Many people forget about brushing their cat regularly or fail to realize how important it is for your little cat.
It is very important to properly brush your cats fur, daily if you must to keep your cat as healthy as possible and to prevent many issues that can arise as well without it.
Some types of cats need to be brushed much more than other others, while the short haired breeds tend to only need it occasionally.
Short haired cats can still need their fur brushed though, so don’t think you are off the hook just because you have a cat with short hair.
It is best to start grooming your cat when it is a young kitten, gently to get it used to it and to make it a regular habit that the cat will not feel nervous about.
If you do it right, it does not have to be a dreadful chore to brush your cats fur, but a fun bonding experience instead that you can both enjoy and cherish.
Now, here are 6 reasons why it’s important to brush your cat.
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1. It Prevents Hairballs
We all know that cats love to lick themselves.
Cats lick their fur to keep it soft and clean and their tongue can reach everywhere on their body!
It is quite impressive, and a cats tongue is rough for a reason, but it acts like a small grooming brush of sorts that cleans any dirt off their beautiful fur and cleans it.
But, while a cats tongue is perfect for this task, it may be doing too good of a job even, overdoing it.
The tongue of the cat can pick up on any loose fur while cats are licking themselves, causing the animal to swallow it and this can cause unpleasant hairballs to form in their belly.
This is why it is important to regularly brush your cat and groom them daily, especially if they have long or thick fur.
Some cats shed a lot, and if you are seeing hairs all over the place, or your cat regularly getting hairballs then you know that you must brush it more often.
If you brush any loose fur off your cat regularly, then this very same loose hair won’t end up in their stomach as a result of them licking themselves, and eating the hair.
So, brushing cats prevents hairballs.
2. It Keeps Your Home Hair-free
Anyone who has owned a cat or two knows very well about how their fur can get all over the place.
It seems you can find cat hairs anywhere, in your bed, in the sofa, on the floor…
But, if this is a problem for you then all you need to really do is to groom your cat more often.
Get a good cat grooming brush that is gentle on your cat, but will remove any loose hairs easily from them.
It is normal for all cats to shed some, but some simply shed much more than you might expect and their fur seems to find it’s way everywhere.
Brushing a cat is good for them, but also very good for your furniture and home as it will keep cat hairs from being left lying around in piles for you to clean up.
Cat’s are going to shed just like we humans loose hairs everyday, but by brushing a cat’s fur these loose hairs will be in one single place for you to grab them from (the cat brush), and them throw them in the trash.
As a general rule you should brush short haired cats at least once a week, while you should brush the long haired cat breeds every single day.
Also read: Best cat brush for shedding.
3. It Keeps Your Cats Skin And Fur Coat Healthy
When you carefully stroke over your cats fur with the grooming brush, you are helping to distribute all the natural oils that is on their skin.
It is fantastic for the health of their skin and fur as well to get these oils spread and evenly distributed, and brushing does just that.
Think of it like skincare for your cat.
You are taking care of their fur and skin, at the same time by spreading the skin oils better and more evenly across their fur and this keeps it looking shiny and luscious in the long run.
It is known that when we humans brush our own hair, we are distributing important natural oils into our hair better, and this is no different for cats.
Older cats often have some troubles reaching some places on their own fur, since they aren’t as flexible as they once were, so if you have an old cat it is very good if you brush them and it helps them a lot.
It is good for their skin and fur to brush them, and will keep it looking and feeling healthier.
4. It Prevents Matted Cat Fur
You need to brush your cats fur to prevent it from becoming matted and tangled up.
What is matted fur again..?
Glad you asked, but it is when a cat’s coat, which normally is supposed to look sleek and shiny, becomes extremely tangled up and full of knots.
It is not something you want to see happen to your cat, and it can be very unpleasant for any cat to experience.
This can happen to cats with long fur especially, which is why it is so important to regularly brush them and to keep their fur looking sharp and untangled.
If a felines fur becomes too tangled up or matted, often the only solution is often to shave it off completely and get rid of it that way.
So, cats can literally loose their fur if it is not taken care of well enough.
When cats have knots or tangles on them, they tend to pull on their skin painfully and this can cause irritation and harm.
It is not just an aesthetic issue, knots. They can actually hurt a cat’s skin.
Brushing your cat daily and carefully, will prevent this from ever happening.
5. It Helps You Spot Fleas Or Ticks
When you are up close to your cat, looking over their fur and brushing them gently, it becomes easy to see or notice anything abnormal about their fur such as fleas or any parasites.
Fleas in cats can be very tricky, because it is so hard to notice them until it is too late and they have made themselves comfortable.
But, if you make it a daily habit to brush and check on your cats fur, then it becomes much easier to notice any bugs on their fur and eliminate an infestation before it becomes more serious.
It is much easier to prevent a problem, than to fix it when it has become huge.
It is much easier to spot ticks or fleas on white/lighter cats then it is on dark cats.
A good way to solve this little problem is to simply keep a white towel under your cat or beside it when you are tending to it’s fur.
When you have a white towel under your cat when you are grooming it, any fleas or bugs that fall out will look very noticeable on the snow white towel and you will see them immediately.
It is not just fleas that you might spot though, but also other skin/fur problems such as dandruff, flakey skin, bald patches, or anything else out of the ordinary.
6. It Let’s You Spend Time And Bond With Your Cat
Not all cats hate being brushed. Some even, love it and the time they get to spend with their favorite humans while they are brushing them.
It is more common for cats to like being brushed if they are used to it, and if they have always been brushed since they were small kittens.
If your cat likes being brushed it can feel like playtime when you are grooming it, and it can be a fun activity.
If you are using something like a cat grooming glove, then it is especially nice because you are basically petting your cat while brushing it.
It is a great bonding experience and most importantly you are spending some quality time with your cat and paying attention to it.
We all know that cats do love attention…
But, lots of cats love being brushed and enjoy the feeling of it and the process.
These are all great reasons why you should brush your cat.
