Andy’s hiding under the computer desk…because he knows I want to work on mats!
He’s plotting his escape. It’s scaredy Caturday!
Dougy’s just working on being scary. Wooooo! Halloween came early this year.
Andy’s hiding under the computer desk…because he knows I want to work on mats!
He’s plotting his escape. It’s scaredy Caturday!
Dougy’s just working on being scary. Wooooo! Halloween came early this year.
I love the Halloween photo of Dougy! The orange eyes are perfect, too!
Yes, that’s their true color as best I can photograph it. He has very pretty eyes, I think.
He has very beautiful eyes.
I think so, too! Thanks!
It is too bad they won’t equate “hiding on grooming day” with month long “working on mats time”.
~~dru~~
That’s a fact! I’d feel much better if they did understand dematting is a temporary upset that results in a happier cat, but that hasn’t happened.
Halloween? It the 4th of August over here Dougy. Don’t be worrying about Halloween yet!
it’s not Caturday either. And, yes, I know it isn’t Halloween until October 31st, and I made that reference because he looked a bit spooky. Even day isn’t a brilliant day. I’ve been thinking of doing a post every other day or once a week.
I think posting every other day is better than once a week because your followers love you and they want to see Andy and Dougy! And sometimes I post every other day to extend my blog. And I’m really not working that hard on Smoky and Sally’s blog because I have nothing to post.
Ideally, I’d post (and try to post) daily because it’s easier for people following to know when to expect new content. Unfortunately, I sometimes run out of steam and need a day or so to see things through fresh eyes. Today was one such day. I would have been better off waiting till later in the day to take photos because the kitty boys were more active than when I took the photos for today;s post.
See Dougy, you still need to sleep some more. And I do agree that you need to rest a while.
A good idea!
And when I skip for a day, I can hear wind on my blog. It’s so quiet when I’m not posting.
That’s true, too.
You should really just shave them. Not sure whether they’d like that better 😉
Of course. Hope you have some time to read this because the situation is complicated.
I have to make grooming appointments a year in advance because I have been scheduling the kitty boys back-to-back. There are a limited number of groomers in this town, and now we are one short, making appointments that are back-to-back virtually impossible.
I have dialysis on Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. When I had to make the 2017 schedule in November 2016, my dialysis schedule was Monday-Wednesday-Friday, so I scheduled all of their 2017
appointments for Tuesday or Thursday. The shop is closed Mondays and Saturdays….
Dialysis is life-saving, so, of course, when my schedule was changed sometime between the March and May grooming dates to the days I have dialysis , I tried to get the kitty boys’ appointments changed, too. It wasn’t possible, so they missed the May appointment.
“Why don’t you have someone else take them in for you?” I need to save any impositions on friends and neighbors for those doctor appointments where I won’t be able to drive because I’ve been under anesthesia. I don’t have family in town or nearby, and most of my doctor appointments tend to be at a hospital or other medical facilities in a town an hour’s drive away. Sad to say, kitty grooming appointments have to take a second place to mine and I have to beg rides most times. I feel I impose a lot on these friends and neighbors. (One took care of my kitties for two months and 10 days when I was hospitalized and had rehabilitation out of town, as noted elsewhere. He has medical issues of his own, so he and his wife are often out of town for his issues. The others are gracious, but…! Not everyone knows how to catch cats and I go in so early for dialysis that the kitties would have to be in the carrier for at least three hours before their appointment used to be, longer with the new appointment.)
I note that a further complication if I got appointments for the afternoon on dialysis days is what I call blow out of my fistula. Until the two “buttonhole” scabs mature, lifting heavy items (like a carrier with a kitty for me) can result in the new scabs on two permanent access points in my arm blowing out, causing loss of blood and a medical emergency. (If it happens, we patients are told to call for an ambulance because you can bleed out! To give you an idea of how serious it can be, here’s a post I illustrated with photos of my jacket after one such “bloody hell”. Fortunately, it happened when I was still at the hospital where I get dialysis:
http://phainopepla95.com/2017/04/30/post-1378-bloody-hell/
One appointment opened up in July. Dougy hid under a bed, and I tried to scare him out from under it. Understand that I have some mobility issues and getting down on my hands and knees is difficult. I could have checked under the bed and discovered he’d run out of the room, but I was concerned about getting back up if I did catch him in that position. I decided to get a broom and pass it back and forth under the bed to try to scare him out. (I thought he was still there….)
