Help! Cat covered in sh*t!

[thisisnotmyllama]

I have an 8yo Persian-adjacent cat who sometimes gets bits of poo stuck in the fur around her bum or back legs. My usual solution is to try to quickly pull it off using a wipe, or if that doesn’t work, then with DS(12) distracting her and holding her front end, I gently snip the affected fur away with nail scissors.

Woke up this morning to find telltale shit stains where she’d been sleeping. Waited for DS to get up to take a look at her. But horrors - it’s way worse than usual. Looks like she’s done a diarrhoea and then sat straight in it! Huge clumps of shit-matted fur all around, with ‘trails’ as well! 🤢

She uses a litter box due to having been an indoor cat for the first 3 years of her life. She also has a history of occasional diarrhoea which always resolves within 24 hours so no need to see the vet unless it lasts longer than this. There were a couple of normal poos in the litter box as well so I’m not concerned about her health. I just want to know what to do about all the shit! We tried dunking her and showering her, which mostly only succeeded in making the shit wet so that she was leaving a nice trail of shitty drips behind her. 🤦‍♀️

Eventually I threw her outside in the hope that she’d wash herself and/or it’ll dry off once the sun comes out. She’s now sitting miaowing plaintively to come in.

Any suggestions as to what I can do please?? It’s just me and DS. We have an outing with friends at 1pm today which can’t be cancelled. I’m in favour of leaving her out all day until we get back (prob 6pm ish) but DS says I’m ‘abandoning’ her! (We don’t normally leave her outside for long.) We’ve already had one blazing row about it before 8am and I’m so stressed!

TIA.

Get her in the bath or shower & use the shower attachment and pet shampoo.
Wear gauntlets
Good luck!

My cat also only goes in the litter tray. Your tray sounds like it is not emptied enough . We remove every poo from the litter tray as soon as it's done , or first thing in the morning if it happened overnight .

Give the poor thing a bath! We have long haired cats and they need the fur around their area kept short or you end up with what you are finding if they have an upset stomach. Try putting a towel over its head and showering just the area rather than an all over bath.

I've had this a few times. I used to take her to the vet and get them to deal with it. It wasn't expensive. (My vet used to be walk in) The last time, I tried showering her. It was semi successful as she suddenly turned into a wriggly eel!

If you have a shower you can close the door and trap her in I would get in with her and give her a good shower. Then I would keep the fur on the back of her trimmed. I’ve showered ours before and they relax remarkably quickly with nice warm water and don’t attack you. Otherwise if you don’t have a sealed shower then I would get your son to wrap her in a towel and hold her while you shower the back end off

And yes to a hygiene trim, it's essential!

Magic enjoys her shower at the groomer. But not when I've had to do it!

I don’t hold ours while showering. Just let them walk around inside the shower. Mine object more when they are restrained than when they just have the shower water pointed towards them.

Without wishing to be too graphic though - you'll actually need to rub the crap off her backside rather than hoping the water will just wash it away - hence the pet shampoo recommendation.

Can you shut her in the bathroom with you?
If she's not used to it it will get messy so put a hoodie on and gardening gloves until she calms down.
It's the only solution though.
I've got a Siamese we call shitfoot, he exists to step in fresh poo but likes to share his luck by skipping all over the bloody house.

@VictoriaBun I empty it every morning. It’s just that she’d been what looks like three times during the night - first two normal, last one not and it’s ended up on her rather than in the tray.

@TheQueef That’s what we did - shut her in the bathroom with us and tried to shower her rear end but DS didn’t want to hold her so he tried to do the showering part, and didn’t direct it very well. We got a bit off but like I say, mostly just made it wet unfortunately. Unfortunately it’s just a shower over the bath, not an enclosed shower cubicle so no way of shutting her in with the water, iyswim.

Pet shampoo recommendations please? I’m not sure whether I have time to go out and buy any and deal with this before we go out later but I can try.

Pet shampoo recommendations please?

Only very rarely had to use any - I just went to a pet shop and bought what they had.

I've used Feline Great but switched to baby when it ran out.
You're going to have to just sacrifice the bathroom and do your best.
When you can, trim her butt short, even if she looks silly. I used to have poodles and their curly fur loves poo nugs so I feel your pain!

The last time this happened to my long haired cat, it was a vet trip because the poo was stuck to her skin and she was being burned by it. They managed to shave her butt, and I had to apply cream to her arse for a fortnight....

Normally I just take scissors to her, but this time it was impossible. She's never tolerated a shower or bath even with me in serious protective gear - I've ended up badly hurt.

If you can't get it off, call the vet.

And yes, trimming their butt regularly is a thing and is worth a doing. Also identifying which food upsets her stomach - mine can't cope with beef flavoured cat foods.....

Op, once this episode is sorted, you need to keep all this fur at the back clipped much shorter. Underside of tail, backs of legs, between legs. It doesn't matter what she looks like, a bit tufty most likely, but she will be much more comfortable and clean.

I had this last year when my cat caught something at the vets .
Washing her failed and led, like OP, to shitty water everywhere. Cutting failed so we tried the clippers which got some off but obviously we couldn't get too close for fear of injuring her.
Ours had to go back to the vets for a couple of days but they left her covered in shit despite telling me she was clean.

We ended up buying a pop up pet pen (aldi) and putting her in there with old towels on the base. There was room for her litter tray, a small bed and her food/water. There was no other option for us as we had a small baby crawling around where the cat was smearing shit. We kept trying to cut more and more shitty fur out each day when it had dried and then the cat started cleaning herself up too.

Update: phoned the vet but they could only fit her in to be clipped at 2.45pm. Tried other local groomers - all full or on holiday so no joy. Called vet back and booked appt while arranging with friend to take DS on the outing without me. Friend and her DS (both autistic) starting to get very stressed out by situation. Tickets non-refundable.

Meanwhile I had to let cat back in as she was going wild at the window. Put an old towel on the bed and hoped for the best!! Fortunately the second she was in, she started washing and now (although I can’t get a close look) it doesn’t seem too bad. Decided to cancel vet’s appt and go on our trip! Will leave her fur to dry and do our usual trick of snipping with the scissors tonight, once we can see what’s pooey fur and what’s just wet. She’s been back in the litter tray again and it doesn’t seem to be loose, so fingers crossed it was just a spectacular one-off!

Thank you all for your suggestions though! Will now make sure that I always keep pet shampoo in, and possibly invest in getting her groomed in that area regularly once the local cat groomer is back from hols.

Do you have clippers? We have some quiet wireless ones for our Maine Coon - I don’t keep his l bum clipped but on the odd occasion we’ve had a similar situation I pin him down on the grass outside and shave the shit out!

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01FAAJLGI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?psc=1&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8

@Clarkey86 Thank you! Have ordered these! We only have regular hair clippers and they are v noisy (DS used to call them ‘the buzzy bee machine’ when he was little ) so these are a great idea, thanks.

@Clarkey86 To clarify, I’ve never tried to use the ‘buzzy bee machine’ on the cat, nor would I !

Haha! We used to use noisy men’s hairy clippers but we’re standing no chance.

These are much much quieter and my boy doesn’t really care when I trim him - we don’t show him so have taken to trimming matted bits out with these instead of stressing him out with grooming! Though he does end up with a few bald bits

Home now from our day out. Cat’s bum now clean! Glad I didn’t cancel and fork out for the vet now as she’s sorted it herself. Result!

I can hardly believe it though, given how bad it was first thing this morning!!