How to get rid of clumps of matted hair on my cat ?

[DVCindy]

Hi -

Question for the cat owners out there ...
Our almost 4 year old male kitty has recently gotten 3 or 4 clumps of matted fur on his back ... way down close to his tail on both sides of his back. This just appeared out of nowhere. What causes this and how do I get rid of them ? I have been brushing him every night for the past week and working on trying to get them out, but they haven't improved much. The fur that's actually matted is the finer fur underneath his top coat.

Can I just cut them out ?

He is an indoor only cat .

Any advice you can give me will be much appreciated !
Thanks - Cindy

 

[caitycaity]

i don't know about cats, but when our dog got ones that were really bad, we just cut them (carefully).

 

[Cruisin]

Yes you can cut them out, but you have to be very careful not to get the skin.

I try to cut them out of my cat's fur but I am nervous about cutting her.

Anybody got any easy ways to fix this problem?

 

[dvcfamily41801]

Mine has the exact same thing!!! I was wondering if it would be easier to take him to the groomers and they could just shave them out.

 

[Cruisin]

I once took my long haired cat in to have the mats all shaved off and they told me she would probably have to have her whole body shaved to get rid of them

When I picked her up, they had somehow managed to get almost all of the mats out without cutting hardly any of the hair off.

Maybe you could call the vet and ask if there is an easy way to remove them.

 

[2BigKIdz]

My cats get those because they are too fat to groom back there. I use pet clippers and shave them off, very safe and easy. Hair grows back in no time and is barely noticable anyway. Keeping them combed or brushed helps.

 

[janette]

I used to cut the off on my Persian. You have to be very careful because it's hard to tell where the mat ends and the skin begins.

 

[my3kids]

I cut them with scissors. I have my children playing with the cat whil he is laying down to keep him occupied. Then I just hold the clump upright and start snipping til it is all off. My guess was rosin from pine trees that got on a bit of hair and kept accumulating more til it was a clump.

 

[Amberle3]

I cut them off. I try to get one part of the scissors in underneath the mat and cut through it rather than trying to just cut the whole thing off. That gets you smaller mats which are easier to deal with.

 

[DVCindy]

Thank you all for the suggestions !
I will try to carefully cut them out as most of you do.

2BigKIdz - I think you are right ... I think that may be the reason he has gotten these matted spots ... he is getting much too fat !! My kids have started to call him "Fat Boy" !

Cindy

 

[Robinrs]

My little chubby Aaliyah gets them, too. I cut them off CAREFULLY also.

 

[Rajah]

My boys get this as well (strangely enough, the girls aren't nearly as bad, even though they all have long fur) and I will try combing them out first if possible, but if they're too matted, I use a type of comb that is a mat-cutter which is a bunch of curled blades with a blunt end so you can't really cut the cat. It's not as easy as just shaving them, and is more work than just cutting it, but it does a better job and doesn't look quite as strange when done.

If that doesn't work either, I enlist the aid of some friends, have them distract the cat with some chicken baby food, and cut them out with the scissors.

 

[yasuern]

Wow - here I thought I was a bad cat owner because my 1 yr old female cat - out of nowhere has two mats one on each upper leg area near the - well you know . I am so relieved that this happens to others! I brush often but one day there they were. I am going to try to cut them out tonight when DH is home to help.


Thanks
Sue

 

[KristiKelly]

We used to have a Springer Spaniel whose ears would mat. This is gonna sound strange, but I'll tell you what I did (learned it from a groomer). Get one of the plastic letter openers, not the straight kind, but the kind that looks kinda like a "U" with one side being wider & the smaller side being really thin & pointy (the side that you stick into the envelope), in the middle there is a small blade. I would take one of those & break up the mats with & then brush them out, stick the "pointy" end thru the mat & the blade will separate & cut up some of the hair making it much easier to brush out. This does not hurt the animal, I never poked the dog & the blade never touches it, the blade is inside of the letter opener & only touches the hair.

 

[Cruisin]

KristiKelly

The letter opener sounds like a good idea. I will have to try that.

thanks for the tip.

 

[mbb]

went from beautiful to cluuum-peeee in less than a week.
She wouldn't let anyone pat her, and stopped eating - which was VERY unlike her.

I thought she was dying!!

Thursday night, I took her to the vet, they shaved out all the awful mats that we had tried to carefully trim out.

Brought her home the next day, and she was back to her usual friendly self. The vet said that grooming problems can cause "depression" in cats, and that it is those finer hairs underneath that cause all the problems. Humidity also makes it worse.

Poor babies!

 

[stacie_d]

I use the thinning type of scissors and just sort of cut through the matted hair a few times. This loosens it up, and you can sorta pull it apart then and brush/comb it out.

 

[Dizzy-Disney4]

LOL...OH my.My dearest friend in the world will be so happy to know that she is not the only one with this problem. Her "baby Boss", who looks like a hot air balloon with legs, needs to be shaved every few months. He is so fat, he cannot groom himself.