Since the birth of our son in November, we have slacked off on brushing our 4 year old female Maine Coon. Consequently she had developed fur mats on her back in an area that she can not reach. Short of sedating her and shaving her, are there any remedies for this?

-- Anonymous, July 09, 1999

Answers

On Maine Coon cats we tend to see mats appearing first under their legs (caused by their walking/running and rubbing the hairs together) rather than on their backs, so are you sure that the back mats are the ONLY ones your cat has? Your question seems to imply that she won't let you work on the mats yourself by gradually teasing away all the pieces. If you try to cut the mats out yourself, please remember to point your scissors away from the skin, not towards it. If you get the point of your scissors into the base of the mat and cut STRAIGHT OUT towards the end of the hair tips (rather than cutting in the direction from the end of the hair tips TOWARDS the skin), you may have some success in splitting the mats up. Don't waste your money on supposed "detanglers".....they don't work, add chemicals which end up getting licked by the cat, and make the hair greasy and, in our view, more likely to mat even more than before!! Also, "mat splitters" which some people are tempted to buy in these circumstances are tools which should only be used by very proficient groomers as these multi-bladed instruments can easily harm a cat. If the mats are bad and you can't handle them yourself by teasing apart and some careful scissoring, take her along to your vet and see what he/she can do first without having to put the cat under anaesthetic. Sometimes, just being in a strange (vet) environment can make the cat engrossed enough that it will allow more grooming than you could do at home yourself. At least your vet is unlikely to cut the cat's skin which is really easy to do at home and horrible for the cat! Above all, please don't leave the mats as they are as they will become painful to your cat and could cause all kinds of other problems if ignored (eg. sores, etc.). Good luck!

-- Anonymous, July 12, 1999