The magnificent plush fur coat of British Shorthair cats has always pleased its owners with a neat and elegant appearance. Despite these qualities, their appearance creates a deceptive impression. This soft, plush coat consists of a complex double-sided structure, namely a densely padded undercoat with guard hairs above it. This is why their fur has such a unique sheen, capable of shining like silver or other rare chocolate colors. Only careful care and good nutrition will give his coat an irresistible look.
Grooming British cats: caring for delicate areas
The frequency of cutting also depends on the degree of combing of the animal's fur. It is especially important to pay attention to the areas where tangles most frequently form. Such areas are the armpits, ears, crotch, neck, and hind legs. However, grooming British cats yourself can be dangerous for both the owner and the animal. If you, through negligence, may cause pain to an animal, and it may bite or scratch in response. After all, it is very difficult to distinguish the beginning of a mat from the beginning of a skin fold. A professional groomer will always have a special tool for cutting hair. In addition, they are excellent at cutting hair, while understanding the psychology of the animal.
Why groom cats?
Let's start from afar. There are more than 50 registered cat breeds on the planet. They can be divided into 3 types - long-haired, short-haired and hairless. Let's discard the last category.. In representatives of the first category, the wool sheds, is not shed to the floor, but gets tangled in the body with “living” hair and at some stage (if proper care is not taken) turns into felt boots, which causes trouble. Another problem belongs to the representatives of the 2nd group of cats - this is the fact that in Moscow, with its food, which is not of adequate quality for people, and the ecology, cats of this category shed almost all year round, but at the same time all the vegetation is dumped on the floor of the house, and do not accumulate on your body. There are no tangles, but there is a problem with the cleanliness of the room. “Stop, stop,” the average person will say. “We haven’t tried to comb the cat,” and he’ll be right! But only until the next sentence, literally a couple of seconds. And here is the proposal - The fact is that cats can be divided into two psychological types - those who calmly tolerate combing and those who tear and scratch the hands of their guardians. Aggression is inherent in both cats and kittens. The reasons for its occurrence (in particular, the reluctance to comb your hair, you will read on our website in the section “Articles” in the drop-down menu “Media”). Slowly we are coming to understand that the questions and comments left under the videos sound like “Shave yourselves, you freaks”, “Why Are you making fun of a cat” are asked exclusively by degenerates and lazy people who are incapable of self-development. If you have read this sentence, then you do not belong to any of the above categories. Consider one fact - we are not the ones running through the streets looking for cats with a typewriter in our hands, but people who have aggressive cats and a hopeless situation turn to us for help.
When do you have cats that don’t allow you to groom them and slowly turn into a solid impenetrable lump or turn your life into cleaning, and what should you do about it? The alternative is to trust the professionals and visit our salon regularly. Why just a haircut? No, not only that, we also do express molting - it’s much easier. Only we don’t shout at every corner that haircuts are harmful. This is an absolutely harmless procedure, but idiots also want money, but they don’t know how to cut hair, so they come up with fakes. Moreover, we and they would only be happy to comb cats and cats, but our conscience does not allow us to denigrate something in the pursuit of profit. Let's do the math. In order to cut a cat's hair once a year (which is what most people do) you will need from 2 to 4 thousand rubles. Or even 5. Five thousand a year maximum is necessary to ensure that the cat does not fall off when being groomed once a year. Express shedding - its price in the salon is from 2 to 4 thousand rubles at a time. Well, let’s take 5,000 too. In order to maintain the effect of a non-shedding cat, such combing is necessary once a month, 60,000 rubles will accumulate per year. Do you feel the difference? Five thousand for a haircut or 60,000 for a comprehensive combing over the same period of time - per year. Now do you understand everything about the attacks of semi-masters who don’t know how to cut hair and about their delusional “consequences of cutting a cat”? It all comes down to money, as always…….. We discuss this fact with each client who visits our pet salon for the first time and it makes no difference to us what he chooses, but we are happy to implement the task set before us and will never come up with “non-existent reasons” why express shedding is harmful for cats. It is not in our rules to live in conflict with our conscience. Let me list a few reasons why people turn to us for help:
- Tangles (read in the Articles section what can happen because of them)
- Allergy to cats (Yes, we know that it is not to fur. In the same section of the site it is described how cutting helps them)
- Daily dirt in the apartment.
- Skin diseases due to tangles
- Ticks in the country (clipped cats are clearly visible visually for the presence of ticks on the body)
And there are many more such reasons, you can’t remember them all, but the advantages are obvious. Choose what is closer to you: a haircut or an express shedding, and if there are problems on the specified list, we will help you solve them.
British cat haircuts: features and advantages
Classic British cat haircuts have the following advantages:
• absence of discomfort in the animal; • minimal contact with the cat's skin; • the ability to make the wool soft, silky, and as pleasant to the touch as possible.
