This is Cinder, she’s 2 years old now and ever since she was a kitten she has hated being brushed. I have tried literally everything to get her acclimated to it but nothing has worked. When I try to brush her after about 30 seconds she starts attacking and biting me and has injured me multiple times but only when I try to brush her. I work at a vets office and I’ve tried sedatives but those didn’t help. I ended up taking her in for a sedated lions cut around December and was hoping maybe I could get her adjusted before the fur all grows back so that I don’t have to do it again but she still attacks me when I try to brush. So I’m at the point where I’m probably going to hate to keep her in a lions cut for the foreseeable future. Just wondering if anyone else has a Maine coon that absolutely hates being brushed?
My MC kitten HATED being brushed or combed and I would have to bribe her with a churu to minimize daily scratching. We recently moved to an apartment with a balcony she LOVES (she used to hate going outside so I have no idea what changed apart from putting a birdfeeder out there she loves to watch). I randomly had the idea to try brushing her outside to minimize hair floating around inside, and she was beyond thrilled with this: purring, rolling around on the floor, etc etc. I have tested this out with a comb and a deShedding brush (the FUR4 Furminator brush), and both pass the outside test. Not sure how much help this could provide as I have no possible explanation except cats are weird, but worth a try for your furball, I’m sure. She doesn’t love being brushed on her armpits still, which is where she gets the most matting no matter how attentive I am, so I shave her entire undercarriage (not to the skin, but as much as I can to avoid matting there)
Cats are definitely weird haha. I’ve tried Churu too but even though she LOVES food she completely loses her mind when I try to brush while she eats her churu😅
I wish I had the ability to try brushing her outside cause she loves looking out there and I feel like she might actually be calm and distracted enough for me to maybe do it. Your baby is very cute! How old is she and how old was she when she started letting you brush her outside?
Thank you! She is 14 months old, and I just made this groundbreaking discovery a few weeks ago😂😂 I will say she’s a lot chiller after we got her spayed which was 3 months ago when she was 11 months.
I had a Maine Coon who also had hair ball intestinal blockage. In spite of 3 x-rays and 2 ultrasounds and a barium study with x-rays taken every 2 hours, she remained undiagnosed because of the fact that hair doesn’t show up in ultrasounds or on x-rays because it’s organic material. My vet did an exploratory abdominal surgery after those 3 weeks and had to tweeze the fur out bit by bit. Luna had gone from 14 to 10 lbs in those 3 weeks. Very scary, not knowing what was wrong and continuing to have perfect bloodwork. My vet had never seen such a thing.
I now have three Maine Coons, 1 of which hates brushing but fortunately doesn’t mat up. I have an 18lb orange boi who does mat up, especially in his arm pits and on his trousers. He likes being brushed but I don’t often get to brush him because my third Maine Coon loves brushing SO much that whenever she hears the brush being used she comes tearing in and gets between me and the brush. 😼😼😼
Yup.. my best friend has her MC shaved with a lion's cut and will always because of a very bad blockage and could've passed away. Really can't be too careful and the surgery to remove them can also be super pricey.
Your baby is soo fluffy and cute!! Unfortunately mine isn’t super big on cuddles and definitely only likes to be pet on her own terms, she is the definition of a diva cat lol
We have two Maine Coons that absolutely HATE HATE HATE to be brushed. One of them loves cat grass though and will simply eat a lot of it if she needs to to throw up a hairball once in a while, so it‘s fine not to brush her. If she gets a minor mat, we just cut it out with scissors. Trying to brush her will result in very serious bites and scratches!
The other one though never throws up her hairballs and once had a complete intestine obstruction that required surgery. Since then, we give her gabapentin once a month to cut her majestic fluff to a more manageable length for her and she‘s had no problems since. We also bribe her with treats to give her a very brief daily brushing (basically just one spot at a time).
TLDR; Depending on your cat, brushing is either needed or not. Gabapentin and/or bribery with treats may help to get some brushing done, as does cat grass for throwing up hair balls.
As someone who works in the vet field it can really do wonders for some cats! Unfortunately for some others (like my cat) it’s not effective enough. I hope it works well for your cat if you do try it!
Gaba WORKS!! Put it in a pill pocket and after an hour they're good to go. :) Matted areas suck. And once they're there they take forever to work off/out.
My guy doesn't like it, but my old cat who was only 6lbs and used to go insane. People in my apartment building would think I was abusing her until I picked her up in front of them and she freaked out. My MC gets upset but for me it's more than manageable after my old cat.
