Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Doctor's Pick: Grooming Implements











Whether your cat has long, medium, or even short hair, eventually it's going to need some level of grooming. Bathing is usually a bad idea (cats hate water) and is generally unnecessary in a housecat. Even cats who go outdoors tend to keep themselves pretty clean. But the problem of loose fur is always with us, and we're heading into shedding season soon, where it escalates into a real problem for some cats.

Here at Cat's Meow Veterinary Clinic we utilize three different grooming tools, depending on the length of the cat's fur. The Zoom Groom (last pic), a rubber-fingered implement, is great at grabbing and loosening fur from deep in the coat, and it works best in short- and medium-haired cats. We follow up with a deep combing with the shedding comb (third pic, left), which has alternating long and short teeth. Then we clean up the surface with the slicker brush (second pic), which has hundreds of short, tiny sire teeth in a grid. For nail trims we use the cat claw scissor (top).
We normally carry these grooming tools at the clinic. If we are out, you can sometimes find them at pet stores, but the shedding comb is hard to find.
Note: Anybody who knows how to put the pictures where I want them in the post, and not where the Blog Machine wants them, please let me know. I'm having difficulties, to say the least.