long hair is matted horribly

I have a long hair domestic cat and in several places on him he is matted badly, I have tried to trim with scissors but the mats are very close to his skin. he gets very irritated with me after a few minutes of grooming. His best pal is our dog who loves to slobber and chew on him, could this of caused the matting and what do I do now. :roll:

 

:m23: and welcome! How about getting a lion cut until the fur grows back to normal? :mrgreen: Do you have pics of your furbabies? How long have you had the 2 and what are their names?







http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/lioncut.asp

 

Hi, Their names are scotty and bear, scotty is the cat and bear the dog. I've been thinking of getting him shaved and start over, but not quite sure yet, i groom him but not regularly because he doesn't like it much after 5 minutes and I hadn't checked his coat for a good month, and when I did there were several matted areas very close th his skin. I have pics of them but not sure how to attach a photo here.

 

Hehe--what are those green things, Vene?

 

...The lion cut?? Sounds very.. tribal... haha

 

Bunny, they were supposed to be pics of kitties with their lioncuts. I wonder why they became green. Must be a copyright thing. Let's see if this works:



http://www.jokedujour.com/cat/lioncut1.htm

To post pics try the free sites like Snapfish, Photobucket, Tinypic, or Walmart:

http://www.auspet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10941

I love their names Scotty and Bear and I can't wait to meet them!

 

I had a long hair cat that used to matt up and I would take lap time that she would give me to gently shave the matts off with a razor. when she became uncomfortable with my shaving/pulling on the matts, she would hop off my lap but then would come back to let me finish. It was like she knew that I was making it better for her.

A quicker option is to use an electric razor if the sound doesn't freak your kitty out.

The only other option is to take him/her to a groomer.

Matting needs to be taken care of because it can cause major skin probs if it's not addressed

 

In her last 2 years, Lizzy had an extremely sensitive stomach and even a little hair would make her vomit so I had to keep her shaved using an electric razor set at about 1/4". I also had to shave Emily once because of matts. I could usually get Lizzy done in a day (giving her breaks every 10 - 15 minutes - she was mellow, but not that mellow). For Emily, I had to split it up into two days because she would get really irritated.




-Chelle

 

My Kyrre has long hair, and he didn't like to be groomed either. But with a lot of patience, trying different brushes, he finaly got used to it and now he loves it One time when I took him to the vet for his shots, the vet also gave him anaesthesia (sp?) so she could comb out the mats in his fur. If you don't want to shave your cat, that could be the emergency solution. Good luck :y_the_best:

 

I would recommend taking him to a groomer if they are bad mats, especially if you are not experienced and he doesn't like being groomed. You could cut the skin if they are matted very close to it and cats bleed very easily.

I tried to shave my himalayan with the lion cut and ended up in the ER with an infected finger from the bite I got. And my cat NEVER bites.

 

:shock: This does not look like a happy cat :lol:

 

This one is much happier DeLa. :mrgreen:

 

Thanks for all the good advise, I most probably will make an appt. with a groomer and have him shaved, not sure about that lion cut though(ha,ha) I just need to call around and find someone who specializes in cats. I'm hoping they can use anesthia safely, that kinda worries me. But I'm sure I can't do it without him or I getting hurt!!!!

 

What has worked for me, especially if you have someone to help is I have the other person hold kitty while I use a wide tooth comb and place the comb between the mat and kitty's skin so when I use scissors to cut out the mat, the comb keeps the scissors away from the skin.

It works really well. It does leave a small amount of mat (I call them tufts) but I usually can then comb out the little that is left. Hope this helps.

vene -- what is it with the big Mr. Yuck faces. Toooo funny. :lol:

 

heya joy. my cat pepe gets heaps of matts. lots are caused by my dog slobbering on him too. unfortunately there is nothing we can do for pepe. he is too crazy to groom so we decided to get him shaved once a year before summer [most cats need anaesthetic to get this done, pepe does] and in between then we just have to let the matts sit there and fester :-&

 

Sunset, The Yuck faces appears and disappears throughout the day. They were supposed to be pics of lioncuts. I think it must be a website thing. When it's down, the pic appears as a yuck face.

 

I only see the pictures.... I was wondering what sunset ment bu yuck faces :mrgreen: lol!

 

Bente, the yuck face appears as a round green, frowning face with a tongue sticking out, lol's. Sorry for getting off topic. Pumpkin just had some matting on her back along the spine near the base of her tail. She was real good about letting me cut those off with a pair of scissors. Thank goodness her fur isn't too long so it only matts in the summertime. Is it possible to cut their matts off when they are sleeping or are they all light sleepers? Pumpkin also has problems with shedding and nails curling in so I wait until she wipes out or is very sleepy before grooming her. Otherwise, she won't let me work on her.

 

with the "yuck faces" if you can't see them right click on the picture and click properties and copy and paste the website you see- thats where the pic is- and you can see it. I think the site has a block on taking pics.

 

Thanks for the tip, bellack. I copied and pasted as you suggested and could see the picture.