Thursday, August 28, 2008

Piper's First Bath (and Last)!

When I got back yesterday I went to pet Piper, who as pretty much all of you know, is my cat. I got him as a kitten from my friend, whose cat had just had a litter, when I was just starting 6th grade. That makes him 8 years old next month.
Piper has very thick fur because it's sort of crimped naturally. Anyway, his fur was all greasy and he had quite a bit of dandruff. I decided I'd give him a bath. He's never had a bath in his life. It turned out to be quite an adventure...
I made some pet shampoo out of corn meal (for exfoliation), white vinegar (only a little, but this is a really good non-toxic cleaner that can be used for just about anything), and some mild hand soap.

I mixed in some water to dilute it and then brushed Piper down to get out all (ha, it never ends) the loose hair.
(You may notice his right eye isn't normal...he's had scar tissue over it for some peculiar reason since he was about a year old. I think Skipper or Sylvester scratched him in the eye once or something.)
Then I started the process. I didn't want to force him to sit directly in water and I didn't want to turn the water on while he was in the tub because I'm pretty sure he'd freak, so I had to fill a pitcher with water and use that. I didn't wash his face because he can do that himself and I didn't want to get vinegary soap in his eyes or anything.

It didn't take very long, and although he struggled and ended up scratching up my right thigh pretty badly, he was more cooperative than I'm sure many other cats are, plus I had a pretty good grip on him. I probably could've made it out scratch-free but he started to squirm too much when I was rinsing him so I had to get into the tub and hold him.
(This was hilarious--his paws were still wet so as soon as he jumped up on the counter he slipped right off. I felt terrible but it was very very funny to see him sprawled on the floor in confusion.)
He's incredibly soft now and as fat and happy as ever. He really enjoyed the brushing I gave him afterward to get his fur all fluffed again. And he loves me even more, I'm sure :)
But Skipper, who tends to hiss at Piper whenever she sees him anyway, took one look and one sniff and started throwing a hissy fit, literally. I took this video but she stopped hissing as soon as I did. But you can still see the aftermath...


What is that mysterious clicking noise???? No clue. Sorry the video is blurry.

4 comments:

michaela said...

ahmahgahsh i love your cats


and hey well done, pet baths is tricky

Adrien said...

I found the source of the clicking! It's a PIPE BOMB!! YAAYYY!!!

actually, that camera has always had that little clicky noise during videos for some reason. i've never figured it out. but, at least it has sound at all. megan and jared's (the same camera but more pixels) doesn't have sound for video at all!

oh piper. he is fat.

Jared and Megan said...

it's true, our camera don't have sound.

I think you should give Piper baths more often. He wants them. I want him to want them.

Voldemort, voldemort oh voldy, voldy voldy voldemort!

Shannon said...

moldy voldy