By Yoda – The Snuggly Cat
Believe it or not, superfur isn’t a new breed of long-eared animal.
Let me tell you a purrfect story…My humans decided to carry out a little investigation.
Their idea, was to try and calculate how much fur I would shed. (BTW – I am a short-haired Torbie).
For four consecutive months (June-September) my humans used their de-shedding tool to brush my fur for a few minutes every day. Now a de-shedding tool might sound a bit like a gardener’s gizmo, (for cleaning old plant-pots and other debris in the garden-shed); but it’s not! It’s a comb-sort of thing, that’s designed to gently remove loose fur.
Let me tell you, I love the de-shedding tool! It’s almost as though my human is grooming me (minus the licking with a rough tongue).
My humans always brush/comb me when I’m on my Ripple Rug, it’s the perfect spot. I can roll around, grab onto the rug with my nails, tugging myself into the prime position.
I like to make it easy for my humans to reach those difficult spots.
I’m lucky, I rarely, if ever, get any of those pesky fur-balls. I think it’s partly because of the human’s comb activities and partly because of the healthy diet I eat.
Anyway, back to the story…
My human collected my fur during four months and put it into a zip-lock bag. Today, my human decided to weight that bundle of fur. In total, it weighted an impressive 1oz.
It might not seem as heavy as a bag of sugar, or a bag of nuts and bolts, but, meooow that is a lot of fur!
Our fur is designed to be light and fluffy, to catch air underneath, in order to better insulate us from the cold. That’s why the volume of collected fur is impressive, even though light in weight.
It’s natural for kitties to shed fur, particularly outside dwellers. Spring and autumn/fall become the biggest shedding times, as our coats transition from lighter to heavier and back, to meet the differing outside temperatures. All cats shed, it’s dead hair, it is a natural process.
I guess my humans are happy that I spend a lot of time on the Ripple Rug. They think that it’s better for me to shed fur there, than on their furniture! I do notice, that when I squeeze through the small holes in the Ripple Rug, it helps groom my fur, as I often find sprouts of hair around the edge of the holes!
Moral of the story: Get your humans to groom you regularly and get them to provide you with your own environment, so that you don’t shed on their furniture and rugs!
Finally…what’s with the superfur animal? Well my human is quite creative at times and thought my four-month fur pile could make a whole animal! My human decided to squeeze it together and to create the ‘Superfur’ creature. Maybe she should weave it into a wool-like fiber and make me my own furry scarf for winter?!!!