Sunday is Grooming Day

On Sunday, I groom Colby and Thimble. They are the ones who need it the most--well, Colby is the primary one. But I discovered even Thimble shouldn't be let go two weeks without grooming. Apricot, on the other hand, has much shorter hair than they do, albeit still longer than a short-hair cat, and since he was feral, grooming him has been a work in progress.

Colby after brushing

Colby is the most difficult to get groomed so I normally start with him. First, I wait until they are sleepy. This usually happens around 11 am, and then again in the early afternoon. Then I get out my grooming tools: a metal comb, a ShedMonster, a comb with wide-spaced razor blades that the part that touches skin is not sharp, a seam puller (the sort used for sewing, yup), and a small wand toy with the toy attached directly to the wand. I stuff the wand part down the edge of the settee seat, between it and the arm of the settee, kneel on the floor, and put the cat-to-be-groomed on the settee. This puts them at the perfect height for me to be able to groom them.

The way Colby's tummy usually looks.

The ShedMonster I use first, as a way to thin out the fur. You aren't supposed to use it on tails, tummies, or necks, but I make an exception for the Coons since their hair is so thick on the tails and around the ruff. It's kind of hard to use properly. It's made of closely spaced curved razor blades, where again, the part that touches skin is blunt. You can still give them a skin rash if you use it too much, or so I have heard. Every stroke through the fur gets fur on the comb part, and unless you want to have fur flying everywhere, it behooves you to empty it at each stroke.

I am very lucky to have such well-trained cats, because I have no way to keep them there waiting for the next comb-through while I extract the hair from the last one. However, most of the time they stay waiting quite patiently.

Then I proceed to the metal comb. Thimble is fairly easy to comb. He does such a good job grooming himself that I hardly ever find mats, and the ones I have found were teeny tiny. He probably would have extracted them himself before the day was out. Waiting two weeks to comb him was only a bad idea because his hair got so thick.

As you can see, Thimble's tummy always looks
well-groomed. This is a random middle of the week
upside down picture. (He wanted to know
if I was done with Apricot Cuddles and
could continue to him.)

And it's not just about making grooming easier that leads me to thin out their hair; it's also the fact that I am extremely cold all the time (working on finding out why) so I keep the house at a balmy 76 degrees. Poor long-haired northern forest cats are a bit toasty at that temperature. They've started hanging out near me when I sit on the settee and play with my phone (or laptop) by being underneath where the air conditioning vent blows! I have to be careful when I get up because they don't always tuck all paws and tails completely under the settee, either.

Colby and the comb, however, is much more difficult and takes a lot longer. I nearly always find tiny mats in his fur, especially under his arms and at the front of his back legs where they bend up against his body. I am so grateful to the breeder for conditioning them to enjoy having their tummies petted, because it means that they will lie on their backs and let me groom their tummies extensively.

The seam ripper is for bigger mats. I run it through the mat from skin to end of mat, and do that several times until the mat is in shreds. Then I can comb it out without yanking on their fur. (Those of us who had long hair as children may remember how painful and frustrating it is for someone to try to yank the tangles out of our hair.)

The toy is for when they get bored. As kittens, they do that regularly, even if I get them while they're sleepy. So Colby lies on his back and plays with the toy suspended above his head on the end of the wand, and this gives me the ability to groom everything from the arms down to his tail. I only have to interrupt his playtime to groom his neck ruff, and he usually gets occupied trying to help groom (I've accidentally combed his tongue before ...) or washing my other hand that's holding a paw out of the way.

I've done this every week since they arrived. It took less time when they were physically smaller!

Apricot has been watching every week. About six weeks ago, when I noticed that even with his grooming habits (which are excellent), he was shedding lots from the warmth, I started introducing him to being groomed with a comb. Unlike the other two, I didn't take him over to the settee. I just took the comb to where he was lying watching the outdoors, and combed whatever was available. I didn't worry about getting both sides or his tummy or tail or head. Just combed what was easily accessible.

At first this was very strange for him. He would give me wary looks, and I'd back off after only a few strokes with the metal comb. But he started to realize that the hair I took away he didn't have to groom off of himself, and that made his life easier. So then he just let me comb him without the glares, paying attention to his kitty tv (the window) rather than what I was doing.

Last week I managed to get him when he wasn't curled up in a cat tree bed, but lying on the floor instead. He'll let me pet his tummy once or twice before it becomes too stressful to him, so after I ran the comb through his side and back fur a few times, I leaned over him and put my hand on his chest (he loves to have his chest scratched) and lifted him up just barely enough to run the comb down his tummy. That kept his tummy mostly against the ground and protected, even with my hand preventing any defense should he be attacked.

Would he be? Of course not. But he has those instincts and things go much better if I respect those instincts. I also was crouching over him, like a mama cat on top of her baby, to show I was willing to defend him should we be attacked. And it's not Colby or Thimble that he would be worried about--his instincts know they're okay. It's that random attack from seemingly nowhere that could put an outdoor cat in danger of his life. He's not outdoors. He knows that. But his instincts still scream danger when his tummy is exposed.

I expected to do that sort of thing for a few weeks more, as I slowly got him accustomed to grooming. But this week, while I was grooming Thimble and then again with Colby, Apricot came up and rubbed against me while I knelt there. Since he's started to want to be picked up and cuddled more, although I rarely walk with him in my arms, I thought just maybe he wanted to be groomed on the settee just like Colby and Thimble.

After all, if they can do it, and he's older, he should be able to. (I love it when peer pressure works in my favor with the three of them!)

I asked him if he wanted to be groomed on the settee, and he walked over toward it. A short distance away I scooped him up and carried him the rest of the way, always alert for tension or other indication that he wasn't comfortable with the idea.

But he was fine. I put him on the settee, sat down on it, and combed him: back, sides, and even some tummy (using the same protective procedure as the week previous). I sat next to him because there's room when he's there. The other two are so long now there isn't room for me to sit anymore. I used to sit beside them to groom them, but not any more.

I'm so impressed with all of them. Thimble volunteered to be groomed the second I got the tools out (I was planning to scoop Colby out from under the settee to do him first and get the difficult one over with, but hey, you volunteer, you get to go first). Colby stayed put and let me groom him despite the challenge of being able to hear Thimble playing with a toy he was trying to get down from its location hanging over a hinge pin. And then Apricot wanting groomed like the Rowdy Boys on the settee!