Queen of the Jungle

Our gorgeous girl Gizmo doesn’t get a lot of notice on this here blog, mainly because she shies away from the spotlight and hides from the dog; but she’s a member of our family and we do, in fact, take pictures of her. Proof.

Just ignore the fact that this picture is two years old. She’s not the most photogenic cat in the world.

Told You. Let’s try that again.

Our girl just got a haircut. Out of the 6 summers she’s been around, she’s been cut three times. She’s so darn pretty with her long hair that sometimes it’s hard to let go. But we both have terrible seasonal allergies (Mike is actually allergic to cats) and snuggling with this girl in summer is like being suffocated. Hair everywhere. In the eyes. In the nose. In the mouth. It’s agonizing. This year has been particularly bad for cat hair torture. We put it off for a while and then realized we couldn't live like that anymore. We had to cut her hair.



We did it in shifts this year and it took something like five different sessions to finish. She actually really likes it at first. She loves to be groomed and this is like an upgrade, what with a vibrating comb and all. So for the first ten minutes, she’s happy. Walking around, purring, rubbing up against anything she sees. Then she starts to get impatient. The purring stops and she looks annoyed. She doesn't say anything, but we can tell she’s over it. If we go on too much longer, we get meows and growls, hisses and nips. She’s not happy anymore and she wants to leave. That’s why we try to break it into so many grooming sessions. Gizmo is a lot easier to cut if she’s happy. Telling you now that it took over an hour to cut her hair makes me think that we should get new clippers. We're not professionals over here. We use the same trimmer for Mike’s hair on our cat. It was probably $30 at Wal-Mart five years ago, so we might be due for an upgrade.





Anyway, she’s finished (again, we're not professionals, we're just calling it done). I don't know if the Lion Cut is stylish, but that’s what we do. It’s easy and gets rid of almost all of her hair, but still leaving her some to trick her into thinking that she isn't completely naked.The real benefit of cutting her hair is that she is cuddly again. She loves to snuggle in the winter, but it is much more of a loner in the summer. Now she is back on our laps and sleeping in between us at night (Yup, we're mean. Gizmo gets to sleep in the bed but Leela has to sleep in her crate).