Do you wash your cat?

Right. No need to bathe cats. It's cruel anyway. Unless we're speaking of tigers. But I wouldn't try to bathe them for completely different reasons...

 

I wouldn't even try to wash our cats, but my other half seems to think they need it. I do give my rats a bath fairly regularly though, and believe me there's no less blood involved, those tiny claws can be evil!

 

Isn't cats and rats a bad combination?

 

No, but maybe I should dig out the super soaker...

 

All you people who think that bathing cats is cruel need a reality check. If you think something simple like giving a cat a bath is cruel...then you live in a wickedly cruel and awful world.

Is bathing a child who hates baths cruel too?

 

Kitrax,
needless to say that you're utterly wrong, in fact so utterly wrong that you arouse in me suspicions of having an outlandish hidden aganda (like planning a (doomed) cat soap business or some other devilry). The very obvious aside, my personal observation confirms my doctrine. All my cats have convincingly driven down the point (think: claw & teeth point) that water is the devil, and cold water is worse.

 

Sometimes the cat need it. I never had problems washing my cats. There are ways to avoid the nails and claws, or teeth when inserting a pill. A stray kitten that I took in had flees, lice and sneeze, so I gave him a good bath in the kitchen sink. He was happy whit it and is a healty heavyweight.

When my Norwegian forrest cat comes home whit twigs and mud in his hair I grab him and wash him. He resists but I found a way. The left arm under the cat, whit the paws dangling and the right hand on his back. Just let him dangle in the water for a while and he becomes meek.

The other forrest cat(3) was notorious as a slasher. No not her, never her, my sister said. The same method as whit the ohter. Meek as a lamb after she got it that I was not to be intimidated.

A lot of people are afraid to hurt the cat. The neck is a good spot. Parent cat pick up the kittens by the neck.

For feeding pills, place hand under jaw and force open mouth. put it on the tongue and push it whit a finger down the troat. Make sure the other hand still hold the lower jaw. The tricky part is to keep the haed in the hand and the mouth shut. Rub on the troat, forcing a swallow. It is not nice but it works on mine.

Most important, a treat after. I boil/defrost fish. Disable the catflap, preventing escape. I am mean, I disable the flap and let him make a run for it,....

 

Merlanni,
good tips and all. I know a few from my own experience. That said, I can handle even my 7kg, tall, cantankerous brawler of a tomcat at his worst. That said, it is not a situation I try to get myself into by foolishly getting myself the idea to have to give him a bath.

To bath a cat appears to me to be a human desire rather than a cat-ish one, maybe subconsciously linked with with a suppressed desire to drown cats? Whatever it is, I have no doubt it's a dark and sinister motive, and I won't delve into that abyss to find out more about it.

What I help my cats with is when they have resin in their fur. I cut the resin out rather than washing it out. The cat will care of the rest. And yes, cats can be reconciled, a good treat is canned tuna (not the oiled variety).

 

Hey! That actually sounds like a good idea!

Wow...I've had problems bathing our cats in the past, but I've never had to drug them!

I find that a firm hold on their collar bone and shoulders (right below the front of their neck and wrap your fingers around to their shouder blades) is a good way to hold them still. It is in direct opposition with the direction they will try to jump to, and after a few futile attempts at jumping out, they seem to realize that they're not going anywhere, so they calm down a bit.

 

They are kept separate, obviously. They do interact sometimes and the results are not as disastrous as you might think. Just plenty of sniffing and the cats fleeing for their lives if the rats get too close

Incidentally my fully grown rats aren't much smaller than the youngest kitten of 4 months

 

I washed a girlfriend's cat once. The little bastard was exceptionally strong for 12 pounds and the bath ended when he put a canine through my thumbnail.

 

Kitrax,
I think Merlanni referred to was not about sedating the cat to be able to bath it, but rather about making a cat swallow antibiotics or worm cures and the like. It's hard to feed medicine to a cat. I usually succeed in tricking my cat into taking medicine by mixing it with tuna.

 

My cat only gets bathed when she pisses me off....

 

We only bathed our cat once when he fell into a tin of emulsion paint and turned mint green. Needless to say it didn't do any good, he ended up being totally shaved

 

Once, with one family cat (not mine), who had contracted fleas and needed a bath with flea medication. It was a young cat and didn't attack but did act like it thought it was about to be killed and eaten.

I think sometimes there are reasons to bathe some cats. But I don't presently have one so I probably shouldn't even try to answer the question.

 

Heheh, one of our cats got sprayed by a skunk once, and we had to give it one of those tomato paste baths to get the smell off. Even in a large metal trash can, he was still climbing up the inside so easily in his franticness that Dad had to hold him down just to keep him from getting out.

 

I had to bathe my black cat when she was still a kitten because she got a fungus. She hated it and I don't think she has ever forgiven me. I've never tried to bathe the orange one. She is a monster and I like having all my fingers.

 

We never bathed our original cat. It was of no use really. If a vet has to put on worker gloves to handle our cat when it is time for a yearly shot you don't want to put her in the water.

The cat of my brother frequently takes showers with him, some cats just like, warm mind you, water.

The moment I can actually buy my appartment I'm getting a cat. I miss those little bastards.