Do You Groom Your Cat?

A common belief is that cats groom themselves so you don't need to bother with grooming them. While it's true that most people don't take their cats to the groomer's like dog owners do, cats do need occasional help with grooming. Regular brushing or combing helps control shedding and hairballs. It also reduces allergens flying around in your home.

Little Vixen is 22 now, so she doesn't really groom herself very often, other than washing her face after eating. She has an arched comb that I think is her favorite thing I've ever bought her. Almost daily, I'll see her combing her face on it. Sometimes, she even feels good enough to bat around her newest catnip toy. (Thanks, Yeowww! catnip, for returning some of the kitten to my senior girl!)

But she still gets mats in her hair, especially around the hip area where she has some pain and doesn't like to groom. She complains and gives me the "demon growl" all the while I'm combing her there, but I get out wads of old, dead undercoat hair, as the photo in today's post illustrates. That's all from this morning's grooming! I find it best to hold her in my lap with one hand firmly around her chest so she can't get away. Then I use the other hand to hold the comb, using my thumb to remove the hair from it when it's full. The part she hates most is when I flip her onto her back to comb her stomach area. That's when she tries to claw and bite me, but keeping her claws filed helps avoid serious injury. She doesn't have many teeth left, so her bite isn't what it used to be, either! When her hips are achy, she also complains rather loudly as I do those areas.

I also like to use a waterless shampoo on her during grooming to give her a fresh, clean smell and condition her coat. Older cats can get dry skin that flakes off into dandruff, especially toward the base of the spine area. I've also tried wipes. While those also give a clean, fresh smell, they don't seem to condition her coat quite as well. They sure are more convenient, however! While at the Global Pet Expo in March, I got samples of several companies' waterless shampoos and have been testing them on her. There's one I like better than the others for its light, clean fragrance. Vixen doesn't care for any of them, natch! More to come on the specifics of that when I can get some of them onto the retail site.

You'll find brushes, combs, and all the grooming tools you need for your cat at OldMaidCatLady.com. As you can imagine, long-haired cats call for different grooming tools than do short-haired ones. If you haven't taken a look recently, click on the links in this paragraph to shop grooming products now!

Economy Must Be Looking Up!

Something happened this week that really puzzled me. As I've posted before, the Charity of the Week program on OldMaidCatLady.com kicks off next week and I'm very excited about it. Each featured charity will get a blurb on my site that explains what they do to help cats, and will receive 10% of my profits that week. They get a little money to help their cause and some publicity in their community; I get some new people introduced to my new retail site; everybody wins, right?

This week, I've been touching base with my June charities to confirm that they've received my earlier communications and see if they need any additional help from me to promote the event to their local communities. So imagine my surprise when the executive director of one told me that they were not interested in participating! It seems that they were only interested if I was going to make a donation to them without anything being done on their part; just write them a check, essentially. I was so taken aback that I couldn't even question her further to see what her objection was.

And here I was, thinking that non-profits were off in donations due to the slower economy! I guess that's no longer true, and they're now able to turn away fundraising opportunities that don't require them to organize any events or do anything more than a little publicity work that'll also give them some news coverage for their cause. I'd thought that being selected as one of my Charities of the Week was an honor, and that people would be happy about it. This woman acted like it was an annoyance with which she couldn't be bothered. Her reaction caused me to wonder about whether I'm completely off-base altogether with offering this to local non-profits. I've scheduled one for each week of the next year; will others have the same ungrateful reaction?

If you have a non-profit group that helps cats in some sort of grassroots way, send me your info. In the event that any other of my selected charities has the same attitude as this one and I have an opening in my schedule, I'll plug you into a week. It's great that some non-profits don't need additional donations, but I'm betting that others would welcome them.

Less Than a Week!

It's an exciting time here at OldMaidCatLady.com! We'll be rolling out our "Charity of the Week" program next Monday, May 31.

Here's how it'll work. Each week, we'll feature a non-profit group that's helping cats on a local, grassroots level as our Charity of the Week. We'll have a profile on the website that tells about the charity and what they're doing for cats. These charities are located all over the United States. The selected charity will also receive 10% of our proceeds on items sold through OldMaidCatLady.com's shopping cart during their featured week. People who are already buying cat supplies can actually help cats by buying them from OldMaidCatLady.com. Exciting, right?

How'd we find the charities? Through Charity Navigator. They assess how well non-profit groups do with the donations they receive and give them a point value that earns them 1 to 4 stars. Only 4-star groups on Charity Navigator have been chosen as OldMaidCatLady.com's Charities of the Week. They've been scheduled for the next 12 months.

A press release about the program has been posted on our website. So remember OldMaidCatLady.com when you're buying your:

• catwear
• cat grooming products
• cat health supplements
  
• cat flea control
  
• kitten products
• cat dishes
• cat treats
  
• cat placemats
• cat beds
• cat furniture
• kitty condos
  
• cat toys
• scratching posts
  
• litter boxes
• senior cat supplies
• cat show supplies
• cat training supplies
• cat carriers
• cat-themed products for people

Didn't know we had all that? You need to visit OldMaidCatLady.com again!

