Thread: How do I deal with knots?

Hey one of my kittens is called Monty! He's the one in the salad bowl there. Would love to see a picture of yours!

Re. knots, my MCs haven't had knots yet, but our old Persian would get quite a few. He hated the brush so we only had a small 'window of opportunity' with it. So any tricky knots would get removed with the beard trimmers! Luckily he didn't mind the noise and he actually preferred it to the brush and comb because it didn't pull on him. It was like sheep shearing!

If you have knots deal with them straight away!!!!! I speak from experience. When we got Brisca she had a matt on her chest but we didn't do anything about it for a couple of weeks as she was new to us and we didn't want to frighten her. What a mistake! As some of you may have seen on other threads, I was close to having her sedated and shaved but luckily we managed. 3 people, a furminator, matt splitter, scissor and 40 mins later we managed to get it off. It was 3 inches long, 2 inches wide and about 1/2 inch deep and right on the skin. It was hard work but I know she feels much better now. I wish I'd started to work on it when we first got her, poor baby wouldn't have to go through so much trauma!

What size Furminator works the best?

My small one is just fine. I've not tried anything else

I have the small Furminator. It rocks.

Hi Jo

You bought your Anju from me at the Supreme. Anju is based in Paris but I am the UK distributor.

I'll be there again this year on stand A7, right by the Long and Semi-Long hair pens. I'll have the full range with me and there will be the usual special offers.

I hope lots of you will come over to say hello and to find out just how lovely Anju products are.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Pauline Owens

pollyowens@btconnect.com
mobile: 07817 469511
landline: 029 2059 6833

I'd like to bump this thread to get a bit of help. We have a Maine Coon who is now coming up to 11 months old. He's principally an indoor cat, but he is allowed the run of the garden, and has shown no signs of wanting to go further afield than that.

In the last month or so I have found matted knots in his front leg underarms, and then some larger ones in his rear leg underarms. This weekend I found (to my horror) a couple of whoppers on his top side, either side of the base of his spine/root of his tail.

How quickly do these things develop? We groom him weekly if we can, but he's never really cared much for grooming. You get the warning of the tail tip flicking, and after that he'll make a grab/bite for the grooming brush at at time. We use a defurminator and a brush to groom him, and I'm a bit stumped as to where the topside mats have come from.

So far I have had moderate success trying to cut them out with some very sharp nail scissors. This has to be done when he is sound asleep, as he really is not a fan of having them cut out either (when he went to vet to be done, it is fair to say that he went down fighting. Mrs G66 felt so had at the state he left the vet and the nurse in that she bought them a gift each). So far I haven't got any of them out completely, and cutting into them doesn't seem to be breaking them up very much.

Is this a characteristic of his kitten fur? Is he likely to develop them less, or will he always be a bit "matty".

This is a rather ropey cameraphone picture from a couple of months ago.:

I have had great success with a quick unpick - put the point though the knot and lift upwards and the sharp edge in the middle seems to break the knot and it can be combed out much easier with less pulling. I find it quicker than scissors. Zack seems to knot under arms and on britches quite quickly and as he shows I get on top of them while small so the least amount of hair is removed. My breeder put me onto this.

Ah. Will give one of those a go. Certainly needs something sharp - they are so dense that the only scissors I have that get into them are the supersharp ones on a folding penknife.