Can you ever 'finish' brushing a cat?

[Esgaroth]

Or will they keep producing fluff eternally?

My cat is short haired but has a dense, rather fluffy coat and sheds quite significantly. I give him a brush every few days and he enjoys it for about 15 minute, after which he's had enough.

I get mountains of fluff out of him and have never seen any signs of it slowing down.

If he'd let me brush him for an hour, say, would I be able to 'finish' the job, i.e. get to a point where the brush was only picking up a little?

Just curious really as I don't think I'll ever be able to do it, even if I brushed him every day like I probably should. But sometimes I think I'd wonder if there was even a cat under all the fluff if he didn't move around and meow occasionally.

I had two long-haired cats. One loved being brushed, would run over as soon as he heard the drawer being opened, the other absolutely hated it. But I found they did reach a point when not much came off on the brush.

I took in my mum’s short-haired black and white girl and I find her hair more of a pain to deal with. Firstly, doesn’t matter what colour you wear, the hairs are going to show up (unless I constantly live in a fancy dress harlequin costume maybe). And her hair is like little needles, it just inserts itself into fabric in an annoying way - was easy to use my hand to sweep up loose hair from the boys, not so easy with her hair!

Have just taken in a one year-old Maine Coon, so am starting slowly with the brushing. Unintentionally, he blends fairly well with my sofas and chairs 😂. He has been very good at letting me tease apart a couple of very small matts with my fingers. He seems quite chilled stretched out on his back with his armpits on full display. But I think the answer for him will be that it’s definitely not possible to ever finish brushing.

I have that brush and it's fab. I hated getting fur out of brushes and combs.

Can you ever finish? On the whole, no. 😂

Moulting season has just started in our house.

What happened to decorum?

I'm sorry to introduce a downer but the use of spot on flea treatment is causing toxicity problems when birds use cat fur in their nests 😣

Oh, good to know. Ours doesn't have flea treatment as it's not recommended as routine here but I will not chuck his hair out the window if he ever does need flea treatment!

I’m so glad you said this - I nearly posted the sane but when I said it to my cousin she got all shirty about it.

Every single nest the researchers tested had flea treatment contaminating the pet fur in that nest.

Yes the flea products are a problem. The tablets, mainly given to dogs, are no better and end up in the rivers. It's difficult to balance risk of parasites in our pets and the subsequent risk to human health and the need to protect our biodiversity. I personally don't use flea treatments as my cat doesn't go farther than the back door and has never had fleas. I check her regularly with a flea comb. I did used to worm her when she was young as she occasionally hunted but again not an issue these days. Parasite treatment should be tailored to the individual pet, not all pets need regular treatment.

We use flea tablets rather than spot ons, I throw the hair in the bin.

I've heard about the problem with dogs in rivers too, but I don't think the message is widely known, there are always dogs splashing about in our local one.