How to Wash a Cat

Pre-Bath Advice

The key to successful cat-bathing is preparation. You must make certain you have all necessary items at your fingertips.

THIS IS A TWO PERSON JOB. You will need to keep at least one hand on your cat AT ALL TIMES, so it will be difficult to complete the process without a helper.

Ideally, this process should be done in a double sink, or a single sink that has a spray attachment. If you do not have either a double sink or a single sink with a spray attachment, then consider using two large Tupperware containers, each one being about the size of your sink.

Line the floor around you with old towels; this will be a messy process and you don’t want to make things more difficult by slipping on a wet floor.

If your cat has claws, it is recommended that you wear long sleeves. Also, if your cat is prone to biting, consider wearing a pair of sturdy gloves.

It is NOT recommended that you wash your cat in the tub. Generally, cats are afraid of water and to them, the tub looks like an ocean of certain death.


Washing the Cat


What You Will Need:

Lots of old towels
Double sink or single sink with spray attachment
Plug for the sink
Rubber mat for the sink
Two cups
Soft washcloth
Cat shampoo
Cotton balls
1 or more dirty cats
Bandages and antiseptic (for you, afterwards)


Washing that Kitty:

Prepare your work area; arrange towels on the floor and place all your gear within easy arms reach.

Place the rubber mat in the sink and fill with about three inches of body-temperature water (just enough to come up to your cat’s belly. DO NOT overfill! Cats are very sensitive to water temperature, so it is important that you check the temperature, using the same method you would for a baby bottle: pour a bit on the underside of your wrist—it should feel neither hot nor cold.

Put some shampoo in one of the cups and fill with the water from the sink (this will prevent the cat from being shocked by a sudden dose of cold shampoo).

If you are using a double sink, fill the other side with body-temperature water, relatively the same temperature as the first side.

Pick up your cat, stroking him and talking to him soothingly so that he doesn’t become too suspicious over what is about to happen.

Making sure you have a firm hold on your cat (this may require gripping the scruff of his neck) lower him gently but quickly into the side of the sink with the 3-inches of water.

In all likelihood, YOUR CAT WILL IMMEDIATELY TRY TO GET OUT. All kidding aside, if he has claws, this can be a very dangerous situation. A panicked cat can do some serious damage. Keep a firm hold on your cat at all times. This is why it is important for another person to assist you.

If your cat is not too stressed, place a small cotton ball in each ear. Cats can get ear infections if their ears get wet. If you are unable to get the cotton balls in, or if your cat repeatedly shakes them out, make sure you’re extra careful not to get the ears wet.

With the empty cup, gently pour the sink water onto your cat.

Pour the diluted shampoo solution on him and massage into his fur. NEVER put shampoo by the face, eyes or ears.

Wet the washcloth in the clean sink water and gently run it over his snout and face. Again, do not use shampoo on your cat’s face.

If you are using the double sink, using cupfuls of clean water, rinse the shampoo thoroughly from your cat, draining the water if it becomes too deep. If you are using a spray attachment, check the water temperature, and make sure the pressure is not too great. Place the nozzle close to your cat’s fur so he doesn’t get the “spray” sensation. It is very important that you rinse ALL the shampoo from your cat—their skin can be very sensitive and shampoo residue will make them susceptible to skin infections and irritations.

Once your cat has been completely rinsed, lift him out of the sink using a soft towel. Try to keep him wrapped in the towel, blotting excess water (DO NOT RUB with the towel as this can be very irritating to an already edgy cat). Repeat several times with dry towels.

Once you have blotted away the excess water, keep your kitty in a quiet, warm, draft-free place until he is completely dry and relaxed once more.

If you’ve gotten any scratches in the process, clean them thoroughly with soap and water, treat them with antiseptic and bandage them. Check any scratches or bites frequently for signs of infection.

Jannet Osborn

Hundreds of baby birds killed by volleyball players on barrier island

Beachgoers playing volleyball on a small island at the mouth of Mobile Bay perpetrated a horrific crime in recent weeks, likely killing hundreds of tiny least terns.

The volleyballers even stacked dozens of eggs stolen from nests in a pile to bake in the sun. 

