I was petting Dash earlier in the week (a somewhat rare occurrence by his choice), and I discovered that he had a few large knots in his undercoat. They’re not obvious looking at him, but they’re big lumps when petting that part of his side. I tried a few times to work at them and brush them out, but even though Dash would start purring when I started he’d always get up within a few seconds and leave.
I didn’t really know what to do about it since he wouldn’t let me mess with it for long enough, but I’ve been meaning to give the cats a bath (so they don’t smell faintly of litter dust and hopefully to help my allergies by removing dander) and I thought that maybe that or the shampoo would help with the knot.
I had to start with Talore because I’m pretty sure that if I started giving Dash a bath Talore would be nowhere to be found when I finished with him. She wasn’t particularly thrilled about being put in the tub, and was somewhat less happy when the water started and I wouldn’t let her get away. I mostly got her shampooed (didn’t mess with her head), and when I had her rinsed and opened the sliding door to the tub she jumped out and tried to wait at the door to be freed. I tried to towel her off, but I don’t think it did much good. At least she wasn’t dripping when I let her out.
When I let Talore out I opened both doors to the bathroom. Talore fled out one, but Dash wandered in through the other to find out what had been happening. I’d planned to let the cats dry Talore off, but since he was there I shut the doors and threw Dash in the tub. Dash handled getting a shower about as well as Talore, except he’s got a long outer coat and after the first attempt at spraying him down I discovered that he was barely damp when I tried to shampoo him. I did manage to get him soaked because his claws had no traction on the tub, and by the time I’d finished spraying him down with warm water he had stopped trying to escape. I don’t know if he decided it wasn’t so bad or if he just figured it couldn’t get any worse. Dash was more willing to be toweled off, but I don’t think it did much for his undercoat.
Here are both cats drying Talore off. Dash didn’t seem too bothered by being damp but Talore worked at cleaning herself till she was pretty well dried off.
It turned out that the bath and shampoo did absolutely nothing for the knots in Dash’s fur, but he let me work out the smaller knot while I had him in the tub.
Since it’s been nice outside I sometimes open the windows. Both cats love sitting there where they can smell and hear the outdoors (and I’ve got a line of noseprints on one of my windows that indicate they spend time there with the window closed too). Ever since Dash tried to lunge at a bird that flew by I’ve made sure both cats have their collars on when the windows are open (there are window screens, but a determined cat would barely be slowed down).
Sunday was actually warm enough that I left the loft window open after dark (usually I shut it when the temperature inside starts dropping, but that didn’t happen till late), and this what happened when I relented and opened the blinds a bit:
I discovered shortly after that picture was taken that Talore had removed her collar. I never did figure out where she left it, but Monday afternoon I caught Dash carrying it around like a toy (probably just because it jingled a bit).