Cat Seriously Matted. Can I Shave Her At Home?

EveAndHerThieves

TCS Member
Thread starter
Adult Cat
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
198
Purraise
347
Spoon lived through her cancer scare, meaning I can again focus on her chronic fue problem. It mats up all the time. Due to our cancer scare I wasn't paying attention to the small mats until they became big. Her flank and back of legs are especially bad.

She's very, very high strung. I don't think a grooming trip would go well for her or the groomer. She also don't have all the shots they require (I know, I know. One bill at a time).

Is it possible to shave her at home and have it look okay? What kind of shaver should I use? She's a medium/long hair with super fine hair. I need to get the back of her legs and flank the most.

Side question, is it possible to just shave her rear and have it look good? Her front just get small mats I can clip out. I don't want to shave her front if I don't have to. Her fur is beautiful.
 

Furballsmom

Cat Devotee
Staff Member
Forum Helper
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
39,271
Purraise
53,931
Location
Colorado US
Hi! I have a Wahl brand clippers but I think there are others, you can shave as much as is necessary :)
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3

EveAndHerThieves

TCS Member
Thread starter
Adult Cat
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
198
Purraise
347
How hard is it to get the back of their legs? I was trying to just brush out some a little bit ago and gave up! It's pretty dang solid.

You know how older cats get kind of ... Clumpy? Like it looks rough and unkept? Her fur looks like that and always has. She also sleeps in tiny boxes which seems to make the clumping worse.

How long does it take to regrow? She's an indoor/outdoor cat. I don't want her freezing over the winter if possible.
 

Furballsmom

Cat Devotee
Staff Member
Forum Helper
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
39,271
Purraise
53,931
Location
Colorado US
I have never used the clippers on the backs of his legs, I use scissors very carefully. -- not saying that's right or wrong, it's just me. My boy gets that clumpy thing going particularly along his sides where his fur changes to the cottony almost sticky fur that he has on his belly.

I'm not sure, maybe a couple of months, to grow back?
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #5

EveAndHerThieves

TCS Member
Thread starter
Adult Cat
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
198
Purraise
347
I'll see what I can pick up for Spoon. Does it look horrible after you finish? There's a cat in my neighborhood who obviously gets a home shave. It kind of looks like she got into a fight with a wild badger and lost.
 

Furballsmom

Cat Devotee
Staff Member
Forum Helper
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
39,271
Purraise
53,931
Location
Colorado US
LO L, it depends, when I trim the hair from the insides of his back legs, he looks rather odd and gangly from behind for a while. If I'm not careful with the long hair that drapes down his sides, he'll look unkempt for sure :) but with him, I try and leave the long black fur and focus on the grey fur that's even more inclined to mat.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #7

EveAndHerThieves

TCS Member
Thread starter
Adult Cat
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
198
Purraise
347
By chance do you have a picture I could see for reference? I'm terrified I'm going to ruin her fur coat! She's technically my brother's cat, but I maintain all the household cats. If I tried to clip out all her mats she would look like she lost a fight with Edward Scissorhands. I kind of want her to look pretty, but mat free!

Beck also needs her fur trimmed, but for a totally different reason. She's a white hair (With gray spots) and seriously overweight. She's just a weird cat. Very depressed, a foodie, and if you try to help her out of it she gets mean and attacks all the other cats. She hates cleaning her fur due to her size and depression. So she's lost the rights to her fur until she takes care of it. Spoon is my main concern, but hey, kill two birds with one stone, right?
 

Furballsmom

Cat Devotee
Staff Member
Forum Helper
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
39,271
Purraise
53,931
Location
Colorado US
Let me look, I might not be able to find one until tonight when I get home :)
 

Furballsmom

Cat Devotee
Staff Member
Forum Helper
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
39,271
Purraise
53,931
Location
Colorado US
I have this - his bib and chest fur is uneven from a scissors trim, but I'm not that worried about it to tell you the truth :) I can't find one from a shave, but my goodness, that supershort fur is so incredibly SOFT it's almost worth doing it just for that :thumbsup:
 

Attachments

Last edited:

