Conference misery::feline

Lynn,

Did you wait for the tranquilizer to take effect before starting the
grooming ?  We used to have to give our dog a tranquilizer before bringing
him to the vet because he got so nervous and upset, but we needed to do
it enough ahead of time to be effective, otherwise, he'd be really mellow
when we got home, but still nervous, hyper, and upset at the vets.  I remember
it taking about 30 to 40 minutes or so before the drug really kicked in.

Leslie

PS.  Any new poetry lately ? 

    Hi Leslie,
    
    We waited two hours, as prescribed by the vet. She was a little
    quieter, but as soon as we attempted to handle her, she got wild again.
    Frankly, after trying it with 1/2 pill, we were hoping the whole pill
    would sort of send her to beddy-bye land. She's a tough little critter
    all right. We're really reluctant to use a heavier dosage, if 1/2 pill
    is supposed to be sufficient for a beast of her weight.
    
    
    Lynn
    
    (Yep, new stuff in THE_CRITICAL_POET, plus some other stuff I haven't
    posted. Thanks for asking!)

    Have you tried wrapping her in a bath towel or two???  This is the only 
    way I can trim Chessie's nails!  I even cover her head, so she can't see 
    me!  She still manages to wiggle around to where she isn't completely 
    covered, but the nails usually are done by then.  Once you get her 
    "trimmed" back there, you may want to keep it trimmed.  She may look a 
    little strange, but at least she won't be "clumpy" and smelly! 

    I have a picture of me doing Chessie's nails, after her last bath 
    (2 weekends ago)... it's here at my desk... Sandy was suppose to stop by 
    today (hint, hint)!

    M-L

    This sounds like it will be a long time problem...so I think
    you need to slowly work with your kitty to start accepting
    some types of grooming help.
    
    Try working with a comb/brush first...I have a few cats that
    think this is "fun time" and I do one brush and then they
    beat the crap out of it and then I do another brush and then
    they attack it...etc.  Atleast I am getting a few brushes in...
    
    You can gradually work you way to being able to cut some
    of the hairs in the back so the poop won't stick...and
    then maybe someday she will learn to enjoy this grooming
    and then you can try baths.
    
    Just a thought....
    
    Sandy

    Yes, we've tried the bath towels routine, and bath towels with the
    tranquilizer. 
    
    We did talk to the vet again yesterday, who suggested doubling the
    tranquilizer dosage, and if that doesn't work we can bring her in and
    they'll tranquilizer her via i.v. and do the "trim" themselves. 
    
    The amazing thing is, when she's not being feisty, i.e. fighting off
    attempts to groom her, she is extremely sweet and totally adorable.
    Maybe she's just one of those cats who gets overstimulated too easily.
    
    Thanks for the suggestions,
    
    Lynn

    My Furby absolutely HATES to be brushed! Of course she's the one that
    needs it the most, right? She gets mats in the winter when her tummy
    gets wet from sitting in the snow. 8-{ She won't usually let me trim
    out the mats with a scissor, but, if I do one at a time, with a good
    amoutn of time in between, I can usually SHAVE them out with my
    husband's beard trimmer! (don't tell!) I would think the scissors,
    being quieter, would be more acceptable than the noisy trimmer, but go
    figure!
    
    It takes two of us to trim her nails too! Sometimes I get her when
    she's been sleeping, and can get most of one foot done before she knows
    whats going on, and then I pay dearly for my indescretion! ;-) The
    other two don't mind it TOO much, and they LOVE to be groomed!
    
    Yonee

    My Chowder, a Maine Coon, always is getting matted and if we don't keep
    certain areas trimmed, the mats become traps for poop and pieces of
    litter.
    
    To acclimate Chowder to grooming, we started her off slowly, as alluded
    to in note .4, with the combs and brushes.  That, IMHO, is the long term
    solution to the grooming hating kitty.
    
    But for the short term, to trim the areas where the dingleberries
    dangle, you may want to try a 2-person approach:  one person grabs
    kitty by the scruff of the neck pulling the front paws off the surface
    of the counter or table, the second person (scissors at the ready)
    grabs handfuls of subject hair and trims away, of course being very
    careful not to jab kitty with the scissors (think about how careful
    you would want someone to be if they were wielding sharp implements
    around *your*...well, you know).  The whole operation takes less than
    a minute.  It may not look like much, but don't worry about that.
    You'll get better at it over time.
    
