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Cats, shedding, and have I gone mad?

I am a heavy shedder.

The vacuum picks up all of the cat fur that has been shedded, but my shedded hair gets stuck in the brush and I have to pick it out.

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After these ones are goneā€¦Iā€™m getting Sea Monkeys!

For some catsā€¦yes it is.

I give mine a bit of mineral oil 1-2xā€™s a month, it works really well for them.

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Sure for some cats that have a complicated medical history 13 might be fine. But 13 is not ā€œpretty good for a catā€ which is what one of the first reddit comments said. If you lose at cat at 18-20, thatā€™s a good long life for a cat. At 13, Iā€™m going to express condolences for losing them so early. Idk if you looked at the comments on that video, but the treating vet apparently never found anything wrong with that cat, itā€™s nausea & vomiting was never treated, and it died at 13. Thatā€™s appalling. That poor cat.

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I saw that video and immediately thought ā€œthereā€™s a cat that does not have a good quality of lifeā€ (not for lack of trying on the ownerā€™s part). I didnā€™t read enough to see how often this projectile vomiting happens, however, which may have affected my opinion too.

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Youā€™re not alone! We have two heavy shedders in the family, myself and my daughter. DH will often wear wool socks around the house and at the end of the day has to pull a wad of long blonde hairs off the bottom of them.

I actually have a bit of a complex about it, because no matter how hard I try to manage the shedding, Iā€™ll still find them all over our dark hardwood floors. I vacuum the high traffic areas of our home at least every other day as a result, if not more.

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How much mineral oil? My girls are struggling with hairballs :frowning:

I usually put 1/2 to 1tsp in some tuna juice per cat. I try to remember to do it once every month or two for all six of them as a preventative. Johnny has long and thick fur and he is the one that gets the most hairballs. If heā€™s been hacking them up more than an infrequent one time thing, or consistently over 2-3 days, I will give it to him separately for 3 days in a row.

Iā€™ve read that mineral oil should not be given to cats as is, it should be mixed into food because it can be dangerous if they inhale it.

Robotic vacuum will help immensely with cleaning - my parents run theirs after doing a conventional vacuum run and itā€™s amazing how much more cat hair it picks up.

Iā€™m a heavy shedder, too. I bet I double the daily average, if not more. I have very fine hair, but I have a lot of it.

I also have five dogs and four cats. Althought two cats donā€™t come in the house and one dog is non shedding. That said, I have four GSDs and both indoor cats are mostly white :upside_down_face:

We limit which rooms the dogs are allowed in to only the hardwood or tiled floor. Our formal dining and living room is closed off by french doors, so no cats, no dogs. Weā€™ve taught our cats they are not allowed on the counter tops. We have a few trees with sissals around the house for them. We donā€™t have any problems with them clawing our furniture. We keep a cover blanket on our bed that we fold down at night. The dogs have kennels in the basement. Theyā€™re all fed well researched diets that help with their shedding, although our oldest shepherd is czech and has a double coat. She molts pretty much year round.

Aside from the couch covers in the informal living room collecting more fur than iā€™d like, our house stays pretty drop in ready. I vacuum the heavy traffic areas every day. Mop twice a week. Wash walls 1-2x a month. My boyfriend is probably the dirtiest animal in the house. Gotta love dirt workers.

I will echo the sentiment regarding aging pets. We recently lost our Turkish Angora at 17. My boyfriend found her as a kitten barely alive. Itā€™s a miracle she survived. As a result she was slightly unhealthy. As she got older we fought to maintain her thyroid and eventually her kidneys started to shut down. It wasnā€™t her fault she was getting older and we werenā€™t going to move her to a room that made her uncomfortable so we tried to set the living room up to handle her aging. We laid a tarp down and put a large area rug over top. She mostly hung out on there. I did end up replacing our couch. Our oldest dog is turning 12 next month, iā€™m sure at some point sooner than weā€™d like, weā€™ll do the same for her.

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Well Iā€™m popping back in with an update AND a piece of parenting advice. First, the advice: Donā€™t enroll your children in any camp whatsoever at the Humane Society unless you already own a dog or a cat. I recently enrolled my kids in a PA Day camp at the HS, my reasoning being that theyā€™d enjoy spending some time around the cats and dogs since we donā€™t own either.

