Historical Archives – How to Shave a Cat….

I have been working on archiving thousands of my photos from over the years. As I was going through an album I ran across a few images I would like to share and explain. This may become a weekly venue.

Now that I live in the city, the youth that are growing up here in the midst of mega malls and concerts always ask me what we did for entertainment in a place that lacked theaters and shopping malls. My answer is simple we were creative….

This is one of my best friends - Amy. (now married and living in oake city). Amy and I met when I moved to Strawberry in the third grade. Our life paths ran parallel until a few years ago when jobs and marriage distanced us 600 miles. Amy and I were active in 4-H, county council and ran cross-country together. We eagerly left the small town life and heading for Iowa State to expand our horizons. Amy and I ironically roomed right across the hall from each other our first year of college. It was a year full of pranks, fun, late nights and bouts of homesickness for our beloved rolling hills of NE Iowa.

These photos were taken the summer after our sophomore year at ISU. Amy was an aspiring vet student and I had just been accepted into the landscape architecture program. After a tough semester we found ourselves on home turf visiting old friends, friends that had one hairy cat…..

This cat was so matted and huge (over twenty pounds, but the fur made it twice as big). It was a midweek night in a town with a population of 1200. Not much to do socially, so naturally we turned on our academic thinking caps and decided to shave our friend Amanda’s cat. Actually now that I think about it, it was not her cat, but her boyfriends, who was at work.

First we cut out the clumps (which that cat did not approve of). Then it was time to shave, however neither of us wanted to run home to get a pair of cattle clippers so we just used someone’s hair clippers (which the cat really did not approve of).
Overall it was about a two-hour process (we left the head, tail, belly and legs full).

Unfortunately there were some repercussions – first the owner of the cat was not too happy what we did to his big tomcat. Secondly, the cat developed a complexity disorder and went from being the big man on the block to a shy personality with no character. As his fur grew back the cat returned to his original character and his coat was beautiful.
Moral of the story….well I can’t really think of one besides good times bond good friends….