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Tips For Bathing Your Cat
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Cats do not generally need bathing because their mothers teach them how to wash themselves when they are kittens. Furthermore, cats have a valid reputation for not liking water too much. However, there might be occasions when you feel the necessity for bathing your cat.
For instance, your cat might get old or sick, have been in a bad fight or be infested with fleas. If these times crop up, you will be grateful for some tips for bathing your cat, because they can be quite nasty about it, inflicting deep scratches that could get infected.
This first thing to do is gather everything you require beforehand, because you will probably need to hold your cat down. So, you want the shampoo, a flannel and a towel close at hand.
If you know that your cat is going to be a problem, bathe it in a bowl either in the garden shed or in the bathroom, where flying water will not cause much of a problem.
Otherwise, you could bathe your cat in a bowl on the lawn, but an confined space might help your cat feel less threatened and it will be easier to capture it in an confined space if it escapes your grasp.
If your cat really, really detests bathing and you have trouble holding it, place it in a pillow case with only its head sticking out. You can use a cat collar to hold the pillow case in place.
If you use a pillow case, wash your cat through the pillow case as you would a delicate, expensive woollen pullover. Use an old collar, because otherwise you might wash out the insecticide that is impregnated in it.
If your cat's fur is matted or clotted with blood, you can better remove the clots and cut away the hair with the cat on your lap before you start bathing it.
While preparing the bowl, put a non-slip mat or towel in the bottom and only half fill it with luke warm water. The shampoo ought to be mild. In fact, you should bathe your cat as you would a child who does not like getting soap in its eyes.
Lower your cat gently but fairly quickly into the water and talk to it reassuringly all the time. It will probably hate what you are doing to it, although some breeds are fairly happy to be in water. Yours probably will hot be though and it will be more than a little scared, so carry on talking to it.
Work quickly and do what you can. It is better to get most of the bathing done the first time round and have to come for another go later than to really stress your cat out with a long session and who knows, it might get used to it after recurring sessions, if they do not last too long.
After you are done, wrap the cat in a towel and be nice to it. If it is in a pillow case, wrap the towel about the pillow case and take it off under the towel. Once your cat is fairly dry, you can let it go if it wants, because it will dry itself off anyway.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with feline distemper vaccination. If you want to know more, please visit our site at Distemper Vaccines
Article submitted Wednesday, June 08, 2011 & read 57 times.
Owen Jones writes on many subjects and is currently running several websites. He was born in Wales but now lives in northern, rural Thailand.
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