    To avoid future problems, keep the areas routinely trimmed, and work
    the trimming procedure into your regular grooming routine.  We groom
    all of our kitties once each day, whether they need it or not.  While
    the kitties may still not like being groomed, through regularity they
    have learned to put up with it.
    
    This is what my wife and I have done with Chowder and it works for us.
    We learned this technique from a friend of ours who owns/breeds/shows
    kitties and has practically every aspect of kitty care boiled down to a
    science.
    
    Good luck,
    Carl

If you get her lags wrapped up in there, too, she should be in a pretty stable
"package". Towel-wrapping is how we do it at work. Once in a while we get a cat
that just goes absolutely bonkers and we toss in leather gloves and a muzzle,
but that's pretty rare. One approach to wrapping is to have her seated or in
what I'd call a "down" position for a dog. Place the towel with it's long axis
perpendicular to the cat. Then sort of tuck both sides under her chest and keep
them tight to her body. The idea is to keep things snug enough that she can't
kick with her legs. You effectively create a towel tube that's too confining
for her to maneuver inside of. Muzzles are pretty inexpensive and when you can
concentrate on their just their legs the job gets a lot easier. Some animals
can simply get pumped up enough that the tranquilizer doesn't have much effect
on them. We only have a couple of patients like that and one tends to remember
them very well from visit to visit. Wrapping her head in a towel's a good
approach, too. But if she's prone to biting while this gets done you need to
keep an eye out for her getting lose. That's one of the reasons I prefer a
muzzle. An IV tranquilizer's cool, as long as she doesn't go bonkers getting
stuck with the needle. But it's a bunch more expensive that bundling her up in
a towel, especially if you have to trim every few weeks. 

With five people holding I have this vision of at least 3 or 4 of you getting
wounded :-). We tend to peak at 2 holders (front half/back half) for all but
the most rebellious. Be sure you have people who:
	1. Have quick reactions and good insurance (or are good friends)
	2. Use people you trust to yell "Can't hold her head!" *before* they
		lose their grip.
	3. Make sure everyone lets go about the same time or somebody can get
		hurt. Lest you think I jest on this one, you can drop by some
		day for a look at my scar ;-).

Careful if you trim mats with scissors. We've had more than one owner-trimmed
animal in for a laceration repair after they snipped too close to the skin. And
if you think she's jumpy now, just wait till you give her a nice inch-long
gash. 

Often with cats, the harder you hold them the more they struggle. Once you have
them secured, if you can loosen up on your grip just a bit, things can go
better. One last suggestion - we often use the technician-invented/Time Tested/
professionally approved Head Noogies approach: scratching ears and head while
being toweled gives their brain something to work on beside worrying about else
is going on with 'em.

I like Sandy's approach or working on it over time, but if it's a mess short
term it'd be nice to at least start out with her cleaned up.

We have a longhair with just the opposite problem. Basically, he lives to
groom. He's kinda chunky and sits on his butt, rear legs splayed in front and
cleans and cleans and cleans. And when that gets boring he cleans the other
cats. And then the humans are always filthy and need a good grooming. And then
it's back to himself.
		

						Trace

    When I trim mats with scissors, what I usually do is only take off
    about three quarters of the mat, and then use a seam ripper from my
    sewing kit to loosen up the remainder enough to try to comb it out.
    This works fairly well, if I can hang on to her long enough. It works
    perfectly with Finnigan if he gets the occasional mat. But then he
    LIKES to be groomed for the most part.
    
    He usually 'mudges' the heck out of me when I do his tummy (ticklish?),
    and I'll usually just scruff him for a minute while I comb him. He
    combs his own cheeks as soon as I show him the comb! ;-) Even the flea
    comb! 8-) What a Dude he is!
    
    Yonee
    

    I can relate.  My Sweetie hates to be groomed and yes she is long fur
    also.  Sweetie also suffers from mega hairballs.  In my many attempts
    to groom her, I have received numerous bites and deep scratches.  My
    vet suggested "shave her"! And that we did!  
    
