So I took Steve to the groomers for his appointment this afternoon, and when I was there I showed them all the problem areas and all the places that pine sap had created issues, and basically said that I would prefer to not shave him but to just do their best and use their best judgment. I went and did some errands, came back, and found this:
When I walked in, the groomer had a distressed look on his face, and point blank said “I’m afraid we didn’t have many options.” Apparently Steve vomited twice during the bathing, trimming, and shaving, and then when they were all done and blow drying him he had projectile diarrhea, which the groomer described with some eloquence, stating “It came out thick like pepto bismol and for a while we didn’t think it was going to stop.” I think it was just the stress of it all that got to the poor guy. It’s loud with lots of animals and people making a racket, and he was meowing when I got him, but then quiet for the whole ride home.
The one thing I noticed is that he really isn’t as fat as I thought he was. He’s just really, really big. Harry (my vet) told me he wasn’t that overweight, but I never believed him because the coat made him look so big, but now seeing him shaved, I think he’s right. I never realize just how muscular his front shoulders are.
At any rate, he’s already playing with Thurston and acting like he owns the damned house, so he seems to have recovered. More pics when I can get them.
*** Update ***
I forgot to mention, Steve doesn’t use a litter box. He just goes outside and digs a hole under the trees and does his business. That’s how he got sap on himself.
It’s quite nice. For the first couple of weeks when I had him, I tried to get him to use the litter boxes, but he had no interest in them. He would wait by the door until someone walked by and bitch or paw at it, and we would let him out. Then he would sit by the door and wait until he could get back in. Sometimes he would come to wherever I was and tell me he needed to go out- bitch at me until I looked at him, I would turn towards him, and he would nod his head and walk out of the room, and I would say “Oh, he has to shit” and go let him out.
Now that he has the doggie door, though, he just comes and goes as he pleases. I wouldn’t want to crap in a box, either. In fact, I have crapped in a box while I was in the Army (the ammo box shitter. I’ll let Sooner explain). Steve has the right idea.
Jane2
I shouldn’t have laughed out loud at the diarrhea bit, but I did.
Shaved or not, Steve is a fine figure of a cat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as Bill The Cat, might say, “Ack!”
Will it grow back? He does have a certain sleek elegance to him with the buzz cut
Emma
Don’t take this the wrong way but make sure you’re safe tonight. Suddenly nude cats can get cranky! (the hysterical laughter you hear is coming up from South Florida)
ThresherK
Better to get this closely-shaved in summer, at least.
germy
My father had a longhair cat like Steve. This was about thirty years ago or so. Long, long hair. My father was old at the time and couldn’t keep up with the grooming, so once a year or so he’d take him to a groomer for a “haircut” and the end result was much like the photo you posted.
Except the tail would be longhair. So normal head, normal tail, and a weird, shaved, oddly-thin body. A cat crewcut. Nice to pet, though.
Not as bad as the day Brian shaved himself.
p.a.
Actually he looks sleek just in time for summer. But how will he react the next trip to the groomers!?!?
Knight of Nothing
Sorry about his (and your) stress, but thank you for sharing the story – it made me smile. Look at him! He seems pleased with himself. Steve is the man.
JG
@Jane2:
What Jane says. Both sentences.
John, when it comes to writing about your beasties you are LOL funny.
SiubhanDuinne
Poor Steve! I’m sorry he had to go through all that distressing projectile vomiting and diarrhoea, but he looks very handsome and I hope he’ll be more comfortable in the hot weather. You might want to make sure there’s a lightweight blanket or something for him to get under in case he feels chilled.
JPL
I hope you told him how handsome he looks.
redshirt
ACK! indeed.
Vickie Feminist
I fool myself into thinking I read this blog for the political analysis. But honestly, nothing cheers me up like the John Cole disaster stories–sorry John.
WaterGirl
Steve is still absolutely gorgeous. Look at that sleek, shiny coat.
Emma
Seriously. For our next fundraiser we should put together a collection of John’s pet stories, illustrated.
germy
good hairball remedy. When he licks himself he’ll swallow less fur. He’s handsome no matter how long or short the fur.
But he won’t forget this. Next time you put him in your car he’ll be remembering this…
Iowa Old Lady
His look says “We will never speak of this again.”
redshirt
Also, congrats Cole on coming to understand the concept of “In focus”.
Howard Beale IV
My poor Ozzie had an abscessed molar that was taken out. He’s on liquid pain meds and antibiotics-it’s no fun giving it to him as he squirms around even when I scruff him behind his neck.
