I swear everytime I need to post its because of my baby Hector. He's a beautiful smokey 1 year old persian I "adopted" about 5 or 6 months ago. My bf's brothers girlfriend raises persians and desperately needed someone to adopt Hector because another cat had just had a litter and she didn't have room for him anymore. He was born in a small bedroom and lived there with his brothers and sisters the entire 7 months of his life before being given to us. He had never been out of the room before and I could tell the girl who gave him to us hadn't spent much time with him when he was young because he was very very timid and his fur was pretty matted. We couldn't even pet him for quite a while let alone brush him, cut his nails, or pick him up. It took us quite a few months of working patiently with him before he became comfortable with people at all. He's a wonderfully affectionate cat now and has attached himself to me following me from room to room around my house. My only problem is that since she didn't work with him more when he was younger he's still very tough to groom. I try to brush him and occasionally he'll sit for 2 or 3 minutes but then he's up and out before I get more than a few strokes in. A month or so after we got him he let us start getting the mats off his back and sides but his belly is still pretty matted and he tends to get mats "back there". We've had to take him to the vet twice so they could remove them because they were irritating his rear and giving him trouble when he used the litter box. The vet had to do it though so someone could control him cause he's still really paranoid about being handled. I can only pick him up for a few seconds at a time and there's still no way I can cut his nails. I really want to take good care of him and do a better job grooming him but I can't figure out how to make him trust me more to let me do these things. And he doesn't eat treats so food as a reward hasn't really worked out either. Someone please help me help my baby!!!