Traveling with Cats

Have you ever traveled with a cat? There's a funny song on Garrison Keillor's "Songs of the Cat" album about traveling with cats that pretty much sums it up. My experience was in moving to Atlanta in early 1994, a six-hour drive with my two cats in carriers atop stacks of my stuff in the back seat of my car. I figured they were high enough to see out the windows, which would entertain them along the journey. That was my first mistake.

My girl kitty was actually quite good about the whole thing; she felt secure in her carrier and seemed to enjoy the view. My boy cat, however, was another story. He had never liked riding in the car, and we were barely out of town before he pooped in his carrier and forced me to make a quick stop next to someone's dumpster to empty the offending material from the car. That done, I opened the sunroof to let in some cold, clean air for the next few miles so we could all breathe.

But the ol' boy wasn't through letting me know he was unhappy. He proceeded to meow...and we're not talking a nice little mewing sound like happy cats make, this was a full-volume RAAAAY-ER...RAAAAY-ER...RAAAAY-ER...constantly. Now, remember, this was a SIX-hour drive. I figured he'd eventually settle in and stop it. Next big mistake.

Then I thought, "Well, maybe if I let him out of his carrier he'll find a place where he's more comfortable and stop yowling." Another big mistake. He sat in the rear window and yowled. He got on the floor of the the car and yowled. He climbed over every bit of stuff I had crammed in that car and yowled. I turned the volume of the music louder, and he out-yowled the radio. It was a noise I'd heard at home, briefly, when he wanted to go outside. But he'd always gotten tired of it and given up after a few minutes. Not this time.

The moving experience did give me an answer to the question a visitor would later have upon hearing him launch into that noise, "Wow, how long can he keep that up?" "Five hours and fifteen minutes," I answered with confidence. Yes, for the last 45 minutes of that drive, he collapsed into my lap and fell asleep, exhausted, his head resting in the crook of my right arm that was holding the steering wheel. I remember thinking, "Please, God, don't let me reach a turn in the road that will require me to move my arm and wake up this cat!" For the next move, I went to the vet and got him some "kitty happy pills" that knocked him out. (It was either going to be him or me, and he couldn't drive, so...) He tried to yowl, but just didn't have the energy to keep it up, or reach the same volume, as during the first move, and finally fell asleep for most of the drive. It was blissful. And my girl kitty was happy about it, too.

Fortunately, today there are many more options for making your cat comfortable when traveling. You'll find many quality cat travel products at OldMaidCatLady.com, from rolling cat carriers, crates, and backpacks of all shapes and sizes to travel beds and natural calming wipes that can soothe your savage beast. There are even cat strollers and a bike basket cat carrier so you can take kitty along with you on your daily jog or bike ride. After all, you can interpret that "RAAAAY-ER" as a personal trainer encouraging you to keep going, right?

Lots of Amazing New Stuff

Whew! My feet are killing me, my back aches, and I have blisters on my hands from carrying my tote bag around the expo floor for a couple of days...but the Global Pet Expo was phenomenal! Met a ton of great people who have wonderful products that will soon be featured on OldMaidCatLady.com. Food, litter & litterboxes, cat trees, cat beds, catwear, travel supplies, show cages, nutritional supplements, hydration systems...even music, just for the cats. You name it, if it could be made for pets, it was at this expo.

I also got lots of great samples to try, and will be reviewing those products here over the next several weeks. New products should start showing up on the retail site within the next week. More new ones will be added over probably the next couple of months or so. Yes, that's right...it'll take me that long to get through them all! There's a stack of product literature at least a foot tall that has to be sorted, notes deciphered, distributor relationships established, product images & descriptions downloaded, and items added to the site itself. But you're SO going to love the new stuff! There are so many innovative products out there to help us spoil our kitties and keep them happy and healthy.

Stay tuned. Lots more coming soon!

New Stuff's Coming Soon!

Always on the lookout for new stuff for our kitties, we'll be attending the Global Pet Expo next weekend in Orlando. Pre-show publicity says that over 800 new products will be debuting there! Granted, not all are for cats, but we'll be telling you about every one of the new cat products we find, and hopefully will also be able to feature many of them on OldMaidCatLady.com. Stay tuned for all the news!

I'm a Meeeeean Mama!

Older cats don't groom themselves like they did when they were younger, so they need help. Now that the worst of the winter is past us, Vixen is shedding her winter coat. I've found clumps of hair all over the house, so I try to give her a good brushing every day to remove some of that loose hair.

Here, you see today's pile of hair from her morning brushing, along with the very angry tortoiseshell from which it came. You see, Vixen doesn't like to be groomed. She especially hates having her stomach touched. But lots of excess hair builds up there, forming into lumpy mats that eventually need to be cut out. So I endure the hissing, scratching and biting, and even got the "demon growl" this morning while grooming her. She kept that up for pretty much the whole grooming session! So with this pile of hair now in the trash can, she's finally calmed down a little and will soon be asking for her lunch!

Now, here's my shameless self-promotion: if you need a new comb or brush to help your cat shed her winter coat, Old Maid Cat Lady has pretty much every size, shape and design. We've just added some new "people products" too, including some lovely fountains and statues for your spring garden.