mat (04/06/83)
Regarding the Sevin ... I thought that it was widely used because it degrades after about a week of exposure to solar UV. Shows how little I know. Regarding the bathing of cats, or any other animal. DO NOT ALLOW THE ANIMAL OUT OF DOORS ON A COOL (< 68 degress F) OR COLD DAY UNTIL THE ANIMAL IS **COMPLETELY** DRY. This will probably be tougher with cats than with dogs, and drying will be much slower with long hairs than with short. With wet fur, an animal's control of its body temperature is jepeordized and it can easily go hypothermic. This is not true of ordinary rainwater exposure, since the animals skin oils can keep the moisture from penetrating deeply. With a detergent bath, the oils are stripped and the moisture penetrates the fur and wets it right down to the skin. Our dog used to be tolerant of an occaisional bath, although not very happy about it. Still, she didn't mind all the attention. (We had a medium-sized german shepard. -Mark terribile. DodN
bvi (04/07/83)
On cool/cold days when bathing dogs/cats is a necessary, training your dog/cat to accept being blow-dried is a great help. In winter, when the fleas are off doing whatever fleas do in winter, the only time we need to bathe our dogs is before shows (we never bathe our cats). Although they really don't like it, they've learned to sit still while they're being blow-dried. It also helps to further loosen fur so it can be eaily brushed out. One note of caution, however, if you do it fairly often, is that you should use some sort of conditioner on your dog's coat to keep it from being excessively dried out by the hair drier. (oops - I meant 'necessity' up above). Beatriz Infante, HP Design Aids Lab ..!ucbvax!hpda!bvi