persian rescue centre

[gettingbythistime]

incase anyone is interested, as i know i would have been 1 1/2 years ago, that there is a fab' persian rescue place (essex) if anyone was thinking about giving a rescued persian a home. the lady that runs it does a fab job saving older persians (mostly from what i can gather, although some young and some other breeds) who have become homeless & neglected . she has regular open days. i keep missing them as i work on saturdays when they tend to be although i did recently visit as i wanted to make a donation/bought some stuff to give. lots of older persians, some with ill health but wanting love and a lap to sit out their remaining time.....

Many individual breeds have specific breed rescue organisations. It's always worth having a check for them if you're after a specific type of cat - and/or remembering them in wills etc. The cats aren't always elderly either - I've seen all ages of cat looking for homes due to losing their owners for some reason.

There is also a fantastic one in Yorkshire called St Francis Persian rescue. I got my girls from them and they are fab.

My two Persians are from a specific rescue home for them as well.

Best cats ever, but not for everyone as mine are very high maintenance but I love them that way

One note of caution: if you have never had a Persian before please be prepared to commit to cleaning its face properly and grooming it properly all over every day forever (not just wafting a brush somewhere near its back for a few seconds) or failing that routine shaves possibly needing sedation. I'm a vet- we have some good Persian owners but two I can think of who can't or won't deal with them properly. They bring them in far too infrequently and each time we have to sedate to clip off a solid mass of hair in one huge mat that is practically welded to the skin, which gets inflamed under the matted hair. We also scrape all the dried eye discharge off the sides of their noses and the skin is raw underneath. Poor cats.

My two have lovely costs that are very easy to manage and have a good groom every couple of days. Furminator sir not good enough as they don't deal with the undercoat. They hate having their face cleaned!

i've had my persian for a little over a year and a half now. i am what you might call a 'professional persian owner' in that i do it by the book re grooming, ie do her eyes 2/3 times a day, brushed at least once a day. my vet has actually said that my cat has the best persian looked after eyes he has seen, at least recently anyway. they are high maintenance though so in the wrong hands can be pretty dreadful hence my being upset by the stories i recently heard from the lady who runs the persian rescue centre.

toddler love your two darlings. i don't have time really to give to two although i wouldn't mind another but not at the moment due to work commitments. do you bath yours? i did it by the book in that when we first got her (she was 3 months old), i tried a few times, gradually but she hates it so gave up. she is ok with being groomed although doesn't like having her botty area or armpits done although i do still do those areas. when her winter coat came in last year she still developed some matting under her front armpits so i had to get a persian groomer round. that was interesting........ . she made sounds i have never heard before (i had to leave the room as was really upset). he trimmed just her tummy/armpits and so far, she hasn't had any matting since. funny really but if you look at the educational grooming videos on youtube, they nearly always use persians who are so bloody docile.

No I've never bathed them. They do t need it. They were rescues and very traumatised so I've not wanted to upset them. I don't think they'd tolerate it. Eye cleaning is a challenge. I took them to a groomer who wouldn't let me stay with them while she was doing them. As I predicted they totally freaked and turned vicious. (Incredibly out of character) so I found another one who let me stay and they tolerated it much better and she didn't use clippers. I was a complete Persian novice and it turned out I was grooming them wrong as furminators don't do the undercoat. Since using a rake we've had no knots.

These are my two.

I have had to bath them a couple of times when they got into a mess with poo. It was veer traumatic for them and for me!! I ended up as wet as them.

Kirby (the white one) eyes are terrible but all the cleaning in the world with eye envy doesn't help. I havr tear patches all over my white sheets.

Lily has better eyes and coat.

Both are 12, rescue 2 years ago and have CKD. THey are the best cats in the world.

Couple more pics of mine...

I tend to use two different types, first a brush type then a metal comb that gas very close teeth but not as much as a ferminator. I find she lives the metal comb on her chin neck etc; the brush good for armpits as the comb would pull on her fur and be uncomfortable. I get the nurses at the vets to trim her claws roughly e ery six weeks. I used to do it when she was asleep although she always tends to wake up now she is older. I dont think she needs bathing either, not unless she messes herself in which case I would have to wash her botty. They give so much love

They are lovely ohstacey. Re eyes, I found I got lots of conflicting advice. Some say to use warm water on a cotton wool pad, others say water makes it worse. My cats eyes are at a guess in the middle water wise. I know of Persians whose eyes rarely leave any tear stains. I have found diamond eyes very good once a day and later on, pets at home eye wipes. She doesn't mind me doing her eyes or ears which I only do if they look dirty. I enjoy grooming her. Whenever she does a poo I dread checking her bot in case she has made a mess. If she has, I try and trim the mess off rather than wash her bot, less likely to happen again if the fur is short. A good way to do it is if I put some dreamies on the table. It only takes a moment and she has no idea what i am up to plus I use pets at home safety scissors.

Re CKD, how does this affect them and you?

They are on a special diet which is the main part.

They need to be checked a lot to see how they are getting in and one of them (kirby) vomits a lot.

Mostly they are fine it just makes me worry all the time about them.

They don't mess themselves too much. Kirby just got in a total mess once so shower was only way. He was ok again within 5 mins. Just had a little sulk.

The easiest way to clean my girls eyes is just to wipe it off with my hand. The rest they will clean themselves. Diamond eyes is no different to water. I try to avoid pinning them down for a proper clean as much as possible. The owner of the rescue told me when I adopted them that id never have any other breed of cat. I didn't believe her at the time but she's so right. They are such a pleasure to own. Do wish they'd be a bit more cat like though!

I stupidly put collars on mine and they ended up with terrible mats around their necks. (I couldn't tell them apart so they had different coloured collars) I snipped a mat and also snipped a hole in Maia's neck. She wasn't bothered. I was devastated. £200 for stitches that apparently she didn't need as it would have healed by itself.