Cross Breeds

Help Wanted! Please answer and give me some good advice on how to deal with my 3 FUR BALLS (cats lol)?

Is it OK to bathe my cats once a month to keep them clean and remove loose hair? Should I bathe them more often? Any *special* brushes or shampoos to help with shedding? Tips on how to cut down on vomiting? With 3 cats I tend to clean up at least 2 hair balls a week and it always stains the carpet. Cat grass? My cats ADORE it. Does it help - or make worse - hair balls? Last question............ How do I keep my cats off my bed, furniture and kitchen counter? When I am home I use a squirt bottle filled with water but as soon as I leave the house the sneaky little devils crawl in the bed, take over the furniture and wallow all over the kitchen counter!!! This is REALLY getting on my nerves. What can I do?

Public Comments

1. 1. Stop bathing your cats!!! Cats do not EVER need baths unless they roll in something disgusting. It's not good for their skin or coat to bathe them. For shedding, use a rubber curry brush and a stiff boar bristle brush. Some breeds do well with the Furminator, but it's sharp so be careful using it on cats. 2. The hairballs are probably aggravated by bathing. When you bathe them, they re-groom themselves afterwards ingesting abnormally large amounts of hair and possibly shampoo residue, which is going to cause vomiting. Get some hairball remedy and give them each a dose a few times a week. 3. Grass doesn't hurt cats, but they do tend to eat it to help regurgitate hairballs. 4. You cannot keep cats off furniture. If you have that much of a problem, you shouldn't have gotten cats. Cats go where they please and there's no point trying to tell them otherwise- it won't work. Just get used to it.
2. I bathed my cat once 2 years ago when he was still y oung and it was the worst day of my life, I still have the scars. He has a lot of hair, but they have brushes that you can use to get up hair, generally you don't need to bathe cats they do it themselves. as for Cat grass it's fine My cat is well behaved when I am home but when I get back it's horrible. When I use to have my dog out (who is now kennel trained) they'd work together to rip apart trash and get ceral and other food stuffs. But cat by himself isn't as bad. There isn'tr eally much you can do. Keep breakables to a minimum?
3. well, to start, cats clean themselves well, so you don't really need to give them a bath. just brush them every other day(if it is a longhaired cat, do it everyday) the brushes all depend on the cat. for my cat, i use a slicker brush, but that is for shorthaired cats. longhaired cats need a flea comb, round brush, bristle brush and maybe a slicker brush. cats eat the hair they lick off themselve. someitimes, there is a buildup in their stomach and they need to throw up for the hairball not to block the cat intestines. this is a larger trait in longhaired cats. feed your cats a liittle bit of Vaseline to decrease the amount of hairballs they get. catgrass relieves the cats digestive system from all the meat they eat. when a cat eats grass, they will probably throw it up later, but if you want to stop the vomiting, then you can prevent them from eating it. it won't hurt them. for your furniture problem, put double sided tape, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or another tacky thing to make them stay off. the cats won't like it on their paws, so they will get off. for the bed, you can put anything that jingles, squeaks, rustles and/or tingles under the sheets of your bed. the cats will be startled and probably jump of the bed. keep changng the soung the bed makes , so the cats won't know waht noise to expect and they will be startled instead ofgetting used to the noise. Hope I helped!
4. Actually, you can bathe cats. I bathe my cats once a month , because they are outdoor . I bathe them with a light cat shampoo. and by the way both of them are open females. people need to stfu about ohh spay and neuter eww! They are animals and neutering them screws them up. they are meant to mate and have babies. my 2 open females and my male i had before never stank because I took care of them. how would you like to be fixed " when u were little and never have the chance ? thats the worlds problem , people find a man made alternative for everything. let it be !
5. The bathing thing doesn't matter... it is whatever you feel like they need. I have 2 cats and they are about 6 and they have only had one bath in their entire life, AND they're outdoor cats. You can ask their vet about the shampoos and brushes. And there is special cat chow that cut down hair balls and if you keep them well brushed, then they don't have to lick off the hairs and cough them back up! And when at home continue the squirt bottle but when you leave either try shutting your doors, or putting them in a cage of some-sort. Hope I helped!
6. OK, so I totally agree with the other person except for number 4. My baby stays off of the counters because his first experience with them was very sticky. There is this double sided tape that isnt supposed to hurt your surfaces. Cats do not like to get their paws sticky, so when they learn that a surface is sticky, they probably wont get onto it again (unless they have found any tasty morsels, then ur in trouble). Once he got a little overzealous when I was about to feed him. I just so happened to have the aluminum (or whatever material they are) burner covers kind of hanging off of hte counter. Man when he knocked those things over and they clanged on the floor, poor thing he ran like a bat out of hell! Never tried to jump on the counter again. BUT since then I have gotten him a tall cat tree and a couple of other things for him to BE a cat on. As for the furniture, there is a spray called No Stay that kind of works. You have to spray it every few days. During ths process, I decided that it didnt matter if my kitty got up on the couch so I stopped using it. But, when I did he would jump up and then immediately down. Usually I would try to say Get down at this same time...But a real attempt at training them to get down would be very helpful. Yea, the water only works if they dont know its coming from you. Another thing that works is the canned air umm spray cans. Ajax hates that noise and will stop whatever he is doing whether he feels the air or not. I keep my bedroom door closed when I am not home, taking care that he is not trapped in there of course. As for pet stains, there is a product called Nature's Remedy or something like that in a white bottle with red markings (help me out please people) that works like a charm....no more stain and no more smell. Good luck!