Average Jane vs. Cat Hair

I love my cats. I guess that's pretty obvious considering that I have four of them. However, I am not as fond of their fur. I like it when it's attached to them, but not so much when it's floating in every ray of sunlight, clinging to my clothing and collecting in the corners like an army of supercharged dust bunnies.

We actually have a "no more white cats" rule in our house because my husband and I wear dark colors most of the time and there's no hiding white cat fur on a black garment. Dr. Jones, with his buff-colored belly, barely made it past the committee on that one. It's no coincidence that Xena, Velvet and Trillian are all black or mostly black.

So I was recently offered the opportunity to get my hands on a new Furminator for free. In exchange, I would talk about National Hairball Awareness Day, which is today. I was also asked to brush all my cats with the Furminator, make sculptures out of their fur and send in photos of said sculptures, one of which is posted at PEOPLE Pets today, along with those of my fellow pet blogger participants, all of whom were much more creative with their sculptures than I was.

I have an older Furminator model that I purchased several years ago. It works pretty well, but my main complaint about it was that it seemed to build up a lot of static electricity, which in turn made the cat hair stick to everything it touched once it hit the comb. The new Furminators have a feature that pushes the fur off the end of the comb and that seems to help a lot. The fur goes into the bag in eyebrow-like rows, which leads to a lot less of it floating around attaching itself to your pantlegs.

I brushed all the cats who were willing to cooperate (Trillian opted out, with prejudice) and stuffed the fur into a sandwich bag. Then, cementing my crazy cat lady status for all eternity, I sculpted the fur into two different shapes: first a bunny and then a weird little creature with a Cheshire cat grin that I decided was named Marv.

Dr. Jones' tabby colors made a nice contrast with Xena and Velvet's black fur, don't you think?

Velvet got the most benefit from her brushing. She'd been yakking up hairballs over the previous couple of weeks but stopped immediately after that first, thorough grooming.

I'm looking forward to brushing the gang more often and cutting down on the furballs in the corners. No more sculptures, though. I promise.

 

Comments

[Erica M]

Pets and their hair. But pets don't eat your last piece of cake without asking. Oh, wait.

[Colleen]

Try my dog. And the white cat. I actually caught myself horking hairballs.