Sunscreening the cat

[violetbunny]

Girlcat has a white nose with a pink tip. It's summer where we live and I've been applying pet sunscreen on her nose every morning all summer.

She HATES it. I always try to be as quick and gentle as possible and give her a treat straight away afterwards. I thought she might get used to it eventually but she still hates it as much now as the first time and is in a foul mood with me after I do it.

Does anyone else sunscreen their cat? Did they get used to it eventually?

Here is the Pink-nosed Princess below...

She is super cute. I love the pic of her in the washing basket.
Our cat has one white ear and my DH puts sunscreen on the tip in summer. I imagine its more unpleasant for your cat because of the smell of it when on the nose.

Maybe it’s the brand? Is there a different brand you could try?.

We used to have to do our white cat. Didn't know that pet sunscreen existed. Though it probably didn't in the 90's! We found using a stick easiest to get on his ears. He had kids purple one. He didn't like it, but was pretty good about it. He wasn't impressed with the colour though. He thought it would ruin his street credibility with the neighbourhood cats.
RIP pepper, you were awesome!

Thanks, I might try a different kind then. The one we have is really thick, I might try one in a different texture or format. The sun is pretty strong here so I worry about her getting skin cancer.

My cousin inherited a black & white cat (and a ginger) with a farm she bought, which was much more white than black. It had horrible grungy pus-y looking ears so they took it to the vet (once they could get near it!) and found she had skin cancer - had to have big chunks removed from the ears.

They used sun cream on her ears once they'd healed up, and luckily the cancer never returned.

@Allergictoironing Oh, poor baby, at least it got seen to. I do feel like an awful cat mum applying sunscreen because she whines and moans when I do it, but that's exactly the kind of scenario I am hoping to avoid.

Unfortunately for those cats, the former farm owners were the type who considered that as cats were there to kill rodents, you don't have to feed them or care for them in any way as they could live wild & catch their own food. Somehow thought if the cats were hungry, it would make them better mousers. Sadly there's still some farmers who think that way, despite it being shown that a well fed cat is a BETTER mouser.

That cat ended up as a bit of a house cat, sleeping in front of the fire & snuggling up with the German Shepherd. I would frequently find it on my bed when I stayed there too

@Allergictoironing I'm so glad to hear it found a loving home. I can't imagine leaving a cat just to fend for itself. It makes me sad to even think about it.

Our cat is white, so in summer she gets sunscreen on her ears. I basically have to get her in a headlock in the utility room, and she washes it straight back off pretty much instantly. I use a spray organic kids one which was what our vet recommended, but the success rate is very slim. The bottle lives in there, and as soon as she sees it she tries to run and hide!

We're not in a particularly sunny part of the world, and she tends to lie in the flower beds on sunny days which are reasonably shaded.