Older yard cat qu

Equi

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I took my friends yard cat while she was moving house, cat never left :rolleyes:

Anyway, she was about 11 then so i estimate must be about 14/15 now. Shes not a friendly cat but shes not quite feral - i can sometimes pet her forehead on her terms if i sit for long enough and be quiet/calm and let her come to me and rub on my hand, but if i start actually moving my hand shes off. she never allows body or back touching and absolutely no lifting unless its a quick grab at the neck when shes caught off guard and then she unleashes hell and you dont get near her again for a few days. Only done this once when i believed she had an injury and i had to investigate it, shes very wise to it.

Anyway my question, she was eating the other day and i managed to quickly run my hand along her back (i was trying to check her weight) to find she has two mats on it. Seh wouldn't let me touch her again after i offended her. You can't see them looking at her and shes a short hair so i can only assume its just winter coat thats got a bit tangled, but it means shes not cleaning herself just as well as i would like. Do you think they will sort themselves out as the hair sheds more? Will she rub them out on something? Should i risk stressing her out a lot by attempting grabbing her and shaving them off?

I don' think she would tolerate vet anesthetic etc at her age, so i don't feel that is an option. Same re a groomer, I believe she would be very very stressed out by that.
 

Teajack

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She possibly can't reach the area to groom herself any more. I'd tackle them with a razor asap as they are likely to get worse.
 

jainque

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i used to work in an elephant hospital in Thailand and we had lots of feral cats that needed handling. The vets used to grab them by the neck and pin and hold them against a wooden post , the cats would put their claws into the wood to hold on. That would stop them lashing at you, because theire claws were on the wood. Then, the vet could do whatever needed doing. I don't know if that makes sens, it seems to work ok. Good luck
 

Equi

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I'll try the wood thing. Great tip!

Id be afraid the rake the slash her. I have a pair of andis clippers, my on going plan is to just grab and clip the mats...and hope i get them. She might look a bit funky for a while.
 

twiggy2

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Mats along the back of cats are often indicative of arthritis or pain, she may benefit from some pain relief if you can convince a vet to let you trial her on some.
I would pin down and clip if possible bit would want her on pain relief first.
 

ycbm

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So this is a yard cat that has spent fourteen years of her life avoiding all but the most minimal contact with humans? It's a problem that's not going to go away and will need doing repeatedly. That's if anyone can ever get near the cat again after grabbing it by the scruff of its neck and pinning it to a post to shave it, while frightening it half to death in the process. It sounds completely inhumane to me, sorry.

A bit of matted hair is not going to be any problem to a short haired cat. I would leave her be, until such time as it becomes a welfare issue, and then catch her once in a rabbit trap and have her put to sleep.
 

MiJodsR2BlinkinTite

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So this is a yard cat that has spent fourteen years of her life avoiding all but the most minimal contact with humans? It's a problem that's not going to go away and will need doing repeatedly. That's if anyone can ever get near the cat again after grabbing it by the scruff of its neck and pinning it to a post to shave it, while frightening it half to death in the process. It sounds completely inhumane to me, sorry.

A bit of matted hair is not going to be any problem to a short haired cat. I would leave her be, until such time as it becomes a welfare issue, and then catch her once in a rabbit trap and have her put to sleep.

^^^ I'm inclined to agree with this.

IF the condition of the cat deteriorates and/or you're worried, your local Cats Protection branch will have a "humane trap" which can be used to trap her for e.g. a vets trip, but quite often feral cats like this will tend to know when their "time" has come and will just disappear somewhere to curl up and die..... our old girl did, she suddenly went missing one day and we found a mummified version of her a good few years later when we were having the haybarn roof repaired, she'd obviously gone up there to die.
 

Rowreach

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^^^ I'm inclined to agree with this.

IF the condition of the cat deteriorates and/or you're worried, your local Cats Protection branch will have a "humane trap" which can be used to trap her for e.g. a vets trip, but quite often feral cats like this will tend to know when their "time" has come and will just disappear somewhere to curl up and die..... our old girl did, she suddenly went missing one day and we found a mummified version of her a good few years later when we were having the haybarn roof repaired, she'd obviously gone up there to die.

Same as my old yard cat, who reached the age of 18. When he was getting more decrepit, I asked the vet what she would do and she said unless he was obviously suffering, let him decide his own way of going, which he did. I noticed he was absent one day, and we found him curled up in one of his favourite cardboard boxes in the shed.
 
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