Birmingham Audubon, which discovered the tragedy, hopes to use it as a teaching moment and further the group's effort to help Alabama's coastal birds rebound from the BP oil spill.
Least terns are the smallest of the terns, weighing 1.4 ounces as adults. They are about half the size of a cardinal, with snowy white feathers and a rakish black cap atop their heads. Their nesting style - laying eggs in shallow depressions on bare sand beaches - leaves them vulnerable to all manner of threats, from storm driven waves washing their nests away to predation by larger birds, or other animals, such as foxes.
Part of their evolutionary strategy to survive those threats is to nest in dense colonies of dozens or even hundreds of pairs of birds. The nests are close together, usually a foot or two apart. The speckled eggs laid in them are about the size of a grape.

That nesting behavior appears to have set the stage for the massacre, which was discovered by Andrew Haffenden, with Birmingham Audubon's Coastal Bird Survey. Haffenden, who was a wildlife researcher in his native Australia, was conducting a bird survey on a spit of land that juts off the south side of Dauphin Island.
Ironically, that spit of land was once Pelican Island, one of the best nesting sites in the northern Gulf for least terns and other beach nesters. But that was before the entire island migrated north and connected to Dauphin Island about 12 years ago. When the two islands merged into one, the birds quit using it for nesting because they were suddenly vulnerable to predators, such as foxes and feral cats that live in the forests of the larger island, and they were constantly interrupted by people walking along the beach.

During his survey of what used to be Pelican Island, Haffenden noticed several tents set up on a small island known as Sand Island about a mile offshore.

"I'd seen swirls of birds out there from the end of Pelican, and then on Fourth of July weekend, I counted 17 boats out there on that island, so I was pretty disturbed. I had been wanting to get out there, and looking through my scope, I could see the volleyball net and the tents. When we got out there in a boat, we discovered a colony of least terns and black skimmers that were nesting," Haffenden said. "Then we found the piles of eggs. The people had collected all the egg from the nests to clear out an area to play volleyball. The people had actually made a little dome of sand and placed the eggs around it to decorate it."

For beach nesting birds, especially in Alabama, the parents sit on their eggs not to keep them warm, but rather to keep them cool. Mobile Bay shares the same latitude as Cairo and the Sahara Desert, meaning the sun is brutal. Both chicks and unhatched eggs will perish in minutes left unprotected from the sun.

"The thing about the eggs, people think, 'oh, they're eggs,' but they are also almost fully formed chicks inside. They can walk almost as soon as they hatch," Haffenden said. "In that pile of eggs, there were a number that were about to hatch. In fact, if you look at the pictures of the pile you can see an egg that showed pipping (cracks where a chick is pecking its way out of the shell). What the people did was take those eggs away from the protection of the parents from the sun. So we had dozens of functional chicks die by being baked. It's pretty nasty."

"But it's not just the eggs in the pile; the amount of disturbance to the colony while playing volleyball, standing or sitting and watching the players would have at least a couple of hundreds females off the nest, which certainly caused the death of their hatchlings, and about to hatch and developing eggs," Haffenden said. "There were 17 boats on that tiny island."

Katie Barnes is the chief biologist for Birmigham Audubon's Coastal Program, which is funded through a grant tied to the BP oil spill. She is a lifelong bird lover. She wears a necklace that features dozens of birds in flight, and lives with the parrot she begged her parents for when she was a kid. (Parrots can live to be more than 100 years old, so she may have an avian roommate for a long time to come.)

"Immediately, we informed the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, because these are federally protected migratory birds. And we told the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which added the area to their patrol route," Barnes said. "The day after Andrew saw the net, we got out there and set up our symbolic fencing. (Symbolic fencing consists of a rope strung between posts, designed to discourage people rather than physically block them.) We got it all fenced off, posted with signs educating the public about the birds, and respecting the birds, and now they have a safe area to nest."
Audubon conducted a thorough survey of the tiny island, which features an elevation of about two feet above sea level. There were 520 active least tern nests and 13 black skimmer nests.

