Grooming cats can be tricky business. I haven't yet met a cat who will stand calmly for grooming. The best you can really hope for is not-too-passive indifference. Cats who do enjoy the attentions of clippering and brushing tend to walk around a lot and try to rub themselves on the equipment, which is at best, inconvenient, and at worst, dangerous. The most resistant cats can turn into screaming, hissing, clawing balls of stress and doom, spitting bodily fluids from every orifice. We can usually work with the former; the latter we refer to veterinarians. Most cats fall somewhere in between. Bathing is actually the easy part for most cat groomers because we can be relatively hands-off and get it over quickly without risk of injury to the cat.
Clippering always comes with the risk of injury, but cats are particularly vulnerable. They have thin and delicate loose skin, which makes it easy to nick them, especially around the armpits, belly, and throat areas, which, coincidentally, are the areas most prone to matting. Grooming cats is not for the faint of heart and we do not recommend that you try it at home. That said, we groom a lot of cats safely and successfully here at K9 Design and invite you to look at the flowchart below if you've been thinking about having your cat shaved (click on the image to enlarge).