Furballsmom

Cat Devotee
Staff Member
Forum Helper
Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Messages
39,271
Purraise
53,931
Location
Colorado US
After looking a little further, I found this one on his purple pillow where his tummy had been either trimmed, or possibly that's a partially grown-out shave. For comparison the picture of him in the kitchen is his first day here :cloud9: and in the chair outside, he's a hairy mess lol

To me, he looks awful with that stringy fur all hanging down every which way, so in his case I think even an uneven trim is better than that LOL
 

Attachments

Willowy

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Mar 1, 2009
Messages
31,886
Purraise
28,287
Location
South Dakota
I've shaved a couple of my cats, and one of my dogs. No, it never looks good. . .it takes a lot of practice to learn how to wield a clipper like a pro. And cat and dog fur has a very different texture than human hair, so it clogs up the clipper blades and doesn't shave evenly. So, it's a pain, but better than being matted. And you might be better at it than I am :tongue:.
 

Kissamew

My attitude is inspired by cats....
Young Cat
Joined
May 28, 2019
Messages
49
Purraise
114
I have never shaved a cat. I did have a Himalayan that a breeder dumped (she had gotten out and had "stray" kittens, so they didn't want her anymore), but our rule was "If you want to play with and pet Bootsie, you also have to comb her first". She loved grooming, so it wasn't so bad. However, I did upload a picture, before, of a grooming tool I bought from Amazon for someone else. Maybe it could work for you. Nola has thick fur, and this does not seem to pull like a furminator. Best of luck with your kitty!
GoPets.jpg
 

basscat

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Dec 29, 2015
Messages
1,874
Purraise
5,724
Furballsmom Furballsmom , I use some really small battery powered pet clippers. We do thirty minute sessions every evening for about a week to get trimmed. Yeah, it looks like she has mange when finished (I'm just that good with trimmers) :lol:
30 minutes at a time is all she can stand. After that, she gets cranky enough to shred anything in her sight.
But, she still has a fuzzy head, fuzzy tail, and fuzzy from the knees down.
Almost looks like a poodle.
And MUCH happier.
Her mats must pull on her skin and make her uncomfortable.
 

LittleShadow

TCS Member
Adult Cat
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
175
Purraise
330
We had a longhair, Simon, once who we shaved regularly. We got him from friends who didn't really "own" him, they'd just started feeding the friendly stray so he'd stop eating their koi. They'd asked around, and consensus was he'd belonged to a family who moved and left him, so friend mentioned him to us, and long story short, we'd thought he was a munchkin cross.

Nope. His legs were just matted to his body so badly that he could only move them from the elbow down. We took him to the groomer, and they shaved him pretty much to the skin all over because of how badly matted he was. As his fur grew out, we discovered that he was very against being brushed, so we just got him trimmed every 3-4 months at the groomer.

Some experimentation with lengths and styles, and I found that we got the neatest results from the shortest trims, even when a professional did it. A short clip created a soft, velvety short hair look, and was fairly nice looking. A slightly longer cut would leave slightly....choppy results, though the professional could get it to be fairly even in the choppiness. It basically couldn't be cut so it didn't end up with clipper marks due to the texture if it was beyond a certain fairly short length. The longer the fur was left, the choppier it looked, no matter what the professionals tried.

So I can't speak to at home trimming, but I'd say go for shorter clips if you want it neater looking in general. Hope that helps? Also, Simon loved his shorter fur. He knew when it was getting too long for him and would come up and flop and dramatically pant and walk to the carrier when it was time for a trim!
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #19

EveAndHerThieves

TCS Member
Thread starter
Adult Cat
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
198
Purraise
347
So I bit the bullet and bought a shaver. Wow she looks horrible! My mom is furious, my brother is grumpy, Spoon is hiding in terror... If it wasn't for the fact there was no other way to do it, I'd feel terrible. But what's done is done. I'm thinking I'll have to trim her stomach fur shorter eventually. It's also matting. I'll have to practice to get better. I could only afford a human shaver at the moment, but it's better than nothing. I trimmed the fur short and then shaved. Luckily she's a whiner more than a fighter so she stayed in place easily. We had to use the shortest size of guard on her fur. It's the undercoat that's clumping. The top coat is fine.

It's really oily, clumpy, and just unkept. I'm not sure if it's leftovers from when she was sick (which she might still be) or what. I'm going to try fish oil with her. I don't want to shave her again!
 
Top