A Guide To Natural Cat Grooming

Natural cat grooming is one of the reasons why cats are so clean. They use their tongues, paws, nails and teeth to groom themselves. Grooming is extremely important to cats and they can spend about 50% of their time doing it.

Cats have tongues with a rough surface. With saliva, they use their tongue to get rid of the dirt on their fur. For the hard-to-reach places, they wet their paws with saliva and use them as washcloths. They use their teeth to dig out dirt that hasn't been cleaned out with the tongue. They also use their teeth to nibble at the fur and put it back in place.

Front paws are not the only ones used as substitute washcloths. Back paws are also used to get dirt out from fur during natural cat grooming. When a cat cleans its face with its paws, it stimulates the glands around the head. These stimulated glands secrete an oily substance, which the cat then spreads all over its body during the grooming session.

The natural cat grooming session is quite stereotypical. A cat will first lick its paw and rub it in an upward circular motion on its nose. Then it will lick its paw again and proceed to groom the ear, eye and head on the same side of its face. After that is done, it repeats the same motions on the other side of its face. Once its face is clean, the cat normally moves on to clean its front legs, flanks, shoulders and genital area. It also cleans its hind legs and tails with long sweeps of its tongue. A cat might have several grooming sessions in day when it would clean the different parts of its body.

Besides hygiene, natural cat grooming also has other physical and psychological benefits. The physical benefits of grooming are that the fur is kept free of fleas, ticks and other parasites. The body temperature of the cat is regulated due to the evaporation of the saliva and the oily glandular secretions help to water-proof its fur.

Psychologically, natural cat grooming could help reduce anxiety and frustration in the cat. It also grooms itself in conflict situations or situations where it feels stressed. Grooming makes a cat feel calm and assured.

Cats generally shed their fur once a year. Shedding of fur is dependent mostly on light and temperature. If you live in a heated home, you will find that your cat will normally shed the whole year through.

Hairballs are a big problem in the process of natural cat grooming. When a cat cleans itself, it swallows some of its fur. These fur balls solidify into pellets in the cat's intestines. Most of the time, a cat will vomit a hairball up every few days. Sometimes, the hairballs get stuck and you will notice a distinct change in the behavior in your cat. Normally, if you feed some oily fish to it, the cat hairballs get dislodged. If that doesn't work, then a visit to the vet will do the trick.