KITTY'S KORNER
by Deborah Hansen
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OBTAINING A
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Groomer to Groomer • Vol 40 Ed 6 • June 2021
GroomertoGroomer.com
hen an owner advises that they only want a little taken off their cat’s coat, it can mean anything from a bath to a comb cut to a lion cut. What most owners do not know and really struggle to understand is that a clean coat with the dead coat removed will make their cat appear just a little shorter than they probably expected. Giving the cat a good bath where you can loosen the dead coat and remove any binding agents from the living coat will allow the majority of the dead coat to slip off during rinsing and drying. Any of the remaining dead coat will be combed out during drying and in the finishing stages of the groom. A good bath and dry is not only easier on a cat than a long brush–out session, but is also easier on the groomer’s body. While you can attempt to explain how dead coat makes the overall coat appear longer and that a good bath will shorten the coat, most owners are not open to hearing this. The majority of the time the owners are so excited to see their cat looking “fluffy” again, they forget they wanted coat taken off. I then make a note in their file so I know next time that they are happy with just a bath and dead coat being removed. At the next visit, when they request that a little coat be taken off, I respond with, “I will do what I did last time and we can go from there.” While a bath pleases many client requests for a shorter coat, there are some clients that actually want something shorter than the appearance a bath gives, but longer than a lion cut. These clients truly want a comb cut. Many times these clients have busy lives and they do not have the time to brush their long–haired cats. Over the years, I have had several clients that did not like the pattern on their cat. These clients wanted to shorten the coat so the tips would not