I may be cute, but I’m not stupid. Like old dogs, I can learn a new trick, and I surely did after last year’s fiasco from sedating my longhaired cat for a lion’s cut.
Following last year’s nearly full-body shave, Dickens had a bad experience with the sedation and began a subsequent idiopathic-WTF refusal to eat, culminating in unfortunate force feeding from his neurotic human. We were lucky. Despite being force-fed with a syringe, which Dr. Tony Johnson told me after the fact (thanks, Dr. T!) was a bad idea, Dickens finally started eating on his own.
So this year…drum roll please…I decided to skip about half of the annual event. Dickens allows brushing of his back, sides, and throat, but his tolerance for brushing ends at his belly. The only reason for a lion cut is because his belly gets matted. I get a silent, ominous equivalent of “There is no brush on this earth that I will tolerate on my tummy. Got that?” It makes for interesting body language.
The funny part is that the day I brought him home to live here, at 9 months of age, he allowed me to brush his precious belly. And that was the last time I brushed it.
This spring, I changed the entire approach. A vet tech friend who has learned to groom came over to my house. I sent my dogs out to the backyard. I held Dickens on my lap, and Amy ran the clipper from his armpits to his privates. And boy, were there mats. His nickname should be Matty. “Matty, come here so I can brush your nether regions” is a phrase I will never utter in my lifetime, along with “I’d like to have a pet snake,” “I’d be happy to get rid of that big spider for you,” and “I’m pregnant.”
The only trouble we had was with Amy’s adorable toddler, Emily, systematically grabbing collectible bunnies from my “bunny hutch.” Amy would have to grab the bunnies with one hand while not dropping the clippers. She was closer to Emily, and I was holding a semi-squirmy cat. Dickens was exceptionally good until he got a bit antsy at the very end.
Still, there was a kitten’s worth of fur on the floor. Boggles the mind to think what kind of Frankenkitty you could glue together after a full-body shave.
The final result: no sedation or poor reaction to it, no trip to the clinic, no mats, no stress, no idiopathic WTF, it was safer, and it cost less. He feels better now that the mats are gone. He’s not naked, so he can’t be embarrassed about being naked. He’s not cold because he still has most of his coat. He can’t be pissed off because…well, he’s a cat, he can find a reason, but he hasn’t. And no one is trying to shove weird, yucky food into his mouth through a plastic syringe.
Ah, spring…which now that Dickens is happily matless, brings to mind an old Italian proverb: “Happy is the home with at least one cat.”
Photo: Dickens before his belly shave, which is exactly how he looks after it. He likes to sit below his own photo.
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