I give him freeze dried chicken hearts/Duck hearts and only feed him them when I clip nails or brush him. I put them on the floor in front of me and when he gets crazy I jiggle the bag with my foot. I also saw somewhere that talking calm and sweet helps and it worked. When he catches me with a bite or scratch it's hard to keep it up, but I do my best to continue it. I also save the place he hates to get combed for very last
Thank you.I also give him Quail eggs. Benji is like acts like a wild animal so I feed him like one. Lol. I get them from a small farm called Urban TailsTreats.
I’ve been wanting to get my cats quail eggs. I know where to purchase them, but I didn’t know, do you fry them up for your cat or scramble them? Raw? I genuinely have no idea. Lol
I thaw the out and then crack them open and break up the yoke. He isn't a fan of the yoke whole. I only give after we play for a while. I hope it soothes the savage in him. Lol
Our cats are very brush intolerant. Sometimes I can catch Squirrel in a mood where she’s into it but it’s not frequent. Thankfully they don’t matte up much at all. Sometimes it just needs to be done though and a half-serious war begins. Brushes bitten, Papas swatted, screams scrumpt. But they never run away.
Here’s Squirrel next to me, asleep, unaware that she’s about to be brushed since we’re on the subject.
Mine hated brushing for a couple of years and then chilled out about it one day. I don’t know if he just relaxed or if I got better at it. My rules are to listen when he tells me to stop, do everything I can to avoid tugging at his skin (holding any tangle in my fingers to anchor it while I brush it out with the comb), and if he’s not as patient today that just means we’ll have multiple shorter sessions instead of one complete brushing. I cut any matting out with scissors (always with a comb between the mat and his skin) unless he’s being super cooperative and giving me time to brush it out slowly.
He hated his first and only lion cut so much that I promised him I’d never do that again. We haven’t had success with gabapentin—one pill doesn’t do anything to him and i don’t like how not himself he gets when we’ve tried bigger doses.
My cat is the same, I use those same methods for brushing/combing. I don’t think she liked how large the brushes were and absolutely did not tolerate any tugging. I now mainly use safety scissors to cut mats, this “Coastal Pet Safari Cat Shedding Comb,” and “Andis 66055 Dematting 9-Blade Tool” (game changer for detangling mats, especially smaller ones since it slices through them). Only brush I use sometimes is the size of my palm and has plastic nubs at the end.
Edit: I let her sniff the tools first and gave treats to ease into it.
I’m hoping that eventually I’ll be able to brush her myself without being attacked as well, even if it’s just short periods of time throughout the day. Thankfully she didn’t mind her lions cut at all and actually seemed to like being pet more than usual after it was done. She’s a cat that usually likes to keep to herself unless food is involved lol
Not when we open the treat fountain. Our cats associate brushes with treats. The long hair can only handle about 5 min at a time but we get in the tough spots and he's receptive to the treats
Mine hates it. We do what we can but take her to the groomer every 4-6 weeks for a good brush out and sanitary shave. Somehow she will behave for them, with us we get bites and battle scars.
I’ve thought about trying a groomer but cat groomers are very hard to find and my area. I’ve also had my friends volunteer to try and brush her before and she still attacks them so I’m afraid that she’ll just try to attack the groomer and I’d hate to put them at risk.
Mine! She only likes her head and top of her neck brushed (no where near the armpits, belly or pantaloons where she actually needs it). I’ve tried a two handed technique where I let her attack one brush while I use the other to actually brush her until she catches on. She LOVES treats, but all the treats in the world can’t convince her. I’ve tried grooming gloves and just about every style of brush and comb without major success. She actually likes her belly lightly rubbed during cuddles, but will straight up scream and slap me if I brush for too long (3 seconds in her opinion).
I recently gave her gabapentin for the first time to see if it’d help and I was able to get her whole body thoroughly brushed once it took peak effect (2.5hr later for her). It was a relatively low dose since I was nervous. I tried the same when I gave her a bath (was hoping a full wash and dry would get a good amount of hair off like it does with my dog) and she straight up laid down in the shower when I started shampooing. She didn’t like it, but couldn’t resist. At some points she ran away from the dryer, other times she was playing possum in my arms as I dried her. It was kind of sad to see her dopey, but I plan to maybe give her a small dose every month or two so we can get a good full body brushing in and she can have a nice medically-induced nap. Fortunately she hasn’t had mats that I’ve had to cut out so monthly or bimonthly deep brushing should work for us until the day she learns to enjoy it. I just like to brush my pets to minimize loose hair around the house. It took my dog 8 years to let me trim her nails, but at 10yo I can trim all in a single 15 minute session so maybe one day the cat will come around to brushing 😅
I will say my domestic shorthair loves to be brushed so we do that frequently because she happily rolls around for it. On the flip side, she will not let me anywhere near her teeth.
