It’s  springtime and the Oak Court Cats are not happy.  With warmer temperatures and longer days at hand, the cats begin the annual process of shedding the winter fur.  The Oak Court Cats started a few weeks ago and have been leaving little piles of fur scattered around the house.  When I get home after work I can usually tell where they’ve spent the day by the amount of fur in any given spot.

Missey’s favorite nap spot is on the corner of my bed, where she sleeps in the sun most of the day and has left quite a handfull of gray and black fur.  Precious, the predator, tends to spend the days sleeping on my bureau and it is covered by strands of mottled brown fur.  Tabby fur covers the dining room table and the big guy has left a small mountain of his hair on the sofa.  Before I can start dinner I need to go through the house with the vacuum cleaner.

They each have their own way of dealing with the scratching.  Missey will wake up from a nap, scratch furiously for 5 minutes then go back to sleep till the next attack.  The tabby prefers the dining room table while the big guy is happiest rolling around on the carpet where he can leave a pile of hair on the  floor.  Precious doesn’t do a good job of preening herself; she prefers to be brushed and will demand a good brushing usually while I am trying to eat.

To help then through this process I brush them nightly (that yields another pile of cat hair) and wipe them down with those cat cleaning clothes.  Missey doesn’t allow me to brush her, she prefers my son’s brushing.  Precious puts up with some brushing while the tabby will stay still for long periods of time as i brush.  The big guy doesn’t’ care who, just brush him.  While brushing, we look for telltale signs of fleas.

Anyone who has been around cats in the spring understands what I’m talking about.  Shedding is rough enough by itself; add the fleas and you have 4 miserable cats.

So, the cats get a dose of some goo between their shoulder blades and the carpets get sprayed with some other flea-killing chemical and then we wait.  In the mean time the cats scratch, whine, growl and are no longer pleasant to be around.

A few days after the flea treatments we start brushing again and, in a month, repeat the process again.   Usually takes 3 cycles to eliminate both the shedding and the fleas.

It’s late and Precious reminds me she’d like a brushing. Nite.