    Actually, I can shave her with very little problems but I can't get
    near her with a brush.  The shave lasts quite a while and she is much
    cleaner and no more hairballs.  
    
    You may want a professional groomer give your cat a trim/shave in the
    problem area only if you prefer not to have completely shaved cat.
    
    Jeanne 

    My trick for teaching kitties to like grooming (has worked with three
    of my worst so far) is to keep the box of Bonkers (cat treats) out 
    when I'm grooming them.  Bonkers come in a small milk carton type
    of box with a pour spout.  I open the spout and sit the box in 
    front of kitty.  While they're trying to figure out how to get to
    the treats, I do the grooming.  After a while they associate the
    treats with grooming and I get a little mushy purrball while I'm
    grooming.
    
    So far this has worked extremely well with Bailey (RIP), who was a
    very nasty kitty while being groomed prior to this; Carrie, who 
    is 80% better; and Mac, who has done a 360 degree turnaround on the
    subject of grooming.  He's gone from shredding me and the tangle
    comb attached to actually prancing and purring.  Amazing!  Of course
    I must admit that it was not an overnight turnaround.  He was generally
    a very aggressive cat and it took a few months to get him turned 
    around.
    
    Jan

    Thank you all for the many hints! I especially like .11, somehow it
    appeals to my sense of wanting to trick the little *&^% sweetheart into
    behaving like the little angel she appears to be at other times!
    
    
    Lynn

    Ok, BIg, HUGE grooming problem.  Last Friday, I tried to shampoo my 5
    cats with the flea shampoo.  I was able to, with much screaming and
    kicking and flapping, shampoo 4 out of 5.  
    
    Poor Pepper....There were 2 of us trying to get her wet.  We had her in
    the tub with the water running.  One was holding, the other was trying
    to get her wet.  She bit both my hands.  Was totally out of control. 
    Sliced the living daylights out of the gloves I had on.  There was no
    controlling her.  When she finally got loose, she tried to climb the
    wall and proceeded to froth at the mouth for the next 5 minutes until I
    could calm her down.  Any suggestions on how to do this or is it a lost
    cause.  I was able to hold the other ones despite their wiggling
    around.  But Pepper was impossible.  I never ended up shampooing her.
    
    Thanks,
    Michele

    Michele,
    
     This may not help with a balistic kitty like Pepper,, but I reas that
    the water was running in the tub when you were trying to get her wet.
    
     If this is true, you may want to fill the tub with no kitty in the
    room, and after the water is tirned off, try to get her wet by pushing
    her down into the water onto her belly, and then 'quietly' pull the
    water up around the rest of her.
    
     It works with my kids, who used to go balistic, until I cut out the
    noise of the running water. Learned this trick at the Brody shelter
    when I worked one day with Sandy M.!
    
     Yonee

    OR.... do it in the kitchen sink, using the sprayer hose (if you have
    one).. or just the running water.  In the tub the water sounds like
    Niagera Falls to those little ears.
    
    My kids have learned that when Mom turns on the space heater in their
    room, it's time to hide.  I always turn the heat in the house up and
    add the heat of the space heater to their room.  It sometimes gets so
    hot in there that I break out in a sweat just walking into the room.
    
    They are fine, once I catch them.  They try to gt away, while in the
    sink, but they never use their claws (except for pushing power, not
    scratching power), they haven't bitten yet, and they don't even cry or
    howl; unlike Hotrail, my 1/2 Siamese, who sits and howls at the top of
    her lungs, BEFORE SHE IS EVEN WET.
    
    The dog doesn't even like the tub when the water is actually running! 
    Then again, he's stupid (aren't most dogs?????? remember the file we
    are in???  heeheeheheeheehee) and doesn't like to be bathed and clean!
    
    M-L

    .14
    
    I'll have to try that.  I thought keeping the water running would save
    time having 5 cats, that the water would get filthy with hair and I'd
    have to keep changing it.  But if I just do pepper, that might work. 
    I'll let ya know the next time I feel daring.
    
    thanks,
    michele