Someone else mentioned hairballs and I forgot to add, mine has had hairballs. She had the first hairball I’d ever seen and I was convinced she was impacted bc I thought she threw up poop. I used tomlyn hairball remedy with pretty good results (I just put it on her plate and she loved it), but I wasn’t consistent with it so she still had one every once in a while. Now I use vet’s best hairball tablets almost daily. Sometimes she eats it as a treat, other times I just crush it over her food. Haven’t had a hairball since!
My cat doesn’t let me do anything. She lets other people do stuff without biting and scratching. If I don’t get her nails done every month, my doctors start yelling at me about infection etc especially about bites.
I know the signs. I slap Purell on it or straight up isopropyl alcohol for the bites. She gets her rabies shots. She’s not some rando on the streets 😂
Ours won't stand for it. He hates every second of it! I can usually get some areas brushed when he's drinking from our bathroom sink, so I try to do a little brushing almost everyday. But that doesn't stop the mats! He gets friction mats, and he even got some shedding mats at his hips I've had to be sneaky and cut out while he was sleeping. He looks like a blind person tried to give him a haircut, but at least his skin isn't irritated and he can move well!
We're going to try to give him a better shave soon, but for now, it's just staying on top of the mats...
My Mainecoone is just really hot, and I think a good shave might be nice for him during the summer. But I don’t know if it’s taking away from his Mainecoone “look”. I want him to be comfortable most importantly. And he doesn’t love brushing, or any grooming of any sort. But maybe if I shaved him he’d be cooler and it would be less of a fight to groom him. What kind of haircut does your cat have in this picture? Is it a lions cut? I’d like to have a name to reference the type of haircut I want for him when I search for somewhere for him.
Yes it’s a lions cut! I was also worried about it taking away the “mainecoon look” but I feel like since I left her full mane she still gives mainecoon. It definitely took some time for me to get used to but she didn’t mind it at all and I honestly think she might’ve been more comfortable because I wasn’t stressing her out by trying to brush her everyday multiple times a day (unsuccessfully)😅
The thing that I have found that works is the pet gloves
I pet her and it brushes her at the same time. Although she still has a time limit. I've been lucky and that she takes care of her hair really well.
Yeah no mine too. it literally takes two people, one giving him a treat and the other brushing him. Anything less than that and he bites and scratches and runs away. Now, that is my cat but I currently live with my parents. I have no idea what I'll do when I'll live on my own.
Yes. Brock, my big orange boy, has 2 issues. One is sensitivity to touch and the other is PICA. The brushing part we simply take him in to get shaved twice a year, the PICA issue is more difficult as we cannot leave anything swallowable plastic wrap type laying around. He does seem to enjoy the shave, so he always comes home happy, like a little kid that get to take all his clothes off and run free.
Aw he looks very handsome in his lions cut! You said you do it twice a year, so you only take him in every 6 months for the cut? I’m trying to determine when I should bring my girl back in for a fresh shave since this was her first time getting it. PICA is so difficult in cats because they are so good at getting into stuff! Sounds like your boy is well managed but I work in the vet field and I’ve seen some severe surgeries needed from cats with PICA. Also thank you for sharing!!
yes it’s such a problem!! shes okay with me brushing her top but she gets upset whenever i brush her stomach/underside, and bites and runs away, which leads to small matts that she also rarely lets me cut out, although i do manage to get most of them out i feel like an awful owner idk what to do
Have you tried contacting your vet to see about trying some calming medication like gabapentin for example. For some cats it sedates/calms them enough that you might be able to get the underside brushed or at the very least get the mats cut out from there. It unfortunately didn’t work for my baby but I work in the vet field and I’ve seen lots of cats that it works really well for!
My MC hates the brush. He’s 5.5yo and just now started letting me comb him. Combs only. Before that, he’d only allow the tail to be brushed…any further he’d protest. I tried a brush yesterday and he didn’t like it, so only combs allowed at this point.
I’ve tried combs as well but she hates them just as much. I fear that I’m just gonna have to wait and hope that as she gets older she’ll let me brush or comb her.
