[Gazelle]

If you look in my profile you'll see my cat Swiper. He's a beauty and his fur's lovely. But he's got a very fine undercoat with his lovely long fur and he mats up terribly. His fur, too, is very fine--it's like touching a mink coat--so soft and silky. Wow..... you just want to keep petting him.

I can brush him a little bit until he decides to start biting the brush and clawing at it too, playfully. He has all his claws and generally is very gentle.

The matting starts unexpectedly very close to the skin and then becomes, sometimes overnight, like a dreadlock. Sometimes I can get him to stay still long enough to cut down the mat, but usually it's too close to the skin for me to get it all.

So how do I deal with a cat with this type of fur? I can't take him to a groomer--I'm a really bad cat owner because he doesn't have all his shots up to date. It's never posed a problem for me because my cats have been all indoor cats. So please don't skewer me on that. My dogs go regularly, just not my cat (and former cats who have lived very long, healthy lives). And all my other cats have been DSH cats and the hair thing has never been a problem.

HELP!! I feel like a TERRIBLE pet owner because I can't stop this matting.

[Lara]

Hi Gazelle,
We found it very difficult to stop the matting in our little Persian. Worst areas were around the tail and down the back of the legs. Particularly difficult in this hot climate of ours. She was totally indoor cat as well but the matting did happen very fast no matter how much we groomed her.

We had this comb that had a rattle in the end of it which helped her relax and play gently as we brushed her. Also helped to give her something to chew on as she lay there. We found it very difficult and the mats do start so close to the skin. I used to wonder if we spent too much time on brushing the soft unmatted area of the coat and should have been paying more attention to those other areas.

A couple of times we did take her to the grooming place and they seemed able to get the matts off just fine, but we also found that the colour of the new growth was different from the rest of her... not that it really mattered. Just an observation. I think it's easier and safer to do it with clippers if the mats can't be teased out with a comb. Scissors are too risky I feel.

I hope to hear advice from other people about how to help the problem.

[Gazelle]

Thanks, Lara. He doesn't get them where your cat did. His are mainly located on the sides of his body. I even found one or two very small ones starting under his chin area. He has sort of a "ruff."

Maybe clippers would work, but I don't quite know how to get him used to them before I attack his coat. <sigh>

These are really dense mats. As I said, they can form and get to be huge clumps overnight. When you cut them, the hair's so hard underneath the part you cut. Teasing with a comb doesn't work--I've tried--and he won't sit still for that.

I've seen cat muzzles but ouch, the claw part is what gets me. Don't know if I can muzzle him and put booties on him too.
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[Lara]

Where I live you can buy this coat conditioning liquid. It might not get rid of the mats there already but if your cat can deal with a wash, then that might help.

Need full on protective gear on to wash a couple of the kitties I've had. LOL
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Strangely it was the Persian and the Himalayan that were the worst. The moggies didn't mind the occasional wash as much.

I sure do know what you mean.

[Lara]

Gazelle,
I had just logged out of the site here again and getting ready to get to sleep and there was a segment on a tv show here with our "Dr Harry" who is a vet. He was talking about a detangling spray-on agent that means you wouldn't have to totally bathe the cat. Apparently there are natural/organic ones which don't contain harsh chemicals. It won't get rid of the really thick mats that are there already, but it might be worth looking into for the future grooming of your kitty.

good luck with it.

[Gazelle]

I'll have to check into something like that and see. I don't know how he'd react to getting a bath, but he doesn't seem to really mind water too terribly. He lies in my sink in the bathroom and sometimes I have to run the water on him to get him OUT of it so I can use it. He's crazy.

[Doody]

Oh you're not alone in this. I feel awful as well about 2 of my cats. Chewie just has tons of fur, he's huge. But his hair is short and so very thick. Tink is my senior citizen, she's 18 and kind of long hair. She's so frail and not all that well.

I took Chewie to my vet once and they were amazed at the number of bags they filled with his fur!
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Tink's are very matted and it hurts her for me to comb her so I'm in the same dilemma.

I'm very, very curious about the Furminator. You see them in pet shops and well lots of other places as well. They are expensive! I'm very tempted to try one. It looks like they have several types of products including a waterless shampoo conditioner for cats.


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[ewizabeth]

Oh this is tough. I used to shut myself and the kitty in the bathroom and used little blunt scissors to trim out the knots. Even if you can't get the bottom of the knot close to the skin, if you get the top, it's easier then to work the rest out with a brush.

Make sure you wear protection though.
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Most kittys don't enjoy having this done. If you have some thin leather gloves you might want to wear them too. Kitty will get all worked up but will feel better when you're finished.

[Kitt]

Had that trouble with our Siamese as he got older. I suspect he didn't groom himself very well due to his age, etc. We used the method of cutting the clumps out or part of them as suggested. And they really were a mess. Then I found this really good brush/comb deal at the pet store. It worked wonders. I then tried to keep up with it so it didn't happen again. (Before, it did happen several times).

My cat didn't really like the commotion of getting these out either but he did tolerate it quite well. He was a good kitty. He also was used to me cutting his six toenails on each foot from the time he was little. So that probably helped as well so he behaved better. Sad to say he's gone now. Lived for 18 years.

[Blessings2You]

We have three long-hairs, two of which are Himalayan Persians. We had a dickens of a time at first with Cindy, one of the Himmies. She wouldn't let us NEAR her with a comb or brush, except a little bit around her head. Needless to say, she got all matted. We had to take her in to get her partially shaved.

Our vet told us NOT to use scissors, because the skin can actually kind of grow into the mat, and once they get nipped it can get infected.

For some reason, she now lets me (only me) comb her, but ONLY on the bed, nowhere else.

The other Himalayan, Peach, does a pretty good job keeping herself mat free. We do keep her combed, even though she's not always in the mood.

Ivy, our old cat, has a hard time grooming her tail area and "hips", but I can usually catch her on a good day and get the small mats with a comb.

There's a way that you can actually work the mats sort of loose and then just pull them out. The first time I tried it on Cindy, I thought "I'm pulling her hair out by the roots, she is so going to bite me", but of course, I wasn't pulling the rooted hair, just the mat.

As I'm typing, she's purring and mushing against my shoulder. Guess she heard her name invoked.
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