The Shedding Season

Recently, I've started waking up looking like the bearded lady in a circus sideshow. At first I thought it was another damn menopausal symptom. As if the weight gain, night sweats and waning hormone-induced hissy fits weren't enough to make reaching the mid-century mark suck. Then I realized I don't have orange hair. Oh, right, it's the feline shedding season.

Time to break out the FURminator. If you are a cat owner and you don't have one, what are you waiting for? Get you to a Pet Smart. This is the only thing that is going to keep you sane this summer. Unless you just happen to relax by vacuuming 20 times a day. And rubbing a lint brush over your entire body 50 times a day.

FURminators are pet brushes, but not just any regular brushes. The teeth are tiny razors which thin out the cat's undergrowth, the source of shedding and major cause for hairballs. At first, I was skeptical, and then when I started using it I was horrified. That's a lot of hair to be coming off one little cat! Was I going to wind up with a litter of wrinkled, hairless little freakazoid kitties like Rachel's Mrs. Whiskerson on "Friends?"

Fortunately, the answer was "no," although I did wind up with a big enough pile to knit a cat fur sweater or even build another cat or two if I was so inclined. (I'm not; seven's enough. But, then, I think I once said six was enough, too.)

As with any process involving cats, the brushing does not go as smoothly as it does on the TV infomercial (see also my posts about flea treatments and the Pedi-Paws Nail Trimmer). Unlike the nail-trimmer, however, the FURminator occasionally makes it out of the junk drawer BECAUSE IT WORKS.

Granted three of my seven would rather walk across a hot stove top (and have done just that) to escape the Furminator. The other four would gladly let me brush them bald-headed.

I guess none of them have ever watched "Friends."