How to Shave a Cat's Butt

Funny Stories of Sophie the Cat & My Evil Doings

Dec. 16, 2023

Dana Koogler 

  We got our first cat in Tennessee in about November of 2003.   I was working at an orthopedic practice with a very nice man named Glenn Urban.  He was an ortho tech.     He invited us out to his place to visit him and his sweet wife Mary.  He was showing us around. We had a fun day.  He let Kenny come deer hunt on their farm.     His cat had kittens and they were super cute.  Kenny had never been a cat person, but decided we needed a kitten.   The mama cat was particularly sweet and such a good mother all the nurses at Baptist Hospital had her kittens.      We went home with a tiny, barely weaned gray and white kitten we named Sophie.     She was one of the sweetest cats we've ever had. 

      She had a funny personality.  She followed me everywhere like a child.   This lead to some hilarity later on as she got older.  

Cover It Up!  -- Sophie and the Bathroom 

    I wasn't kidding when I said Sophie followed me everywhere.  I couldn't even take a pee without her following me into the bathroom to shred the toilet paper, climb up on the toilet tank, and walk around and all over me.   She was like my kids when they were small.   You'd go to use the bathroom and have a toddler patting your knees.     One night I was lying on the bed reading a book.  Kenny was on the throne and had the door open a crack.    I saw Sophie come trotting in and dart straight in the bathroom.  I stopped reading and perked up.  I wondered what she'd do when she realized it wasn't me in there?

  I did not have to wonder long.  In a matter of seconds she came flying back out of the bathroom with her eyes big as saucers.  As soon as her paws hit that bedroom carpet she started "digging" the way cats do when they bury their poop or pee in the litter box.    She dug and dug.  About that time Kenny hollered from behind the bathroom door "Uh-huh! That's right! Run!  I bet you'll think twice before you come in this bathroom again when *I"M* in here! " and he laughed.  The cat looked shaken up and stalked away with me laughing uncontrollably on the bed and Kenny laughing like mad from the terlit. 

       If I live to be 100 years old I'll not forget it.  

Below: Sophie patiently waiting to see a bird in the window

 

Them's Fightin' Words! I'll Smack Them Eyebrows of Yer Face! 

   Our daughter Crystal was about fifteen.  She was really funny and expressive.  She took a notion to wiggle her eyebrows up and down at the cat to see what Sophie would do.  The cat did something alright. She got mad. Apparently that is a declaration of war in cat language.   She meowed at Crystal and jumped at her.  Then she stalked off to pout.  We thought it was cute and funny.   Crystal didn't make a habit of it, but she would do it now and again to get a reaction out of the cat.  

    One Saturday morning we Sat in the family room watching television when the cat entered the room.

Crystal lit into the eyebrow wiggling.  Sophie meowed and turned and ran out of the room. She went to the furnace room.    Twenty minutes later as we sat watching tv I saw a gray and white blur sail through the air in my peripheral vision.    The blur settled on Crystal's face.   It was Sophie! She had held a grudge and was dishing out revenge for the eyebrow wiggling. She had her paws wrapped around Crystal's head. Both back and front legs with her fuzzy belly covering Crystal's face completely.  She looked wildly around the room and meowed. We got the point.  "Let's see ya wiggle them eyebrows now girl! Do it one more time and I'll smack 'em off yer face!"  

        It was hilarious, but we quit doing it because the cat was scary.   I did not even know a cat could hold a grudge!  

above: eyebrows clip art

Below:  Sophie lounging very relaxed  

Answering Machine Rescue 

above: old style answering machine  

  Back in 2003 we still had an old style answering machine in our bedroom on a dresser next to a land line phone.     It was a big old oak dresser we still own.     The cat was fascinated by the voices coming from the machine.   She'd jump up there and bat at it and stare bewildered.   Trying to figure out how the person got in the machine.   She knocked the machine in the floor a couple times.  We found it funny.  

    One day Kenny, myself, and friend Rich Stevenson were out hiking. We were on the way home from Virgin Falls.  We decided to have my kids phone in a Pizza Hut pizza to pick up on our way through.  We called them and discussed it. Worked out the logistics.   Timed it out.   Then Kenny got a funny idea.  He told Rich how Sophie acted over the answering machine. He told our kids not to answer the phone the next call, but let it go to the answering machine.  They agreed.  He called the machine on the way down the road as Rich was driving.   "Here kitty, kitty, kitty! Sophie! Oh Sophie!"  

he yodeled into the machine.     

      We got home and after supper went into the bedroom to watch.  Kenny pushed the answering machine button and his kitty calling message played.  Poor Sophie came running.  Although Kenny was standing there she leaped up onto the dresser.  She was alarmed that Dad was IN the machine! She tried to dig him out!  She meowed and clawed at it until once again she knocked it in the floor.  

We were all howling with laughter.    After that we did not tease her with the answering machine anymore.  She was perturbed with us.  Rightfully so!

Above: Sophie helping me study. 

Backpacking Equipment Also Means War!

    I never understood it, but another something that used to set Sophie off was my backpacking gear.

She liked to fight my backpack and a pair of cushy slippers I took with me on cold weather trips.   It was like the sight of those items was one more way to declare war!    I have photos to prove it.  

Above Sophie fights my bedroom shoes

Below: She fights my backpack! 

How to Shave a Cat's Butt

  Sophie lived a long, happy, spoiled life.  She was about nine and was real fat and not able to get round to her back end to clean herself up the way she could as a youngster.   I am a serious DIYer and don't like paying for things I believe I could do myself.    Instead of taking the kitty to the groomer and paying $$$ to get her cleaned up I decided I'd do it for her..   She had a dirty butt with real bad dingleberries back there.  I bathed her and got her clean.  She did great for me.  I knew that unless her fuzzy backside was trimmed up I'd be repeating this unpleasant process again and again.   I knew I needed to trim the fur on her rear end to make it shorter, neater, less likely to catch poop.  

 The only clippers I had were Kenny's beard trimmer.   I thought to  myself "What he doesn't know won't hurt him".  I got the clippers out to use on the cat's rear end.   I sat down with her and wrapped her in a towel with her butt sticking out.  I proceeded to try to shave her butt.   The next thing I knew she let out a yowl and took off like a split streak!   She was gone!  Hiding from me. I'd had my chance and blew it!      I conceded my defeat. I cleaned up the beard trimmer and put it away where I'd gotten it.  I went on with my day and did not think about the incident again. Well,  I didn't at least for awhile. 

One evening I was lying on the bed reading when Kenny came in and went to our bathroom.  I heard the sound of the beard trimmer.  My guilty conscience twitched a tiny bit, but the evil side of me got tickled and started to laugh.   The bathroom door was open so I knew I had to try to contain myself.

He would see me and hear me guffawing and rolling around and it would give me away.  

 I couldn't keep it together.  He did indeed hear me and stopped what he was doing to confront me. 
"Alright. Let's have it?! Spit it out!? What have you done now?"  At first there was no way of telling him for I could not stop laughing.    I finally got to where I could speak and I proceeded to tell him what I'd done.  Once I Dana-splained to him he didn't get mad, but laughed like a crazy man!  His response? "Joke's on you girly!  You're lucky she didn't claw your eyes out!  This beard trimmer is awful! It pulls the hairs out!  You're lucky to still be ALIVE!"  👀

  Then we both lost it and went into another fit of belly laughs.  Sophie was the only one who didn't find it funny!  Poor thing.  We're crazy round here, but we keep things interesting. 

        Below: Sophie sleeps atop my chicken  Aunt Clucky