WaterGirl
Such a gorgeous face. I feel like he’s looking right into my eyes, with a look of love. Since it was your face, Cole, not mine, that he was looking into, I’d say he has already forgiven you. What a look of love!
P.S. My kitty soulmate looked into my eyes like that, but my two kitties now do not look at me wth that intensity. It makes me miss my sweet Quiver.
Gvg
You uh might look around for a groomer that makes house calls. If you have a whole year till the probable next time maybe you can find one. Does anyone around you show dogs? My aunt the dog show trainer can do shave downs. Find someone like her, she is too far away from you. If no luck maybe you need to take a class on pet grooming….I think the key is a good clipper and get the animal used to it.
Being sent to a noisy stress place like a groomer must be torture.
I had a show bred cat once that had been taught to put up with baths from kitten hood and I kept doing it. Not hard with her. Every other cat only in a dire emergency.
ellie
Poor kitty :(
WaterGirl
@Howard Beale IV: Maybe ask your vet about an antibiotic shot and a pain patch?
father pussbucket
Now he’s all set to mop the bathroom.
Origuy
Go to the Twitter feed for The Last Blockbuster Store. Seriously, it’s hilarious.
Southern Beale
Maine Coons are very sensitive to stress. Ours was sick for a week when we brought him home.
That said, we had a Persian we would get groomed in the summer because his hair came out in chunks and he’d get terrible hair balls. One of the first times I brought him in the girl asked if we wanted a “line cut.” (Keep in mind, this is the South.) I didn’t know what a line cut was but I said sure. When I picked him up I realized she was saying “lion cut” in her thick Nashville twang. Not “line cut.” Poor buddy looked like a circus lion. PISSED OFF circus lion.
TaMara (HFG)
@Gvg: This. I made the decision last time I had to take all the cats to the vet for checkups that no more, it was too stressful. We’ll do in home visits when needed from now on.
redshirt
Oddly enough I just learned hand sanitizer is the best way to deal with pine sap on floors or other surfaces. I’ve suffered years of sap related incidents so it feels great to finally learn this. It really works too, as I’ve just used it to clean up some new sap that dripped on to my floor.
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: Acetone, as in nail polish remover. Works like a charm.
JPL
OT.. It appears that the police are entering the restaurant in Bangladesh. CNN International
Bill_D
Reminds me of one of my late sister’s cats, Pouncequick. Huge, 19 lbs, and *muscular*.
RepubAnon
Tonight’s song:
Blondie – One Way Or Another
Elie
Sweet baby! Steve will be alright… and so will you….
Kay Eye
We used to take our big furry girl in for regular hygiene clips. We always asked for a full Brazilian. Made life bearable for the three of us. We miss her a lot.
Kjsbrooklyn
Hope you tipped the guy big time
karen marie
@Gvg: Or at least a smaller shop, without the hullaballoo. I take my spaniel to such a shop. The groomer schedules so that your animal gets groomed as soon as you bring them in, straight shot – an hour to an hour and a half – they’re done and ready to go home. Poor Steve. I took my previous dogs to a shop like Cole’s and my female Cocker blew a hotspot on her neck.
Mary G
You didn’t tell us if they left the poof on the end of his tail!
zanamu
My kitty & I agreed to skip the spa this summer. She always looks a little pathetic (but surprisingly long-legged!) after her annual shave. This year we agreed to cope with the Nebraska heat. She is weathering it magnificently, but what I noticed in past years was that after the first day of embarrassment, she came to appreciate that without all of her Norwegian forest cat fluff (she is a big girl, too, but not half as big as your boy) she had a lot of free time that she did not need to expend on grooming. In short, Steve will get over it & will probably revel in his carefree life/fur style. More time to cause trouble. The day was probably harder on the groomer than him.
JPL
@Kjsbrooklyn: I definitely agree, but most likely next time Cole tries to make an appointment, they will be booked up.
Hungry Joe
To borrow a line (sort of) from E.B. White: That’s some cat.
Rich Webb
@Howard Beale IV: Having dealt with giving cats liquid meds and pills, I’m a firm convert to pills. It seems that liquids would be easier to administer but cat may covertly drool it out; pills are binary, either down the throat or on the floor.
Old Cat here just went through four tooth extractions (and would have had more but she’s so old the vet didn’t want to keep her under longer nor add to the recovery trauma) so in addition to a twice a day thyroid pill the poor thing got an antibiotic, an NSAID of some kind, and a sublingual squirt of a painkiller. Still going strong, tho…
Mike in NC
We’re going to pick up a Ragdoll kitten on Thursday at a breeder in South Carolina. My birthday present.
guachi
I showed my four cats Steve’s picture and said, “This is why I don’t let you outside.”