Only in special cases, if the animal has a skin disease, can nozzle No. 2 or No. 1 be used. It is important to remember that with this type of haircut, the hair must be left on the head, paws and at the tip of the tail. The tail should not be completely hairless, as cats can react strangely to this and often begin to chew it, causing wounds to themselves.
Benefits after a haircut.
I have been grooming cats for 25 years, and grooming for almost 30 years. So to speak, I was a witness at her birthday. If you didn’t know me until now, then it’s my modesty and desire to work and not to promote myself that was the reason for this, and the fact why we are still not related). I will say one thing with confidence - you know my work. In 2002, I developed and performed my own cascade hairstyle (stripes on the back of cats and spirals on the tail). Then, with the light hand of Ksenia Novikova (the group Blestyashchie) in a TV show, at her suggestion, the cascade acquired the name “little dragon” (she is my client). Then someone extended the name dinosaur and then transferred my idea and hairstyle to a Yorkie and called it “chinchilla”. I’m sure you’ve seen these hairstyles, and if you’ve seen them, it means you’re familiar with me.
Animal coloring - how did I make it the first in Russia? One man led me to the computer, and I was “plowing” on the road and showed me photoshopped pictures of cats painted by two IT specialists from the USA and asked - can you do that? I said that I couldn’t do this, I’m not an expert in Photoshop and I couldn’t do this live on cats, but I liked the idea of changing the image and I decided to find paints for animals, which I did. My childhood friend lives in Japan and I sent my request and search there. And I found the PetEsthe campaign, which, through its representative Hiroshi Nishioka, who came to Moscow to meet with me, began selling products to me, and I sold animal coloring in Russia, and began selling paints to colleagues. This was 2005 - 2007. I won’t say anything about the first shavings and 3D drawings, otherwise I sketched out the fluff, but I also brought this into the domestic type of creativity.
So we have met now. My experience is enormous, my observations and knowledge are material for scientific literature, so I write confidently about the advantages, because these are long-term observations, and now I will list some advantages of cat haircuts.
- No house cleaning.
- Cats' fur improves after a haircut. It becomes more rigid, not so much like a wire, but just a little bit. To understand this fact, remember that youthful fuzz is on your mustache and remember the difference after shaving. Well, such a feature has been noticed many times. A cat comes all matted for a haircut, and she has some kind of fluff (remember Yorkies and Spitz dogs when they were puppies, but the cat is an adult without a puppy and after the haircut you look at the next meeting, and there are only one or two mats, and the fur is more vibrant and elastic.
- For allergy sufferers, the number of triggers decreases significantly. The fur itself is not an allergen, but the contents on it (saliva, grease) are a factor, and if a sheared cat has zero hair on the floor, then a shedding cat will have the allergen in the form of fur lying all over the house. It's like poplar fluff. It itself is not considered an allergen, but the fact that it collects pollen from birch, ragweed and other allergy-causing plants by “tumbleweed” makes it a strong accumulator of allergies. That's how it is with cats.
- In summer, a haircut is a great escape from the stuffiness. I have repeatedly heard words about the same thing - “You know, before the haircut, my pussy didn’t even want to move, it lay on the tiles in the bathroom, it’s cooler, but after the haircut it started playing, became active, like a kitten. Here's another plus for you.
- A short-haired cat is of no interest to fleas. The sweetest places have been cut off and you can’t stay there, and there are only bones on the head and paws - you won’t get enough sweet blood - that’s what the fleas said and left the cat.
- The same is with ticks - they will not be able to remain unnoticed on the cat’s body during the summer season. The main thing is to visually inspect the cat in time for their presence.
I will describe a case from 20 years ago, but briefly, because you may have already read it on our website. I ask the client. How did you decide to groom your cats? I didn’t decide, life forced me. My cat is sterile and a free bird in the country. I meet him in 57 days, lying on the porch. I pick up your sweat and maggots are crawling out of it. We went to the vet and saved him. But before the operation, they cut the required area, and that’s all, and then the doctor said if you want to cut it completely, then look for advertisements in the newspaper. And they found it. Chain of events - a cat in tangles - summer, heat - they got tired and the cat began to gnaw them out, microtrauma with teeth - a fly flies up to the smell of blood and lays larvae in the body - maggots. It’s good that they noticed it in time, otherwise they would have eaten the cat.
This is just a rough idea, there are many more like this and every owner will tell you about some other plus, but I will limit myself to this small list.
Express - shedding for cats.
Its description is on another page of the site and is carried out by us, without any restrictions and inventing fakes on this topic. Everything is fine, everything is fine, definitely according to the budget it’s a year more expensive than a haircut. It may not suit everyone, but if your wallet allows it, then you’re welcome to come to us for it.
Myths about alopecia.
