There is actually a greater challenge to cat owners than shoving a pill down pussy’s throat.
That would be removing knots from kitty’s coat.
You are fortunate if your feline is short-haired, though even they can get knots.
Most of ours guys are knot-free or tolerate a bit of grooming.
Some cats love to be combed.
Lily, for one can’t get enough.
Then there’s….
Mme La Fluff. Lucy.
Oh dearie me.
Lucy really does not like to be handled. Not at all.
Petting with fingertips is appreciated, but do not think to take it further.
Her previous home was a little haphazard and she was probably tormented by small children.
So we understand.
Never-the-less, knots are not a good thing for a cat.
Georgy’s owner neglected him, allowing his coat to become so knotted he could barely move. A friend rescued him and he lived his final year with me.
Shaving him was the only solution.
(Yes, he also had only one eye.)
This is why Lucy’s knots need dealing with.
It can be achieved with no discomfort. Just a little bit of finger work releases the mat and then it can be eased out. No problem.
Ha!
You never heard such foul language out of a cat’s mouth.
Really. It’s quite shocking what she calls me.
But I do not take offense. She huffs off, then I wait for another opportunity.
Like when she’s snoozing….
Most days, she sits in a chair beside me so I can easily lean over with my handy little instrument. It’s a razor blade safely enclosed in flat plastic, with a little prong.
Hook it into the right place, it slices through, done.
What are the chances you’ll succeed?
Right. Zero.
Lucy levitates, screams bloody murder and tries to flee.
Usually I don’t attempt to restrain her because I am afraid she will hurt herself.
And me.
But those knots are bad and I don’t want them getting worse because getting her shaved would mean anesthesia…
So, returning from “out” this morning, I found Lucy on my bed so I could pin her down, me being considerably larger than she.
It’s just as well I purchased band-aids recently.
Cats have a lot of sharp bits.
Lucy sank two of them into my pinkie, at the same time uttering a blood-curdling howl.
My fingers aren’t that sensitive and I can tolerate a bite or two. God knows I’ve had a few.
If she hadn’t been screaming and struggling, perhaps I would have persisted…
…but when your pet is screaming in terror, how can you continue to restrain it?
Lucy made me her special person. How could I betray her trust?
Now she is hiding in the “time-share” condo and I feel like some kind of a shit-heel.
All for nothing. The knot/s are still there and now I’ve got a pissed-off pussycat as well as a sore finger.
Another Himalayan came to me along with Lucy. Possibly Lucy’s mother. It was all a bit vague.
Tikka was very pretty. In an ideal world, I would have kept her, but pretty cats are much easier to home and before long she was adopted.
Not before she bit the knuckle of my right index finger.
(My fault)
That tiny wound put me in hospital for 5 days.
Do you know how embarrassing it is to be in hospital for a finger?
It was an unforgettable experience.
The doctor, dissatisfied with my finger’s progress proposed to amputate it. By then I was so fed up I would have allowed him to, but Grant stopped in to see me and when I told him the plan, he said: “NO!”
So instead we spent the next 6 weeks visiting an infectious diseases clinic in Tacoma.
The moral of this story:
Don’t allow a cat to bite you. If it does, monitor the wound closely and if it begins to throb, get anti-biotics immediately.
Cat bite can make you seriously unwell.
Thank you for the horror story.
Joanna
Oh dear, poor Lucy! You see how I completely ignored your injuries there?
Only a minor matter!
Oh, dear! Stay well, Carolyn! Yikes!
Oh my, I didn’t know it can be such a story to groom a cat (or that a cat’s bite can turn out to be that serious)! Foul language out of Lucy’s mouth – never!
When I had a cat many years ago it hated being brushed, so got matted. Eventually, we had to pin it down and use hair-clippers to remove most of its fur. I wore thick oven-gloves as I held her, and no bites got through those. After that, she hid under a bed for two days, and wouldn’t come to me even when I tried to feed her.
Dogs are just so much easier, which is why I have never had another cat.
Best wishes, Pete.
Your ordeal with Lucy really hits home with me. At the end of Furby’s life when he suffered with chronic kidney failure, he completely stopped grooming. He was a Maine Coon and had a LOT of long hair. He has been gone for 5 years now, but I still have the scars on my hands to remind me of those trying times. I never minded the bites and scratches, but only that I was hurting him and I never blamed him.
If only we could explain to them. I have scars that date back to 1957 but I treasure them as souvenirs of animals I loved.