
 
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skyclad72

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She's of unknown parentage (as she was a rescue from a litter of 4). We have her brother too, who is a short-haired tabby.

This is Freya -
(asleep as usual - and yes the picture IS the right way up !!)



We do use wetwipes sometimes, but that's only when she has a stinky rear or .... *coughs* I'm sure you get the picture. As far as getting her fur clipped - no we wouldn't do that. We love her being being a big fuzzball with legs.
 

zissou'smom

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When you said "very long-haired" I was envisioning a Himalayan or something...

Your cat's adorable, and I wouldn't trim her either! Do you trim the mats out, though? It looks like you do.
They sell wetwipes meant to be something like a "catbath", not necessarily just for rear problems. There also is waterless shampoo.
 

opilot

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Easy and painless solution - shave the butt area. I do it on
my old kitty Shebs. She is double coated and not long
haired, but still gets matts on the butt/tail area sometimes.

The shaving solved the problem completely.
 
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skyclad72

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Originally Posted by Zissou'sMom

When you said "very long-haired" I was envisioning a Himalayan or something...

Your cat's adorable, and I wouldn't trim her either! Do you trim the mats out, though? It looks like you do.
They sell wetwipes meant to be something like a "catbath", not necessarily just for rear problems. There also is waterless shampoo.
That picture is deceptive - she is tiny undeneath all that fur. The patch you see in the picture on her side is from her neutering operation where the fur grew back a different colour, although it's darkening now.

We tend to tease them apart and either trim or tease them out. They seem to occur where her skin is the most oily
 

missymotus

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One of my cats gets matts on the back of her legs/butt area. I use a wide tooth comb and just bought a de-matting tool.
She likes the wide tooth comb much better than the slicker I used to use.
 
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