The widespread rumor about the appearance of alopecia after cutting cats, Spitz and others with clippers is not entirely a myth, but is the result of knowledge about proper work lost over the years of teaching in schools. He is especially loved by haters - this benefits them. Alopecia X is discussed in detail on our YouTube channel “Axiom of Grooming” and Instagram account @laicats.ru and there is no sense or resource to go into details on this topic, since this topic is long. Remember one thing - alopecia after haircut is a hormonal imbalance and incorrect procedure for working with animals. For example: you yelled at a Spitz, beat him and now you have alopecia - run away from such masters, and I’ll wrap up my work and wait for your calls on the phone numbers listed on the site. By the way, for information. We were the first in Russia to create a transparent work zone in 2008, and now this know-how is being adopted by everyone, which allows you to watch the manipulations of specialists and not worry about anything.
When can cats be groomed?
People often ask this question. We would like to respond with the experience of thousands of people who have contacted us and many years of experience in our salon. You don't need to look at the season outside the window at all, since cats live for the most part in warm apartments or houses. In the summer, when you are at the dacha, you don’t have to worry about your cat (it’s warm). In winter, being in an apartment, everyone in the house has heating. Many people think that cats are not very smart animals and they walk on their own. Believe our experience - if a cat has done it in such a way that no one expects obedience from her, and the person only serves her by feeding, cleaning the tray, the room, then apparently something is wrong here. Apparently cats are so smart that they subjugate their owners without much difficulty. They are excellent experts in human psychology and easily understand human speech and the subject of conversation (confirmed more than once). And of course, the only issue that they do not understand is the grooming of cats. But knowing all their tricky places, we have been successfully working with them for 30 years all year round. Seasonality does not affect frequency in any way. Therefore, knowing the experience of other people, you now know exactly when to contact us. For 30 years there has not been a single case of a cat dying in the winter. And what’s more, they can easily find a place to stay warm if the heating in the apartment suddenly turns off. It could be the computer processor, it could be under the blanket, and so on. So you don’t have to worry about these topics at all. What you need to worry about the most is when your cat becomes covered in tangles, which can later cause a lot of harm.
Thank you for reading to the end.
Preparing for a haircut
Grooming cats: how to cut it correctly and what you need
Before grooming, it is recommended to trim your cat's nails and then bathe him. Cut claws will protect the owner from serious scratches that a cat can inflict during a haircut if it gets scared. Using special nail clippers, the tip of the claw is cut off to about 2 mm. If you cut off more, you can cause pain to the cat by hitting nerve endings or blood vessels. Trimming the claws of “British” cats is carried out once every 2-3 weeks; such regularity will not allow the claw to split or grow in an irregular shape.
For your information! Clean wool is the key to an even, shape-holding haircut. In addition, clean wool does not dull or damage tool blades.
The fur, dried with a towel or warm air from a hairdryer, should be thoroughly combed. If small tangles are found, carefully untangle them with a comb. It is recommended to start from the bottom of the tangle, gradually moving higher. To make detangling easier, you can lightly spray with a special spray designed for this purpose. If you find large neglected tangles or it is impossible to untangle them, carefully cut them off.
It is better to cut off matted mats with a hair clipper. When cutting tangles with scissors, you need to be careful and feel the distance between the fur and the skin, eliminating the possibility of accidentally injuring the cat’s skin.
Important! When grooming British cats, sedatives or anesthesia should not be used. The master must find an approach to the cat so that he can calm down and relax.
Using a machine, the hair is removed first on the sides, going down to the armpits, stomach, and then to the back of the body. The minimum length of the coat should be 5 mm, this will eliminate irritation and itching after cutting.
The tail can be trimmed as desired, for example, leaving a small tassel at the end. The fur from the paws is cut off at the elbow, leaving peculiar socks that can be slightly trimmed with thinning scissors. Under no circumstances should you cut the hair on your cat's head, ears or whiskers.
Nail trimming must be done very carefully so as not to damage the blood vessel.
After the procedure, shorn "British" haircuts are wiped with a damp cloth or bathed in clean, warm water. Such actions will rid your pet of remaining hairs that prick the delicate skin.
A couple of gentle words about character...
It can be argued that the character of British cats is ideal. They are aristocratic, devoid of any aggression, friendly and independent. For those who are often absent from the house, they are an excellent option, since they will not get bored in the absence of the owner. Connoisseurs of peace and comfort will also appreciate the British: they are calm and balanced, and sometimes so much so that they can be associated with a piece of exquisite interior design. It is worth noting that this character trait does not mean that the cat does not need attention. How you raise a kitten will largely determine the character of an adult cat. The British have a fantastic natural intelligence and will not forgive the lack of proper attention on your part. But if you manage to win the trust of a Briton, then it’s hard to wish for a better friend and companion!
