Cat Grooming 101

The girls have been to school three days this week!! We are on a roll! Ironically, I am going to take them out of school this Friday and next Tuesday for us to travel to Huntsville, AL to visit with friends for the holiday weekend. We have not been to Huntsville in a while, so it should be lots of fun. I can tell that I am losing my touch with Alabama after twelve years of living in other places. When the friends mentioned watching an Alabama football game on Saturday, it was a shock to me to realize that it is indeed football season. I remember when I would count down the weeks until the next season started.

Our project for this week has been cat grooming. Our cat, Conan, is a long haired cat. Recently, he seems to be getting furrier (is that a word?). That means he is shedding more, and he is throwing up more hair balls. His hair was also matted on his chest, and despite our best efforts with scissors, we were unable to get the mats out because Conan totally freaks out when he is held. We decided a double pronged approach was in order. I bought a trimmer and got the vet to give us some drugs to sedate the cat. Last night we sedated him before dinner, and after dinner we got our hands on him for a while. The sedative did not work as well as we would have liked. It took a little fight out of him, but Mike and I still ended up with a few scratches. Anyway, below are some before and after pictures of our first attempt at cat grooming. At least Conan does not know what he looks like.

Before

After