"What we've heard from the state is that may be the largest least tern colony on record for the state of Alabama," Barnes said. "Even with all the eggs that were lost, this site has still been a huge success for the birds. Ever since we put the fencing up, everyone has been very respectful. We have not seen a human footprint in the area. Boaters have not pulled up to that area. They are seeing the signage."
Sadly, high winds the third week of July appear to have taken a toll on the birds nesting on the island. It was clear from studying the wrack line of debris on the island that much of nesting area had been underwater for some period of time.
"A lot of nests were lost to overwash, but the last time we were out there after the storm, we had 65 fledgings. We've just added another 15 today," Barnes said. "It is a sand spit. There will be those natural occurences that kill birds. And there will be predation from laughing gulls and things like that. But, all in all, it was a success because these birds were able to raise their offspring. And we still have black skimmers actively nesting too."

Speaking of black skimmers, a word must be said about their outstanding parenting.

Black skimmers are big birds, as large as the biggest seagulls you see on the Gulf Coast. They have tremendous beaks, with underslung jaws that give them a sort of thuggish appearance. But as parents, they are quite attentive. I watched a pair of skimmers take turns sheltering their young chick from the sun. One skimmer would squat over the sand, breast down on the ground, and then use its legs to scoop out a depression. Once the scooping stopped, the tiny check would dash into the depression and nestle between the parent's legs. The parent would then settle down on top of its baby. After a few minutes, the baby would pop out and run over to the other parent, who would repeat the process.

Scenes like that make the devotion often shown by hardcore birders a little easier to understand. They are endlessly fascinating creatures. Both birds, and the birders.

Birmingham Audubon is looking for volunteers who'd like to help with their beach monitoring.

"They don't have to know a million birds or anything. If they can recognize a few key species, that's what we are looking for. We want people who can help survey, and people willing to man a table next to a nesting area," Barnes said. "Part of what we do is educate people. We want them to know the birds are out there, and what they are doing. That's how you make people care about the birds and do their best to help them along."

Critically Endangered Black Rhino Gives Birth To Calf At Chester Zoo

Malindi the rare black rhino delivered a healthy baby rhino after a 15-month long pregnancy. There are only about 650 black rhinos left in the wild as their numbers have been decimated by poachers who are after their horn.

The birth was unusual because rhinos usually give birth in the night, however, on this occasion Malindi gave visitors to the animal park a front row seat to one of the rarest occurrences in nature.

The male rhino calf was delivered in about half an hour. Both mum and calf are fit and healthy.
Within about 15 minutes after being born the wee rhino was up and walking around the enclosure and feeding on milk from his 12-year-old mother. Tim Rowlands, who is Chester Zoo's curator of mammals, said: "Visitors to the zoo were treated to something incredibly special when Eastern black rhino, Malindi, went in to labour in front of them. "With just 650 Eastern black rhino left in the wild, seeing the birth of a new calf and it's very first steps is a very rare and special event indeed.



"The new born was delivered onto soft wood mulch and within next to no time it was up on its feet and running around - it couldn't have gone any smoother.

"Although it's still very early days, the little one is showing great signs by feeding regularly and mum and calf appear to have bonded very quickly.

"We just hope this new calf helps us to raise some much needed attention to this truly magnificent species, and inspires urgent action to protect their future on this planet. We cannot and must not allow this subspecies to become extinct - a fate which has, tragically, already become of some of its cousin." It is feared that only 650 wild black rhinos are out there now, which is a result of poaching for their much coveted horn. Rhino horns change hands for more money than drugs or gold because of their value to the Asian medicine market. There is absolutely no evidence that rhino horn has any positive health benefits, so it's just a senseless waste of life.

The zoo's Collections Director, Mike Jordan, said: "This new arrival is a real boost to a critically endangered species. It increases the number of Eastern black rhino at Chester to 11 and is another vitally important success story in a Europe-wide breeding programme for these highly threatened animals.

"A thriving, healthy population of this high profile species in good zoos is vitally important to the future of this species and a key component of our mission to prevent their extinction. "

Malindi has previously given birth to one other calf, back in 2013. The zoo has now seen the birth of 11 black rhino calves in 20 years.