There are plenty of good reasons to brush your cat each week, and here are twelve of them.
Some cats love to be brushed, some cats hate to be brushed.
Check For Fleas
Have you ever seen a flea comb? It’s a great way to see if your cat has fleas. While this is not they type of brush you want to use to brush the full coat of your cat, it can detect fleas. It’s a good idea to brush a few stokes along the cat’s back. As you brush the cat, look to see if any fleas appear. Flease are not only parasites, but also disease carriers. If you find fleas, contact your vet to find out the safest effective treatement.
Remove Shedding Hair
Whether using a cat hair removal tool, a normal brush, or a normal comb, there are few better tools to remove shedding cat hair. Simply brushing the cat even once weekly will surprise you at how much hair cats shed. Summer months may be stronger shedding months than the cooler ones, and brushing can help keep their coat free from loose fur. Always check with the vet first to ensure it is not harmful to comb or brush the cat. Assuming it is safe, you can take multiple brush strokes with and against the grain of the cat’s coat. Keep in mind that some cat’s may be more sensitive than others in certain areas of their body such as their belly. Some cats absolutely hate to be brushed, so try to be as gentle as possible when this is the case. The reasons that some cats don’t like to be brushed can also be for reasons such as the cat having arthritis or other medical conditions that make it painful. When brushing using a cat removal tool please be careful not to get over zealous. Some of these tools while helpful can appear to skin the cat by ripping out hair that is not loose if over used or applied to many times. Don’t inflict pain on the kitty, but use in moderation.
Keep Cool In Summer
As you can imagine, it’s hard to keep cool in the hot Summer months when wearing a heavy fur coat. Especially imagine how hot it is for black cats that have sunlight absorbing coats. While most cats have fur coats, it’s helpful to brush away as much shedding fur as possible to keep their coats thin and cool.
It can be amazing just how much fur cats shed in the warmer months, and it’s a major project for them to keep well groomed as a result. A few minutes of your time can lighten the burden of endless grooming that the cat has to do to keep up with the massive shedding.
Help Them Groom Hard To Reach Spots
Ever have a back scratcher to reach those hard spots on your back that itch? While many cat’s will go to great lengths to groom their fur coats, it can be difficult to reach certain areas. Some of the positions are challenging even for a cat. You can help them by brushing the hard to reach areas for them.
Help Senior, Or Sick Animals Too Elderly To Groom Themselves
More important yet is to brush older cats that have given up on grooming themselves since it’s so exhausting. Similarly, cat’s with health problems may no longer be able to perform the activities of grooming and may need your assistance.
Reduce Hairballs
Does kitty cough up hairballs? Most cats do. Sadly, longhaired cats are especially prone to cough up hairballs.
Simply brushing the cat weekly can highly reduce hairball problems. The reason is because the brush is removing the shed fur from their coat instead of their corse tongues. When they remove the hair with their tongue, they swallow it. Then the hair can collect and turn into a hairball that they cat must cough up to expell from their body.
Imagine how uncomfortable it must be to have fur in your throat that’s hard to swallow, and then collecting only to be vomited out to get recover.
Please brush the cat as often as possible to reduce hairball problems.
Reduce Furr Mats
Another challenge faced predominately by long haired cats are mats in their fur. A mat is similar to a dreadlock in human hair. The hair, often oily, clumps, tangles, or knots up over a period of time causing a dense region of uncomfortable hair on the cat.
These matted clumps of hair are not only uncomfortable, but are hard to remove. Mats can also be dangerous to cut off the cat since they often form close to the surface of the cat’s skin. To make matters worse, many cats don’t like people trying to remove the mats since it is pulling on the already tight mat. A dense mat likely feels similar to having pulled hair, or a pony tail that was pulled to tight.
Often long haired cats, elderly cats, or cats with medical conditions are more likely to develop mats in their coat.
Please brush weekly, or even more often if you have a cat:
-With especially oily fur
-One that doesn’t groom it’s self due to age, medical problems, or other reasons
Mats are far easier to brush out or remove early on than after they have condensed and grown large, so please brush kitty often.
Remove Debris From Coat
Debris can collect in cats, which may become more than the cat can easily remove on it’s own.
Burrs are an especially difficult form of debris to remove, and can be painful to the cat. Burs can tangle deep within the cat’s fur coat causing tangling that may even need to be cut out. As with several of the other reasons mentioned to brush cats often, burrs most often affect long haired cats.
Reduce Hair On Furniture & Clothes
Do you like cat hair on your furniture? Most people don’t.
Fortunately, there is a solution to significantly reduce the amount of shed cat hair on the furniture. Brushing the cat often is a great solution!
Less Cat Hair On Your Clothes
Similar to cat hair on the furniture, is cat hair on your clothes. Especially when wearing dark clothes with light colored cat hair, or vice versa.
Simply brushing your cat frequently can cut down on the amount of pet hair roller work that needs to be done.
Stiumlation / Back Scratch For Some Cats That Like It
Just like people, many cats enjoy the stimulation of a good back scratch. Not all cats like it, but many do. If so, it’s a great chance to remove shedding cat hair, and also pamper the cat at the same time.
Kitty Confidence
Cats, much like people, appear to feel more confident when they are well groomed. Many cats enjoy having a beautifully groomed, beautiful fur coat. Sadly, it’s thought that the reason some cats over-groom themselves is to seek approval if they feel unaccepted or unloved in a home.
Brushing the cat is just a simple way to help increase it’s confidence quickly and easily.
Conclusion
Brushing cats is a great idea for many reasons, some of which we’ve discussed in this post.
The key to keeping up on it is to set a normal day and time to do it so it becomes routine.
Brushing your cat means keeping a cleaner home, and better hygene for your feline companion as well.
Best regards & happy brushing,
-Randy / Animal Weekly
