Re: Pets chit chat thread
So... I have cat bathing experience because of the severe catallergies, and it's my experience that they can acclimate to bathing, but if they hate it, they will never love it, and if you just figure out how to do it as quickly and painlessly as possible (for you), our cat that hates it get over it fairly swiftly.
We put the claw caps on our antibathing cat first. Then, before bathing, we let our cats get high on catnip. We prestage a plastic tub with a few inches of warm, shampoo-y water, a cup, a bucket of warm plain water for rinsing, and the shampoo.
Don't use the bathtub or sink and have lots of towels on hand. This is a 2 person operation....hence the plastic tub to position one person on each side. One person needs to volunteer as the person the cat loves less for a few days...this is the person that puts the cat in the water and hols the in a gentle but firm manner at the shoulder/based the neck region that let's you sort of mirror the cats movements like a mongoose with a cobra. We call this person the "cat wrangler," the other guy is the "cat washer.". While the cat wrangler is keeping the cat in position in the tub, the cat washer proceeds to quickly wet the cat with the cup using the shampoo water in the tub, shampoo-massages the cat, and then rinses them with the bucket water. The cat washer then grabs the towel (this function can also be filled with a third person, we use Chickadee for this), the cat wrangler lifts the cat, puts them in the towel, and dries them off while the cat washer holds the cat.
Once the cat is mostly dry, we give them their favorite wet food. Sometimes the eat this immediately,otherwise they sulk first and groom themselves.
Scott and I have this operation down under 5 minutes. We luck out that our water hating cat is also our cat that loves being petted and brushed and massaged...he will tolerate the washing if you make the appropriate cat worship noises while you brush and pet him, for a limited time. If you go over the tolerance time (5 minutes), he will claw your face off
So... I have cat bathing experience because of the severe catallergies, and it's my experience that they can acclimate to bathing, but if they hate it, they will never love it, and if you just figure out how to do it as quickly and painlessly as possible (for you), our cat that hates it get over it fairly swiftly.
We put the claw caps on our antibathing cat first. Then, before bathing, we let our cats get high on catnip. We prestage a plastic tub with a few inches of warm, shampoo-y water, a cup, a bucket of warm plain water for rinsing, and the shampoo.
Don't use the bathtub or sink and have lots of towels on hand. This is a 2 person operation....hence the plastic tub to position one person on each side. One person needs to volunteer as the person the cat loves less for a few days...this is the person that puts the cat in the water and hols the in a gentle but firm manner at the shoulder/based the neck region that let's you sort of mirror the cats movements like a mongoose with a cobra. We call this person the "cat wrangler," the other guy is the "cat washer.". While the cat wrangler is keeping the cat in position in the tub, the cat washer proceeds to quickly wet the cat with the cup using the shampoo water in the tub, shampoo-massages the cat, and then rinses them with the bucket water. The cat washer then grabs the towel (this function can also be filled with a third person, we use Chickadee for this), the cat wrangler lifts the cat, puts them in the towel, and dries them off while the cat washer holds the cat.
Once the cat is mostly dry, we give them their favorite wet food. Sometimes the eat this immediately,otherwise they sulk first and groom themselves.
Scott and I have this operation down under 5 minutes. We luck out that our water hating cat is also our cat that loves being petted and brushed and massaged...he will tolerate the washing if you make the appropriate cat worship noises while you brush and pet him, for a limited time. If you go over the tolerance time (5 minutes), he will claw your face off
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