Oh, fluffy kitties you are so nice

Your fur coat would keep you warm in ice

But since we live in more temperate climes

You’re always shedding all the time

What do you think?  Am I the next William Carlos Williams?  No?  I didn’t think so either.

But I am a good cat mommy who brushes her little treasures *almost* every day.  At least every other day.  That has got to be acceptable.  It is enough to keep them from developing matts on their fluffy behinds (a lesson I learned the hard way) so I feel like I am doing a good enough job.

In addition to their regular brushings with the slicker brush, they get attacked with the FURminator once a week (as per the official FURminator instructions).  Now you would think that since they are getting brushed out pretty often, their weekly FURminator sessions would not be a big deal.  I would think so.

And then here is what I wound up with after this weekend’s groom-a-thon:

Yikes, right?

I probably could have gotten more but official FURminator instructions are very explicit about not over grooming with the tool because it could cause skin irritation.

Now, in spite of all of this brushing, someone (Sally, I’m looking at you) still gets hairballs!  Don’t think that I didn’t want to take a picture of the latest one to share with you, but Mr. Man assures me that hairballs are gross and no one wants to see that.

Their favorite grooming implement are the gloves with the silicon nubbles on them.  Anabel will actually come up to me when I bust these guys out.  They are nice to work with because you can grab the cat with one hand and groom with the other.  You can also get all sorts of places that are tricky with a brush.  She really just wants her chin scratched, but she doesn’t mind when I get after her tummy and her arm pits as much as she does with the brush.

I suppose all this grooming is the price that one must pay to have happy, fluffy kitties around.  It is a small price to pay.  I can’t say that I do a very good job, judging by the state of my furniture but at least this is one of those things that just doing it is almost good enough. Boy, I’ll tell you what though, they sure do feel and look nice once we’re done.

The kitties always groom themselves

They do not think they need my help

But when a hairball I find

We all know it’s brushing time

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I mean look at this!

I googled images for furry cat feet and none of them had hair coming out from between their toes like Sally does.

That is not to say that these are the only kitties with furry toes.  I discovered a great term for it on Wikipedia: toe tufts.  According to Wikipedia, toe tufts are, “commonly found on cats with medium to long coats.”  To officially qualify as a “tuft” the fur must stick out at least a centimeter from the paw pads (so strict!).

Cats with toe tufts are even more silent than non-toe-tufted breeds.  Except when they slip on the wood floor and crash into something in the middle of the night, then they are equally noisy.  It certainly means that they are well-equipped to traverse snowy ground…not that that is something that I have to worry my kittens will ever experience.

Mr. Man thought that I should ask the vet if we should trim the kitten’s toe tufts (and by “we” he meant me).  The answer is (thankfully) no.  Messing with it could cause irritation that would lead to excessive grooming which could cause problems.  Of course, if my kitten steps in gum or some other sticky gunk (I’m not making this up y’all, this is what the vet told me), I should try to work the sticky gunk out with olive oil before taking scissors to it.  If my kitten steps in gum, Mr. Man is going to have a lot of explaining to do.  Can you imagine?

I will admit that on occasion, I’ve accidentally snipped a bit of toe tuft when trimming the kittens’ claws.  Sometimes it is really hard to know what I’ve got when I’m looking at Anabel’s white claws against her white furry feet.  It doesn’t happen often, and no one has found it a reason to be irritated yet (beyond the standard low-grade irritation of having one’s claws trimmed).

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