They didn’t even look at me and kept napping.
WaterGirl
@Mike in NC: Photo?
ThresherK (GPad)
@WaterGirl: Twice my wife’s cat has bit or clawed me while at the vet. One half of one time I should have paid more attention. For both instances I needed antibiotics, and was luckily up to date for the tetanus shot.
This is a labor of love. He has his problems with me, but is a real mama’s boy, needs lap time with her every day and night, and she is never the person who brings him to the vet.
Mai.naem.mobile
When I saw the title of this post I thought it was referring to another catastrophe hitting the Trumpster’s campaign.
WaterGirl
@ThresherK (GPad): Good of you to play “bad cop”! Labor of love, is right, in two ways, it seems to me.
MomSense
Poor kitty. He looks surprisingly dignified even without his floof.
Paul W.
I’m a might drunk, but OMG HE’S SO PRETTY!
Steve, you beautiful beast!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
My cat Woody was a feral who came in the house after I trapped the mother and she was adopted out. Ever since, trips to the vet have been a shit show – I actually was worried he’d die of stress. He’s perfect in every way, except being manhandled and put in a carrier, where he goes into a state of complete scary mania. It’s too much for me, so unless it’s an emergency, no vet trips for Woody. He lets me do anything I want to him, so I do the claw trimming and overall care. Cats are kind of scary when they lose their minds.
Steve is a beauty though, with or without the floof.
Tenar Darell
Boy, I needed that. ROTFL with your storytelling. (Though it sounds like a harrowing experience for both Steve and the groomers).
Also too, co-signing the book collection comments in the thread.
gratuitous
@Iowa Old Lady: I was thinking it was the nice, even purposeful stare that says, “You can’t stay awake forever.”
Mobil RoonieRoo
Poor Steve!! I have to say, the upside of the body shaving is that without that fur you can really see his body condition. I hereby promise to never call Steve fat again.
CaseyL
Without the long hair, Steve is revealed to have that perfect Kliban meatloaf-shaped body. So funny that his face and head are untouched!
And I don’t know if that’s a deep look of love or a contemplative look of plotting revenge. I guess Cole will find out later tonight… and the rest of us tomorrow :)
I’ve never had my kitties shaved, but they’re medium-hairs rather than long-hairs. The Arch-Enemy, Liam, does get taken in by his CatMommy for a summer cut. I sometimes wonder if my guys make fun of him when he shows up with the whitish crew cut, all his magnificent black and white tresses gone.
Culture of Truth
“I’m shaved. I also have long hair. I’m all muscle. I crap where I want. I am…. the most interesting cat in the world.”
Anne Laurie
You banished him to KITTY HELL and now he is back home, in the good place. As the Furry Freak Brothers would warn you — check your shoes/slippers before putting them on, not to mention your stereo headphones!
Seriously, since it upsets the poor guy so much, you might want to ask your vet tech about getting a dedicated pet clipper, and which teaching videos they’d recommend with it. It may be easier on both of you if you can discretely keep Steve’s personal areas shaved short, if you can accustom him to a quick pass while he’s relaxed on his cat tree.
If that’s too daunting, at least ask your vet about a tranquilizer / muscle relaxant you can give him before the next grooming trip.
Culture of Truth
This also happened to the Cowardly Lion during the grooming scene of The Wizard of Oz, it’s just not widely reported.
Schlemazel Khan
@Culture of Truth:
THANKS! Now I will never be able to watch that movie again without picturing poor old Bert Lahr evacuating himself all over the merry ol land of Oz
ET
Are you going to be able to use that groomer again? And did you tip them enough?
Culture of Truth
@Schlemazel Khan: My grandfather was an assistant editor, so I’ve seen the outtakes. They’re awful!
seaboogie
@Culture of Truth: This is what I look like naked ‘ bitchez….go ahead and admire me all you want…I’ve got time….
SectionH
@Howard Beale IV: Poor baby. I hope he’s feeling better soon.
@Gvg: Excellent advice.
3 years ago I adopted a 12 yro Persian kitteh, who’d been rescued from horrendous circs, and had initially been thought “unadoptable” by the no-kill shelter staff… Short outcome, she’ll always be a scaredy-cat, but she does fine. But I’d never had a Persian before, so little did I know what I was getting into, grooming-wise. And I had a Maine Coon, for 16 years. She was easy to keep in comparison. So, I thought *bingo!* I’ll take her to a groomer and let them at least give her a Sanitary clip.
