Cat Care in General
Cats are known to be very clean animals and they spend a lot of time with
the care of their fur and claws. Nevertheless you should "help" your cat with the
"care program". This applies in particular to longhaired cats like persians and maine
coons who need much more care than shorthaired cats.
We recommend to get your cat accustomed to the daily care procedure, like grooming, from the
first day on. Our persians have to be combed every two days in order to prevent their fur from
getting matted. You need a special hair brush for animals that you can buy in every pet shop
and a comb for the knots. The best way to begin combing your cat is to put it on your lap and
start by combing the back. Talk lovingly with your cat while doing this and praise it if it
keeps still, so that the cat likes the procedure. A fidget (like our Ghizmo) who moves all
the time when he has to be combed on the belly must be held by the neck (please do not lift
the cat's feet up of the ground so that the fur of the neck doesn't take the whole weight of
the cat). We are of the opinion that there is nothing worse than a totally matted persian who
has to be closely cropped by the vet. So, please think of the daily "work" of grooming
when you decide to buy yourself a longhaired cat !!
Besides the fur also the eyes, ears and claws have to be looked after.
Unfortunately a lot of persians tend to have running eyes. To avoid the area around the eyes
and bridge of the nose becoming encrusted you should wipe the eyes every day with a soft, damp
(face) cloth. This procedure should also be started from the beginning on, so that your cat
gets used to it. Normally cats have clean ears, but it can happen that your cat "produces"
a lot of earwax. Then you should carefully remove the "dirt" once a week with some
Q-tips, but only in the outer part of the ear. Please do not stick the Q-tip into the inner
part of ear as there is a great danger of hurting the cat's ear. One false movement of the
cat is almost enough. You can buy a mild ear cleaning lotion (called EPI-OTIC) at the vet's
which can be applied to extremely "dirty" cat's ears. It is enough to put some drops
into the inner part of the ear (but please hold the cat's head firmly before applying). We
can recommend this lotion very much because our golden cat tends to have a lot of earwax which
became a lot better after the application of this lotion and he does not suffer from this procedure.
The topic of cutting a cat's claws is very controversial among cat owners. Our point of view
is that it is the individual decision of every cat owner whether his kitty sharpens his claws
on the furniture, carpets and wallpaper (because this is much more fun than using the cat tree)
or whether he prefers to cut the claws down a little bit. As we only keep our cats in the apartment,
we prefer to cut their claws and we thereby avoid getting "bloody" scratches from
our cats when they use their paws on our naked skin (like they do at their mother's belly to
get milk). You need some intuition for the procedure of claw cutting as you should only cut
the utmost end of the claw in order not to hurt the sensitive nerve inside the claw.
For cutting the claws we use a simple nail clipper. The easiest way to keep the cat still is
if somebody helps by holding the cat while the other pushes out the individual claw to cut
only the tip of it. Please always see that you can clearly recognize the nerve before starting
to cut. This is just a matter of practice and you can apply this procedure with your cat beginning
with the third month of its life so that the cat gets accustomed to this procedure as well.