Cats shouldn’t be bathed. They clean themselves perfectly fine. This is just cruelty to them.
Edit: to all those coming at me with these rare occasions of cats plunging into something poisonous and need to be rescued by bathing them: do you honestly think, that this “funny” post is about a cat which needed a bath because it fell into something deadly?
My cat gets butt baths, which basically boils down to me using a wet rag and shampoo to try to wash her back end, which constantly smells of urine because she had a stroke and lost control of her bladder and her tail doesn’t move, so it gets dragged through her pee. There are instances of cats needing baths, but generally you’re right they don’t need full on baths like dogs do
One of my cats once escaped out of a window at ground level (he managed to dismantle the netting while i slept, it’s the only time any cat of mine managed to do something like this), and the big explorer promptly got scared and hid in the insides of a car parked directly outside. He didn’t get hurt (except his ego), but was full of oil and dust from the breakpads. That’s the only time i thoroughly bathed him (and paid the blood price). You are right of course that bathing isn’t something you should do just because, but if the cat is actually full of very unhealthy stuff, i want to prevent him eating all of that while he grooms himself.
do you honestly think, that this “funny” post is about a cat which needed a bath because it fell into something deadly?
Why shouldn’t it be? I’ve got a cat, if he got something nasty on himself and I had to bathe him I would absolutely be taking pictures of him looking ridiculous afterwards. “Deadly” here doesn’t need to mean that there was a big vat of cyanide sitting open or something, it could be as simple as the cat getting into a room with wet paint on the walls
We gave my cat a bath one time he came home and absolutely reeked, dunno if skunk, or if he got peed on by some predator making an example of him or what. Absolute ammonia nasty smell, terrible. He seemed completely unfazed by it because he’s an idiot, maybe he’s even a fetishist, I dunno, but he needed to get bathed. We got special shampoo and all that.
And despite looking like the cat in the picture on the left, he didn’t look anything like the cat in the picture on the right.
Occam’s razor states that the most likely explanation for something is the one that requires the fewest assumptions. Your explanation - that the cat’s owner regularly bathes the cat for no good reason - requires large assumptions about the owner that there is no evidence for. It is therefore not the answer that Occam’s razor leads to
I’ve had two idiot brothers who for whatever reason never did learn how to clean themselves as kittens. If we didn’t wash them they started smelling, and the white fur became a nice nicotine yellow.
Years later we got a third cat, a rescue, who actually taught them to clean themselves!
Mine jumped into the sewer (or something like it in the basement of the house)
I wouldn’t think he would like licking disgusting things - and he was pretty cooperative
There’s a woman on YouTube who says they need regular bathing “so they can used to it in case they need to be bathed when they get older.” That’s some strange thinking.
Cats shouldn’t be bathed. They clean themselves perfectly fine. This is just cruelty to them.
Edit: to all those coming at me with these rare occasions of cats plunging into something poisonous and need to be rescued by bathing them: do you honestly think, that this “funny” post is about a cat which needed a bath because it fell into something deadly?
My cat gets butt baths, which basically boils down to me using a wet rag and shampoo to try to wash her back end, which constantly smells of urine because she had a stroke and lost control of her bladder and her tail doesn’t move, so it gets dragged through her pee. There are instances of cats needing baths, but generally you’re right they don’t need full on baths like dogs do
One of my cats once escaped out of a window at ground level (he managed to dismantle the netting while i slept, it’s the only time any cat of mine managed to do something like this), and the big explorer promptly got scared and hid in the insides of a car parked directly outside. He didn’t get hurt (except his ego), but was full of oil and dust from the breakpads. That’s the only time i thoroughly bathed him (and paid the blood price). You are right of course that bathing isn’t something you should do just because, but if the cat is actually full of very unhealthy stuff, i want to prevent him eating all of that while he grooms himself.
Why shouldn’t it be? I’ve got a cat, if he got something nasty on himself and I had to bathe him I would absolutely be taking pictures of him looking ridiculous afterwards. “Deadly” here doesn’t need to mean that there was a big vat of cyanide sitting open or something, it could be as simple as the cat getting into a room with wet paint on the walls
What are we supposed to do with our big vats then?
Cats are liquid and may eventually fill your large vats if left unattended!
To be fair, this is also true of me.
You would most likely also mention why you were bathing your cat if it was such a rare and unusual occurrence.
We gave my cat a bath one time he came home and absolutely reeked, dunno if skunk, or if he got peed on by some predator making an example of him or what. Absolute ammonia nasty smell, terrible. He seemed completely unfazed by it because he’s an idiot, maybe he’s even a fetishist, I dunno, but he needed to get bathed. We got special shampoo and all that.
And despite looking like the cat in the picture on the left, he didn’t look anything like the cat in the picture on the right.
If it wasn’t a rare and unusual occurrence they probably wouldn’t be surprised by what the cat looks like
The tumblr blog here also does not appear to be the original source, it’s a general cute animals one, so additional context may well have been removed
“This time I remembered to take a picture of my grumpy cat after a bath.”
“I honestly never noticed how grumpy my cat looks after bathing lol”
“My cat was exceptionally grumpy this time, lucky I remembered to take a picture.”
Occam’s razor says they regularly bathe their cat because in certain parts of the world that is what people do.
You assuming this person’s habits is not the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions
it’s actually funny just how many assumptions were just embedded into that “Occam’s razor”
Such as?
they regularly bathe their cat
some places of the world that’s what they do
they’re from one of those places
they’ve done this before but haven’t realized how much the cat hates it
they’ve done this before but this time the cat hated it more
they’ve not only done this before but also have thought about taking a picture next time
they’ve forgotten to do it last time
this time they remembered because they, as we all know by now, have thought about it before
Sorry, I honestly don’t understand this sentence.
Occam’s razor states that the most likely explanation for something is the one that requires the fewest assumptions. Your explanation - that the cat’s owner regularly bathes the cat for no good reason - requires large assumptions about the owner that there is no evidence for. It is therefore not the answer that Occam’s razor leads to
It requires the assumption that the person has a cat and lives in a country where they commonly bathe cats.
I’ve had two idiot brothers who for whatever reason never did learn how to clean themselves as kittens. If we didn’t wash them they started smelling, and the white fur became a nice nicotine yellow.
Years later we got a third cat, a rescue, who actually taught them to clean themselves!
Depends
Mine jumped into the sewer (or something like it in the basement of the house)
I wouldn’t think he would like licking disgusting things - and he was pretty cooperative
In specific situations, sure. But they don’t need regular baths.
Kittens and older cats can’t always clean themselves properly. And sometimes cats just do something incredibly dumb and need rescuing…
And the longer haired cats make all of those points so much worse. Got 2, lucky I love em lol.
I had to wash mine once when she got engine oil in her fur, but yeah self-cleaning is a major sales bullet point of cats.
“Cruelty”… Calm down ffs.
There’s a woman on YouTube who says they need regular bathing “so they can used to it in case they need to be bathed when they get older.” That’s some strange thinking.