If you think the mats are too tight for you to comb out then I'd suggest a trip to the vet and let their groomer remove the worst mats. I would then start treating her regularly with a detangler made for cats. You can spray it on or you can spray it on your hands and work it through her hair with your fingers. Her fur isn't as long as I thought it may be so I think you'll be able to get the problem under control.

She's really cute, as is Rocky!

Here is a link that might be useful: Here's one brand

She's a beauty!

She looks like a Main Coon mix, with the double or triple coat that those cats have.

The only way to keep her from matting up is to gently brush her, down to the skin, every couple of days, year in & year out.

If you can get a comb between the mat & her skin, you can clip the mat from above the comb.

You may also be able to cut through some of the mats, reducing them in size & making them more likely to 'unravel' or at least be more easily unraveled by a diligent human.

You won't be able to do much at one sitting, but it'll eventually work out.

I like to do this kind of thing when the cat's sleeping on my stomach;
I keep a pair of haircutting scissors in the bedside table!

She's adorable, very cute seeing the 2 of them play together. Good luck with her grooming :>) Rusty is a handsome cat, I like his colors.
Christine

Alisande, you live in WI, right? Since Scruffy is an outside cat, I wouldn't cut or shave ANY of her fur off until it is consistently warm out this spring or early summer. She needs all the insulation she can get at this time of year. Of course, you could shave her and then bring her indoors for the rest of the winter, but if she's staying out, leave the mats alone until warm weather.

Laurie

Alisande, you live in WI, right? Since Scruffy is an outside cat, I wouldn't cut or shave ANY of her fur off until it is consistently warm out this spring or early summer. She needs all the insulation she can get at this time of year. Of course, you could shave her and then bring her indoors for the rest of the winter, but if she's staying out, leave the mats alone until warm weather.

Laurie

Alisande,

Unless you can bring her in for the rest of the winter, I wouldn't do anything too drastic about the mats, especially not getting her shaved.

(Why not bring her into the house? Even the good pet warmers aren't really effective, and being an outdoor cat leaves her vulnerable to many problems and risks, all much more serious than matted fur!)

I have a rescue cat that arrived with terrible mats and I have worked for a long time to get him to allow me to cut them out. That is the only solution, unless you plan to periodically take the cat to the vet for shaving.

You can get them out by yourself, but NOT by combing once the mats have formed. What needs to be done is to carefully snip them out, a little bit at a time. You'll need very sharp, real hairdressers' scissors with blunt tips as you'll be working somewhat blind in the fur when you are part-way through a mat. You need to be able to gently push the tips of the scissors through the edge of the mat until you can see the tip of the blade before snipping. But if the cat will tolerate this (and it will take a while since the mats are right now painfully pulling on her skin all the time and any shift in the mat probably feels llike more awful things are about to come) you can remove them w/o the cost of a trip to the vet and the risks of general anesthesia.

Try doing it in stages; I talk to my cat very soothingly with much praise for holding still. Yet even though I've had this cat for a number of years and he will sometimes even draw my attention to a hidden mat, I usually do get scratched or nipped when panic takes over while I'm snipping away. Once you get most of the solid masses of the big mats off sometimes raking with a kind of coarse-toothed comb ( teeth about 3/8thsinch apart) will slide off smaller knots.

Make sure this cat is rabies vaccinated before you undertake this because a bite that needs medical attention may bring on the need for mandatory at-vet quarantine (10 days of vet-office boarding is very pricey, but the only alternative to euthanasia if required by human public health law) if the cat doesn't have proof of rabies vax before the incident.

This particular cat of mine came begging for food, which I provided, and then I just thought he had a little stick attached to his fur and attempted to pick it off. Whomp, he was in such discomfort from the mats that he bit me severely. Luckily he was already caged so I didn't have to search the neighborhood for him - or take the shots myself. I did have to have him quarantined, though. I had the mats removed when he was still alive and healthy at ten days when I had him neutered. But I didn't want to have to give him anesthesia just for grooming purposes.

