Two-year-old Ragdoll cat had never been brushed which destroyed her coat
Misty, a two-year-old Ragdoll cat, had never been brushed in her life – meaning vets at Blue Cross animal hospital in London spent more than an hour clipping her fur which weighed 200 grams.
Ragdoll cats are purebred and a desirable cat (for most). Sadly this cat owner, about which we have no details, never brushed her Ragdoll called Misty. Misty had become homeless. I am not sure if she was abandoned. It looks like that.
The interesting aspect of this story is that the coat was “destroyed” because it had never been brushed by the owner. Misty’s coat became a health hazard to her as opposed to being a health benefit.
That means that Ragdoll cats and any other long haired cats are incapable of looking after their own coat. If that is true it means that the coat of the Ragdoll and other long haired breeds have been created too long and have become unmanageable by the cat without assistance from humans. Does that mean we can blame cat breeders for this strange state of affairs?
It took veterinary assistants two hours to shear Misty’s coat off – a bit like sheep-shearing. The coat came off in one piece. It was solid as it was so tightly matted.
A worrying aspect of this story is that the Blue Cross Animal Hospital in London say that they receive quite a lot of long haired cats who have not been groomed enough resulting in unmanageable matts.
Either cat owners are unaware that long haired cats need regular (I’d say daily) grooming by humans or they are lazy and don’t want to bother to do it. Then the coat becomes so bad that it has to be shaved off under anesthetic (which carries a risk to the cat’s health, incidentally).
There is no doubt in my mind that long haired cats need to be grooming daily. If it is done daily maintaining the coat in good condition is easy as only five minutes of grooming is required. Light matts can be groomed out but even that can be tricky to do without hurting the cat.
When a cat’s coat is this badly matted the skin suffers too. Misty’s skin was very dry and sore. She is receiving pain killers.
It will take 4-6 months for the coat to grow back. When adopting a long haired cat the adopter needs to factor in grooming time in addition to the usual tasks in properly looking after her/his cat.
Misty is being rehomed.
Source: Homeless London cat Misty’s coat was so matted vet had to shave her fur off | Daily Mail Online
It takes 2 minutes of anyone’s time at the most to groom a cat. Ragdolls enjoy human attention; hence, no wrestling would be needed. My “rag” Billy is always ready to drop on the floor for some brushing…he lives for it. And it’s a great bonding time for us…rags are such a delight, how could you not yield to his ask of brushing?
I loved your comment Elle and Billy is awesome. He is a Wow cat. As for grooming, I completely agree. It is fun and pleasurable for both human and cat so why not do it all the time.
Dear Albert, sorry for your loss *
I have four Maine Coons who need constant care and attention as each one is different from the other. One’s coat is an entirely different texture than the others and thinner. She has skin allergies.Her name is Calliope. A speckled color all over.
My calico colored Maine ZOE is tiny under all her fur , and around 10 yrs old as are her sisters.She needs a little help now under the front/chest area and a small grooming on her pantaloons*
The runt is a copy of her large mother in miniature. so far she is healthy and doesn’t require anything extra to help her groom.Her name is C.C.Meo.
Theo is our 11 1/2 yr. old Mama cat, who has several issues due to a botched spaying and genetic traits from one parent.
I have found that these cats need to be checked almost daily so mats don’t form, in case if infections, etc.
Note: After the Long haired cats reach a certain age [ in my experience around 9 years; take caution when shaving as they tend to not always regrow a full coat as they become older.
We lost a Beautiful Silver-n-Black male around 6 yrs ago, because he was not properly shaved and cleaned during his neuter operation. No followup appointment was given either ?. We miss our sweet and powerfully majestic ‘Zebediah’ ,and we lost him due partly to improper grooming and veterinary neglect.
Eva_
Has it been considered that the cats lack of attention to it’s own coat was from being mistreated and unhappy.
After Kitten was floxed I did a lot of mindless reading. It will not surprise me if stress is eventually listed as the number one cause of disease in cats. With cats it seems to suppress the immune system to an extent that is not seen in other animals or even humans.
My Maine Coon, though he was small, had longish fur but he was very adept at grooming himself… that’s all he did. I brushed him, but he didn’t need it until he aged to about 16 (I found his tummy was matted). To my surprise he let me shave it with electric shears. I’d never done it before and I’m sure he never had it done, but that’s the level of trust and companionship we had, and it went perfectly. We had the most loving relationship and I miss him terribly.
This Ragdoll must have had an excessively long coat, my two Birman’s never had any trouble at all with looking after their coats, I wouldn’t rate them as being long haired. Maybe something got into the coat (though it doesn’t look like it) to get it into that state.
In all honesty, How long does it take to give your cat a quick brushing on a daily basis. Tiny matts can be cut out without destroying the coat and avoid larger ones. Cats can become quite accustomed to grooming and shaving if necessary to maintain their overall health. For a cat to be this badly destroyed there is likely other abuse involved.
“other long haired cats are incapable of looking after their own coat (…) Does that mean we can blame cat breeders for this strange state of affairs?”
This kind of implies that all long haired cats are created by breeders. What about regular domestic longhair cats? Most are result of natural mutations. I just looked it up on wiki, and it says long haired cats were documented in Italy in 1521, long before anybody ever thought of breeding cats or looking at cats as anything but mousers.
Several long hair breeds are natural – Angoras, Siberians, Main Coons.
While the natural breeds or regular DLH don’t mat as much as Persians or Angora, they do mat too. My relatives’ had a DLH they found as kitten in a Russian rural village, and while she was of no particular breed, she had to be brushed and matted too, though maybe not as bad as Persians given that somehow long haired cats do survive on their own.
So while we could blame the breeder and the owner in this case as well as the breeders of Persians, I don’t think we can blame all long haired cats on breeders.
At first, I thought it was hard to say where to lay blame.
Purebred cats are often bought from breeders who don’t spell out what a cat may require. The buyer only knows that they want a purebred cat and are ignorant of what work it may entail to maintain.
So, we have a breeder with dollar signs for eyes and a buyer who wants to boast about his purebred cat.
No coin toss… both are idiots.
I’ve had unfortunate experience in the failure of “owners” of longhaired cats in caring for
their car’s coat. The worst was an old Persian who came in for PTS. according to the owner, the cat couldn’t walk! Well, I don’t know of any mammal who would be able to walk if it’s fur was matted so badly, the legs were immobile! This was a sweet old man(the cat, not the owner). We couldn’t sedate him because of his age and bad condition. Plus we couldn’t get to the leg to draw blood for testing. It took me 4 days of shaving to get him “naked. I started with the rear legs, then the front legs, then the rest. He cooperated fully-seeming to understand we were helping. He was so happy when he could move his legs and walk and use the litter! His owner took him home and we saw him every few weeks for a shave. Unfortunately, the little guy only lived for a few more months before passing. I shed many tears for him.