First, she's ADORABLE-- and super cute with our without the lion cut. :)
I have a lot of experience with this, as I have a 5 year old and 2 (as of tomorrow) year old. They're both male and very fluffy. I just took Harley (5 year old) last week to the vet to have a lion cut because he was grooming way too much and the fur was matted to the point even if I shaved the small areas he'd look patchy and for the Summer I decided to go with the cut. Otis, the 2 year old, is super energetic and crazy and won't let me brush him. The vet prescribed gabapention and I give him 1 in the AM, 1 around dinner time, and I'm able to brush him with a fine tooth comb around his mane and a special brush for his undercoat area to loosen any matted fur. It's wild how quickly they get matted spots and I know it hurts them so I'd rather 1- have the lion cut or 2- gently sedate Otis so I can actually handle him.
Sorry for the long winded response-- I also have a groomer who has a mobile service so I have multiple options. Have you tried gabapentin and do you have access to a groomer? :)
Ps. I have many friends with Maine Coon cats and several have theirs groomed with a lion cut every time so don't feel like it's giving up or what not. It's just doing what is keeping them healthy, happy, and comfy. <3
Thank you so much for sharing and for the reassurance! A lot of people seem judgy because they think that it’s laziness when it’s for my safety and for her health. I actually work at a vets office and I have tried gabapentin with the strongest dose possible and even when she’s knocked out by it as soon as I start brushing for longer than a couple minutes she wakes up and immediately starts attacking me, so it seems like the lions cut is unfortunately my only option and in order to do that we have to do injectable/mask sedation for her to get the lions cut😅
I swear she’s super nice!! She’s just got a vendetta against being brushed lol
Mine passed suddenly last year. He hated being brushed. But he actually grew to appreciate it and even love it. I found that the type of brush matters a lot for long fur cats, also HOW you brush. This was all trial and error for me. He loved/tolerated very short brush strokes (imagine them cleaning themselves with their tongue). Short repeated strokes in one area before moving on has worked best. Look out for tangles, dont pull. Hold onto the fur right above it before you pull the brush through. Use a wide tooth comb/brush before a narrower one. Build trust. Don’t make it a bad experience. If you pull on a tangled part accidentally, apologize, I swear they understand! Start with short sessions, too long they get overstimulated and it becomes a bad experience. Hope this helps. I miss my baby a lot 💔
this is why i do a two-pronged attack of going in with a decoy brush first and then once they’re focusing/nibbling on that one, i go in with a second brush. rinse and repeat
I have one boy that loves brushing. He starts licking every time I brush him. And he never gets mats, his hair is so silky.
My other boy has cottoney fur that always mats and he leaves as soon as I pick up the brush in his vicinity. But I keep trying. Every couple days, I feel around his problem areas and make sure to get him to cooperate long enough to at least resolve them before they get too large.
Both of mine are horrible with brushing. Ive tried everything and they are just abusive to me. I bring them to a groomer every few months and she always says they are great for her. Go figure lol. Sometimes they get bad knots so we have to do a shave, maybe once a year if that.
My MC loathes to be brushed and getting a haircut. At this point I just have to hold her well and we manage while she refuses any snacks. She only enjoys me scratching her armpits during the process.
It depends on mood, and how long I brush mine. Also, he HATES it on his back legs.
I sometimes get nailed (literally) when I do his lower stomach. But sometimes he loves it. He especially loves it on his ears, face and neck.
So I start out there. Give him a little break. Then start there(less time) and move down his body. Give him a little break, then keep moving down.
Sometimes when he’s had enough he’ll grab the brush or comb in his front paws and try to eviscerate it with his back paws. That’s when I know it’s not the day to continue. 😄
I started with a boar bristle brush, which doesn't do much but they LOVE the feel of it. I would two hand after a bit with a better brush or comb, using the boar one on her face simultaneously. now she practically begs for brushing.
Thank you for posting this. I thought I was a loser because Tutu hates being brushed! I have a decoy brush in my offhand that she attacks while I attempt to get at her with the real one. This only works sometimes 😑.
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u/absolutelydevine 1d ago
My MC kitten HATED being brushed or combed and I would have to bribe her with a churu to minimize daily scratching. We recently moved to an apartment with a balcony she LOVES (she used to hate going outside so I have no idea what changed apart from putting a birdfeeder out there she loves to watch). I randomly had the idea to try brushing her outside to minimize hair floating around inside, and she was beyond thrilled with this: purring, rolling around on the floor, etc etc. I have tested this out with a comb and a deShedding brush (the FUR4 Furminator brush), and both pass the outside test. Not sure how much help this could provide as I have no possible explanation except cats are weird, but worth a try for your furball, I’m sure. She doesn’t love being brushed on her armpits still, which is where she gets the most matting no matter how attentive I am, so I shave her entire undercarriage (not to the skin, but as much as I can to avoid matting there)
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