They spent the first 20 minutes after pickup lamenting the fact that they were the only ones there who didnā€™t have a dog or a cat (ā€œA show of hands ā€¦ā€) which nearly had them in tears. And it made me feel really mean for caring more about a hair-free house than their desire for a pet.

The update? Weā€™re getting a cat :woman_facepalming: A pet they can interact with at home is something theyā€™ve been wanting for months, if not years, the camp was just the straw that broke the camelā€™s back.

I inquired after a shelter cat, however, was well aware there would be stiff competition (which is a great thing for the cats). So we went another route (Kijiji) and have ended up with a 6 y/o unspayed, unvaccinated, indoor cat whose owners had too one too many pets in their home according to their condoā€™s rules. I visited her earlier in the week and she had a wonderful temperament. While there were fewer hoops to jump through as far as getting her it means more expense as weā€™ll have to bring her up to speed on everything health-related (including spaying). Iā€™ve been calling around this week to set-up appointments and managed to get her into a spay clinic later this summer, and sheā€™s booked for a standard vet visit with vaccinations early next week.

Never thought Iā€™d find myself wandering the aisles of PetSmart (and PetValu and PetCulture and HomeSense and ā€¦) in search of cat supplies ā€¦ but here we are :rofl: She comes home tonight, and the kids are just beside themselves with excitement.

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yay! welcome to the cat ownership club (you will soon find out that it is the I am owned by a cat club). Just make sure you let your kids know that it will take kitty a few days to acclimate to a new household and she might be very easily overwhelmed at first.

Don;t forget to update with pics & her name!

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always remember and never forget ā€˜dogs have masters, cats have staff!ā€™ They can be wonderful pets. (I am especially partial to cats.) I wish you all the luck in the world, you will probably need it!

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Just a fyi: you really want that spay ASAP, not later in the summer. Cats come into heat and donā€™t go out until theyā€™re bred. Theyā€™re LOUD and terrible and living with a cat in heat is perhaps the absolute worst way to ever be introduced to cats. I guarantee that you (and everyone else in your house) will hate it.

Are you sure sheā€™s not already pregnant? Absolutely sure? Why are you sure? If sheā€™s been living in a house with an unaltered male, sheā€™s probably bred!

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My niece got me a wonderful t-shirt that say ā€œItā€™s not cat hair, itā€™s Siamese glitter.ā€ Welcome to the club!

I waited to have my cats fixed as long as I could. They donā€™t stay in heat until they are bred. They go in & out of it. Trust me, you know when a Siamese is in heat & when they arenā€™t.

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Sheā€™s adapting surprisingly well to her new family and seems a very social, happy girl. Over the next week weā€™ll allow her more run of the house, for now sheā€™s limited to an area in the basement until she gets the lay of the land. Our visits in to her ā€œareaā€ are intermittent so itā€™s not too overwhelming! Sheā€™s already eating and drinking, but hasnā€™t used her litterboxes yet (old + new).

She was an indoor cat in a one-cat household, so Iā€™m quite certain sheā€™s not pregnant. Itā€™s quite difficult to get a spot at a spay/neuter clinic around here but I signed up - in anticipation of the rehoming going well - back on Monday when the next round of ā€œslotsā€ opened up at the one nearest to us. Even the local vet clinic I spoke to said they didnā€™t have dates available until sometime in July.

Iā€™m looking forward to the vet visit on Monday, to be able to have her seen by a professional and get her properly assessed. Pics to follow, sheā€™s a very pretty Siamese and Snowshoe cross :star_struck:

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YAAAAAHSSS!!! :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart:

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Iā€™ve come to the conclusion that sheā€™s actually less work than my two Lineolated Parakeets especially as the kids have been arguing over whose turn it is to clean out her litterboxes (as in, they both want it to be their turn) :rofl: So far the hair hasnā€™t been terrible, hopefully it stays that way. Sheā€™s not very interested in our birds, which is also a bonus, and she hasnā€™t tried to scratch the furniture. I think we picked a winner here.

We just have the trauma of the vet left to go for tomorrow (I sincerely hope she doesnā€™t hate me after thisā€¦)!

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oh I love how she has white boots but black toes on her hinders! Glad to hear you guys are off to a great start.

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