So I learned to snip them off him. Brushing doesn't always prevent, and rarely cures, mats in cats with certain hair types. Only patient removal works. But it does take time and willingness on the part of both cat and owner.

The best place to buy hairdressers' scissors that I have found is Sally's Beauty Supply. They aren't very expensive, but get ones that can be resharpened. For some reason mat-prone cat hair is also pretty dulling to the blades. And sharpness makes it easier all around - especially because it makes it take much less time.

I do the snipping with the cat parked on a table, with one of those angle-poise drafting lamps overhead so that I can move around to get a good clear view. If the cat is on a blanket or a flat snuggly kennel pad he feels more secure, too.

You might be able to remove a few of the mats with careful snipping during the winter, but be careful not to remove too much of her winter coat.

Good luck!

Liriodendron

Thanks, everyone, for the good advice. I should have made it clear that I would never consider having her shaved in winter. I'm just thinking ahead to summer.

I'm in PA, not WI, but it does get cold here. Rocky spends his nights in my downstairs bathroom (with my three indoor cats upstairs), and when the brutally cold weather arrived recently I brought Scruffy in too. It was not ideal . . . although she and Rocky get along well, Scruffy is dominant and likes to have all the food for herself.

I don't know if I'd be able to undertake a careful process of mat removal with this cat. She tolerates brief periods of lap time, but never really settles down. We'll see what the situation is like when the weather warms. I appreciate having the information you've provided, and at least I can make a tentative plan.

Thanks again.

oops, I sometimes forget about realllly cold weather (although we had a spell of it here last week!).

Keep an eye on the matted areas to be sure that they don't abrade the skin & make sores.

If you can brush or dab or rub or do *something* to get/keep debris out, it'll help.

Just my experience, I have a feral barn cat (attached picture) that is long-haired obviously. My neighbors & I laugh that she looks like a raccoon in the winter. She also mats ... and pulls off the mats in the spring.

Though she is sitting at my back door, she does not allow me to get too close, she's actually waiting for my dogs to come out and play with her. I've been trying to touch her for the past 5 years ... the rescue I got her from said she was unsociable ... guess they were right.

I also use hair cutting shears froma beuty supply store. My cat is pretty cooperative though.

We had a Persian that matted all the time, and was not terribly cooperative about being combed or shaved... so we sedated him every 6 months and did what's called a lion cut (clipper-shaved all but the feet, head and tail). He was always happier once shaved but always took a day or two to get used to it.

So, so cute!!! Bless you for taking care of these kitties. I'm with Annz - get her to a groomer, and give her a bit of a relaxing drug beforehand, if necessary. I have a long-haired cat that HATES it when I groom him, but if I don't, he gets terribly matted, too. He gets a tiny bit of - I think it's acepromazine - to relax him, and then I go to work. This only has to happen once a year. The rest of the time, he manages to pull out chunks on his own.

My cat is 19 years old and badly matted. He wouldn't let me brush him when young. When he was younger, he could clean himself and hardly had any mats. I have a cat groomer coming next week who will shave him. She will give him the lion look. Since he will be home and I will be with him, he shouldn't get to stressed. Hopefully, once the mats are removed, he will let me brush him.

Have him sleep while being groomed, sometimes we do that to my darla, my cat pet. some of us here are asthmatic thats why our pets needs to be groomed always. Our air filter runs 24/7 so cats hairs and danders won't alleviate asthmatics here

I have a cat sanctuary. Just this week took in a cat with 5 LBS of matted fur. Vet gave the lion cut. Have other long haired cats in my care prone to severe matting. My advice is regular grooming. Shaving fur off in Summer, (all my long haired cats love being short haired cats) and removing mats with a seam stripper or thread cutter (no scissors). If you have a sewing kit there will be one in there. It looks like a two pronged fork with a ball on one end and pointed on the other. You can just run it under the matt without fear of cutting the skin. Works like a dream.

Be careful letting outside cats have access to inside cats. I would recommend getting him tested for FIV/Felv before you do. Gluck with the grooming tho, shaving and maintaining after the fact is usually the easiest and less stessful due to the time it'd take. Maybe get a mild sedative from the vet to calm him.