I’ve learned lots of interesting things in my time at the cats only boarding facility — has it really been two months already? Thanks to all the different guests we’ve had, I’ve learned about giving injections, why we give certain vaccinations, how to handle an aggressive cat, how to feed a cat on hunger strike, and more.
Now I’ve learned how not to wash a cat. Whether you’re hoping to bathe your cat at home or hoping to embark on a grooming career, please learn from my example.
Here’s what you should not do:
- Prepare the grooming area with towel, shampoo, and warm water.
- Figure out how the blow dryer works and test it out. (The hose plugs into a special attachment on the cage door — it’s a nifty little contraption.)
- Get the cat in question.
- Bring cat to grooming sink.
- Have cat dig claws into your shoulder.
- Release cat.
- Sit on the floor and cry. Say choice things about cat, coworkers, sink, shampoo, and situation in general.
- Clean up self. (Thank my undergarments for protecting me from worse injury — I have one long scratch and several smaller ones on my right shoulder blade.)
- Clean up grooming area.
- Bring cat back to condo and get the waterless shampoo.
Not my finest moment at work, that’s for sure! And this was with a very friendly cat, I might add. While I was sitting on the floor crying (more in frustration than in pain, really) he came over to cuddle me. What a good natured, forgiving guy!
The waterless shampoo worked much better (in my opinion). I spritzed him all over, massaged it into the fur, then toweled him dry. Much easier on me and on the cat. And now I’m planning to go in for some grooming training, so I don’t have quite such a large disaster next time around.