But then the reality of most grooming places hit me: it’s mostly dogs. And the last thing Ziri needs is that sort of stress.
Ziri did get a lion cut a year or so ago. At my then vet’s. She’d needed an MRI or something ghastly expense like that, and the vet warned me they’d need to shave a chunk of fur. I said, Fine, just kind of trim it evenly around her torso. Came back to collect her, and — oh, I was angry. They’d given her a lion cut, including shaving her tail into that twee tuft on the end. She didn’t seem to mind terribly, she was so happy to get home, though I think she was chilly for a couple of months.
seaboogie
@Gvg: Noooooo! Do not groom your own cat unless you have one of those rare diseases where you need to have your blood let on a regular basis. At least at the vets/groomers cats are sort of cowed, and more manageable. They seem to have really short memories once they are restored to their happy place at home and you are the hero that got them out of that damn hell-hole of torture.
Dogs, OTOH are more manageable for grooming, but they’re all like “Dude, am I not your friend? Am I not a good boy? I really trusted you, man – and now this? I’m going to need a little alone-time to process this betrayal….”
SectionH
@Gvg: Good idea about looking for a groomer to come in. When I was a teenager, I used to groom my poodle, including giving him a puppy cut with electric clippers, nails, the whole job. I’ve been thinking about getting some clippers to give Ziri a sanitary cut, but I’m more likely now to see if I can get someone to come in. Ziri is usually terrified into meekness with at the vet’s – no, they think she’s an angel, but she’ll fight me.
chopper
the question on everyone’s mind is, did they shave his ass?
workworkwork
@germy: We had a Maine Coon like that. Periodically we’d schedule a ‘spa day’ at the groomers – bath, nail trim, haircut. It took two groomers to manage it (he weighed 22 pounds) and his patience would run out about three-quarters of the way through and he’d start chasing them around the table.
The lion cut looked great on him, though. Very regal.
Howard Beale IV
@Rich Webb: The pain med liquid isn’t that bad-it’s buprenorphene, the same thing they give opiate addicts, and it’s not that much.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
The poor kitty. D: At least the worst is over for him now.
catclub
@Gin & Tonic: But acetone is bad news. I would guess hand sanitizer is much milder, since you are allowed to put that on your hands.
different-church-lady
I hate to be the one to bring this up, but doesn’t this mean he’s likely to just get himself covered in sap again?
redshirt
@different-church-lady: Sap Cat.
Elizabelle
Good looking cat. He’s happy to be home.
Ann Marie
The cat I had growing up did not have a litter box either. She went outside whenever she needed to go. As she got old, however, she started going in the (unlit) fireplace, so we got her a box. Be prepared to get Steve a box when he gets older.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Awww, did they shave a heart into his shoulder there?
I want to recommend something that has been a lifesaver (mine) for claw clippings: the Cat Restraint Bag. My husband thinks it looks like a torture device on our big guy, who is a little large for the largest bag, but I can do all four feet an all four cats fairly efficiently.
What prompted me to try it was the trouble we had trying to get eardrops into the big guy for an ear infection. I’m hoping that they will be used to the bag — and associate it with the apology treats afterward — by the time I have to medicate another pride member.
I have no plans to try bathing them in it, though.
HeartlandLiberal
This reminds me of an article I read recently about the entire wings of ancient bird found in large chunks of amber, a real breakthrough for studying evolution of birds. At least Steve did not fall in a giant glob of resin big enough to start the fossilization process, otherwise, 65 million years from now, some paleontologist would be exploring a find of amber, and be heard muttering, “Well, damn, look, that’s John Cole’s cat, Steve.”
gogol's wife
@Vickie Feminist:
Oh yeah.
Love you, Steve. I love petting a cat who’s been shaved, it’s like velvet.
Emily68
Alcohol based hand-sanitizer works well at getting pine sap off of my hands. I realize it might be an adventure using it on Steve.
rikyrah
This is the least scary pic of Steve in a long time. Usually, he scares me.
phoebes from highland park
Steve is gorgeous. I hadn’t seen him around here in a while and I was getting concerned he was still with us. And the dog pictures are great, too. What a wonderful manergie.
Miss Bianca
@Mike in NC: pics! pics!
walkingstone
Next time try soaking the sap in oil (vegetable or mineral) for 10 minutes and then ease it off. Mineral oil is a harmless hairball treatment for cats, plus it kills fleas on contact – a generous tummy rub will protect for days.