Matted/knotted fur only along spine

[rad65]

My cat has a couple of mats or knots in his fur, and this only happens along his spine. He's a shorthair cat, but every other cat in his litter was longhair, and his fur is amazingly thick and soft for a shorthair. His shedding ability is a running joke in my apartment, as is the fact that he never gets any less fluffy even after I comb handfuls of fur off of him. He's never had knots in his fur before, but he started getting them a few months ago. For the record, he is four years old and I have had him the entire time.

It was one small knot at first, and I cut it out of his fur cos it didn't go away after a couple days. Then he got another knot a couple weeks later, which I again cut out of his fur. Then another a couple weeks after that, and finally he got a couple of somewhat bad knots at the same time yesterday. I gave him a bath, his least favorite activity, but the knots were still there when he dried off. I cut them out, but I can feel tiny knots forming along his back and I don't for the life of me know what could be causing them.

He hasn't changed any behavior recently, nothing around my apartment has changed, and it is only affecting the back half of his spine, no more than 1/2" from dead-center. Does anyone know what the issue could be, or how I can stop it from continuing?

 

[GemsGem]

Oh wow, it's sounds like your kitty has a really thick dense coat like the type of coats British shorthairs have. Is it that thick that it doesn't lie flat but actually almost stands up straight against his body ?

If so, I think what happens is at moulting times of the year is due to the fur being that thick and dense the dead old hair cannot just all fall out of its own accord. Some gets trapped in the coat then more gets trapped in that, and then this forms knots and matts.

I'm guessing it's happening along his spine because this is the place that's hardest for him to reach when grooming himself.

What I do when I have cats with this type of fur come into my grooming salon is comb them though with a flea comb first. It needs to be a comb which the teeth are really close together and a flea comb is perfect for this type of fur.

You do need to press quite firm to get the comb right down into the undercoat next to the skin. Lots of short stokes in one place and moving on to next spot when that patch is free of dead hair.

After the whole coat is done with the flea comb, I then use a furminator de-shedding tool to thin the coat out by getting as much of the undercoat coat out as possible.

Then I finish by going over the top of the coat with a Zoom Groom brush

Oh and bathing a cat that has knots only makes the knots worse. Getting a knot wet then drying it makes the hair in the knot actually get tighter and stick together more firmer and harder as it dries.

Hope this helps

 

[rad65]

Thanks for all that helpful advice. I do own a flea comb, though I have never used it since my cats never got fleas (bought it in my original splurge of things in anticipation of adopting my cats). The furminator was getting stuck, and I know that thing will rip out hair if tugged, so I didn't want to do any damage with it. I'm also happy that my Zoom Groom will get some use other than as a chew toy for this guy

Thanks for the advise about baths. My cat also thanks you for that tidbit. Both of my cats are usually pretty good about cleaning themselves. It has just been so ridiculously humid in my area for a long time, so that might be adding to the problem.