While I was getting a broom, I closed some doors to limit the places he could hide. (Yes, I usually do this, but screwed up that day, thinking Dougy would be easy to catch because he virtually always is.)
After looking all over the apartment for him except the rooms where I’d closed the doors, I couldn’t find him. Eventually, I missed the appointment time, so (after getting a busy signal for several minutes trying to call the groomer) I went over to the shop to let them know Dougy was AWOL and I couldn’t find him.
No, it didn’t occur to take Andy in Dougy’s place. He doesn’t have the really thick fur Dougy has and as many mats. I chose to use the one open appointment for the worst case, Dougy.
I discussed the problem I had with appointments, and the lady who handles appointments and I decided the best chance for getting the kitty boys in would be to schedule them on the same day if possible, just not back-to-back. It is less convenient (and I have very little free time because of dialysis), but workable.
I was still upset with Dougy, so didn’t just go home after talking with the grooming scheduler. I took care of some business downtown, washed my car, and returned home an hour and a half later.
When I got home, I opened the doors. When I opened my bedroom, poor Dougy was in my bedroom, crying by the door! I suppose he hid under my bed after he ran away from me in the guest bedroom.
A few days later, I stopped by the groomer’s to let them know I’d decided what we discussed would have to work: I’d schedule them for the next time I could get them in on the same day, if not back-to-back. That next day is September 24th. (I think – I have it written down elsewhere and they always send me an email the day before to remind me.)
Yes, I will close doors before the appointments, because once they are aware of what’s to come, they get difficult to catch. Well, the second one does. The first one I catch, regardless of which one it is, will get the morning session, and the second one will get the afternoon session.
In the meantime, I try to remove mats as they occur, though neither is happy about it. I’ve tried various methods – I have no training in this, though I have some professional tools – but I don’t want to stress them too much. Andy has a heart murmur and I give him medicine for high blood pressure. Dougy, with tenacious mats, takes a bit of doing to keep him still while I work on them. Mostly, it’s an endless problem for now.
I started having them trimmed in November 2012, when they were 17 months old and full of mats, and they got haircuts and the spa routine every other month after that till this year.
Do they like it? I think so. I also think they feel a lot better without all that hair. It’s easier for them to clean themselves and the problem of poop getting caught in their tail and butt hair is eliminated by the hygienic trim that that part of their fur gets.
Dougy is a whiny kitty on the trip over (two blocks), but Andy is a brave little guy, if not happy to be in the carrier. I traded a 2009 Chevrolet Impala for a 2016 Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen TSI in May 2016 specifically because I was very weak from my illness that kept me in hospital and rehabilitation from January 20, 2016 through March 31, 2016, and it was easier to load the carrier into the station wagon than the sedan. (I had to put it in the backseat of the Impala, an awkward maneuver…. I barely could lift it in)
So, until my dialysis schedule screwed things up, they were getting regular grooming sessions. Two months between cuts seemed to minimize the problem of mats. They didn’t look much like Persians till toward the appointment times, but they aren’t show cats. No, they are pets, and they look fine with their teddy bear cuts. I don’t get the lion cuts, though the first time I took them in in November 2012, that’s what the got.
Here’s a video that shows you what the look like after a grooming appointment:
Oh dear! Yes, I see why it is complicated.
The furry ones really keep you busy and obviously you can’t miss your dialysis appointments.
I hope for you and the boys that with the new grooming schedule mats will we kept at bay again..
I don’t know whether it’s feasible for you. But maybe you could cut out the worst mats instead of combing.
Our late cat lady was a short hair and Rübe loved to be brushed. So I don’t have any personal experience in that.
Dougy loves being brushed. Since he has the thicker fur, this is good. Andy gets smaller, less frequent mats because he has less undercoat.
I have a some strategies for mat control: brushing them out with a dethatcher comb; pulling them apart by hand to release the shed hair trapped inside (sometimes, pulled attached hair causes a yelp or two and an unhappy cat!) ; cutting them out if the cat cooperates. Cutting them out worries me because they sometimes twist around when I do it, risking cuts. I haven’t tried the seam cutter tool yet. Theoretically, it will slowly cut through mats with no significant tugging. It would release some of the tangle to the point it is easier to eliminate the mat. The risk is stabbing the kitty if he finds it uncomfortable and moves at the wrong time! That’s the main reason I haven’t tried it yet…. Of course, the preferred method is turning it over to the professionals who have the right tools and training in their use.