Cat Grooming - Signs & Symptoms of Possible Cat Grooming Issues

So kind of just what everybody thinks. I can goofily make the motion, but they use their mouths, their tongue. That is their number one grooming tool. Sometimes they'll even use their feet or things like that to assist them in places their mouth can't get. And as everybody has seen, these guys are incredibly flexible. They can get just about anywhere on their body to groom. But a lot of it is using their scratchy tongue kind of like a little hairbrush to brush through their coat and groom themselves.

Dr. Cara Hill
Advanced Animal Care - Berea

It helps to keep down on things like matting, helps keep them clean, helps keep the coat healthy and helps to release natural oils. And it's a good indicator of the general health of your cat too. Sometimes when their hair coat is a little unkempt or it's starting to get matted or overly greasy feeling or things like that, then we start to look for some other health concerns that might be affecting your pet's grooming.

Signs that a cat is no longer grooming themselves properly are much of what I just mentioned. So if they're developing hair mats, where the hair gets kind of clumped together, or if the hair coat starts to feel greasy or tacky. Sometimes it looks a little clumpy. There can even be some sores on your cat's skin, so if you notice anything like that. Or there are situations where cats do what we call over-groom, where they're excessively grooming. They're just grooming and grooming and grooming and grooming. And they're getting to the point where they're removing bits of hair, tufts of hair or clumps of hair, and grooming themselves to the point where they're bald. And that's something that we want to look at and address and get better.

Sometimes it's something as simple as you have an older pet and that cat has arthritis that has been undiagnosed and is having trouble grooming himself, and we need to manage the arthritis. Sometimes there are some other conditions that we can see due to a poor hair coat. Maybe they're losing clumps of hair because they have fleas or a skin infection, or there's a whole host of things that can be portrayed through their hair coat.

There are groomers out there, bless their souls, that will groom cats. And sometimes it's needed. Sometimes we have those older pets that are arthritic and are having a harder time grooming themselves and need a little bit of assistance there. I really love... For those guys, I've got a FURminator comb here. This really helps to pull out the undercoat and also has this little release on it that helps push the hair out once it gets caught in the tines there. I've also got a slicker brush here, which works really well. And you can brush it down the cat's back and it'll catch a lot of hair and stuff like that. But some people have long-haired cats and they deal with the issue of constant hairballs or things like that, and their cats do better when they're shaved down professionally by a groomer.

If you still have other questions and you'd like to reach out to us, you can call us directly at (859) 985-5678, you can email us, or you can reach out on Facebook. But please do reach out, and we'll get back to you as fast as we can.

Cat Grooming - FAQs

Dr. Cara Hill
Advanced Animal Care - Berea

Hey everybody, Dr. Hill here at Advanced Animal Care Berea. And today, I'm going to let you guys know what we can offer you and your feline friends in terms of grooming. And this is specific to Advanced Animal Care Berea. So as many of our cat clients know, we offer nail trims, and we do quite a bit of those. We also do the soft paw applications for you guys. So if you're in a situation where you're not comfortable with declawing or your pets may be too old to declaw, but you're having issues with them tearing up furniture, we do the soft paw applications. You just have to bring your own soft paws.

But other things that we can do here for you or several of our clients include bathing, so we can bathe your cat for you if you'd like. We also offer shave downs, and we have several clients that do shave downs on their pets. Now, granted, we're not groomers. We don't claim to be, but we can make your pet more comfortable with a functional haircut—that’s what we like to call it. And for those pets that maybe get a little stressed with the grooming or just stress at the vet in general, we offer sedated services to make your pet more relaxed and comfortable.

Suppose you prefer a professional haircut for your cat, but maybe your pet did need some sedation. In that case, we have a groomer that we work with who is a professional up in Lexington, and she comes into the clinic and can do professional grooming while we sedate your pet for you.

If you still have other questions and you'd like to reach out to us, you can call us directly at (859) 985-5678, you can email us, or you can reach out on social media. But please do reach out, and we'll get back to you as fast as we can.