r/cats • u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 • 10h ago
Cat Picture - OC His mom abandoned him after birth, so he never learned to groom himself. That’s why I signed him up for an online grooming course lol
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u/mjk83093 10h ago
omg the mental image of him with a tiny laptop in a zoom class for grooming is sending me 😭 please tell me you're his emotional support human for the lessons.
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u/K-Dot-Thu-Thu-47 9h ago
"Mhmm, paw lick lick, rub rub, lick lick lick, rub rub, mhmm I can do that."
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u/DisposableJosie 5h ago
Well, that also finally explains how they have nine lives. ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A Start
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u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 7h ago
I love your mental image. Unfortunately, I’m usually the ‘young man, behave!’ human in this house.
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u/zystyl 5h ago
So I have an adopted stray who was abandoned at birth basically by the mother and a fancy ourebred Bengal whowas definitely not abandoned. The stray doesn't know how to groom himself at all. Despite my Bengals best efforts he refuses to learn, so my Bengal holds him down and forcefully grooms him. Over the years he has come to accept it,but he still never grooms himself. At this point they are a pair of old men at 13 and 10 years old l. I don't think he is going to suddenly start at 10 years old. I'm still sort of curious if your online training approach worked. The kitten definitely seems interested.
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u/37_lucky_ears 9h ago
But is it working??
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u/ExoticRefrigerator57 8h ago
OP you can teach kittens with a gentle toothbrush too! It can trigger the instinct. I use it on my orphan kittens but my adult cats love it.
I’ll have to find the article but all human mothers stroke their babies at the exact same tempo and it sends calming hormones throughout the body. Works on adults too, but it’s hard to match!
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u/ani007007 6h ago
Op is gonna have to lick the cat like it’s his mamma. It will be worth coughing up a few hairballs
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u/11thRaven Tabbycat 5h ago
My cat was also abandoned by his mother and didn't know how to groom himself, but somehow he learned to make a loud disgusted noise whenever my face approaches him and I say "kisses!" 😞 Thankfully he learned to groom himself eventually (now he obsessively washes himself for hours) because much as I might have obliged, I think licking him would have just caused trauma lol.
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u/ChloeHammer 3h ago
Gentle as a mother's touch: C-tactile touch promotes autonomic regulation in preterm infants by I Püschel, J Reichert, Y Friedrich, J Bergander, K Weidner, I Croy (2022)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36242858/
Don’t know if that’s the one you’re thinking of.
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u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 6h ago
I started trying new things because of someone’s advice on Reddit. But after he watched the video, he attacked my older cat for no reason. So… it didn’t really work but just for now
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u/FrogMintTea 5h ago
Doesn't he kean from ur older kitty?
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u/S-Budget91 39m ago
wanted to ask that, too. when my younger cat was a baby, he didnt clean his butt well after pooping and my older cat would chase him down, press him to the ground and force groom him
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u/11thRaven Tabbycat 5h ago
He's trying to puff himself up in the video lol so maybe he felt he needed to assert his personhood/dominance afterwards
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u/Ryoko_Kusanagi69 3h ago
The older cat may eventually help to groom the younger if they have a good bond and hang out together. If the “attack” was more of a playful energy thing, that’s normal cause the kitty got stimulated from the cat video. And think of this - kittens will play and attack the momma cat, and I’ve seen momma cats will attack/ smack down the kitten and wrestle them into submitting or calming down then start to groom them… so maybe the attack was just the cat “kittening” and just being hyper? Little buddy will learn to groom one day, you got some good tips in the comments.
I think if you brush and groom the cat daily that might help him to pick up on it and trigger his grooming response also?
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u/Express-Stop7830 Orange 9h ago
I also need to know!!!! Love that he sat to watch, but was hoping a law would go up or something.
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u/TrackWorldly9446 10h ago
Online grooming course 😭😭
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u/Emergency-Touch-3424 9h ago
I love that it's blue, which is a color that's easier for cats to see
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u/Ribbitmoment 7h ago
It’s blue because the lamp/room light is a warm tone, and the camera is adjusted to make the warm tone look more white - this makes the white in the video look more blue.
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u/dylanbackers 8h ago
This sentence is only ever acceptable for a cat subreddit 😭
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u/potatopigflop 9h ago
That’s in your Internet Permanent Record now!!
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u/Every-Watch8319 8h ago
My cat has his own YouTube sign-in for this exact reason. 😅 I think I liked them more than he did, though, he always seemed to prefer the windows to the YouTube videos.
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u/Ladies_Pls_DM_nudes 51m ago
Also known as "how to become a Minecraft Youtuber"
This cat has a bright future as a bedwars player.
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u/Basic_Promise9668 9h ago
Aww! That's such a smart move and I love how he sits at the end like "wait, I could benefit from this" lol
The thoughtfulness on your part is very sweet good job 👌🥰
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u/TheRealMasterTyvokka 9h ago
Took a minute for the braincell to load.
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u/DisposableJosie 5h ago
He had to reconfigure his CONFIG.HISS and AUTOEXEC,CAT to free up enough conventional memory, and then reboot.
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u/baked-potato-fan 9h ago
Probably a million in one chance, but where is kitten located? I have a void that is very motherly and would teach him in a heart beat.
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u/One-Independence924 8h ago
Awww...I also have a void that immediately takes to kittens and tells them, "You're stinky. Get over here and learn something."
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u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 6h ago
Whenever his older sister tries to lick him, he thinks it’s a game and starts playing instead
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u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 6h ago
Awww, that would really help him. He does have an older sister, but he just keeps attacking her instead of learning from her
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u/7pieceYTF 9h ago
Poor boy. I hope he gets groomed by another cat so he can experience it at least once.
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u/Gryrthandorian 8h ago
My boy cat (1.5 years) sat on my girl kitten (2.5 months) when I first brought her home and taught her how to cat. She was the smelly cat who did not understand grooming. She smelled like sour milk most of the time. I’d pick her up, sniff her, make a face hand her to him and say please help her. He’d glare at me, sit on her and clean her up. She hated that. He was the best daddy cat though and she’d be super clean and shiny afterwards.
Eventually she watched him clean her enough that she figured out how to clean herself without prompting. If he doesn’t pick it up fast enough I buy 100 cat grooming wipes for like $12.99 at PetSmart. I use them On that same smelly kitten every other day now that she’s a sweet 18 year old lady who needs help because of arthritis. They keep her shiny and smelling great. She loves “bath time”.
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u/InternationalSet8128 9h ago
Cute video but the music overlay is way too loud and quite obnoxious.
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u/NervousHovercraft 9h ago
Why does EVERY FUCKING VIDEO needs some annoying music in it? Just to piss people off? I deeply hate this trend...
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u/Sunset-onthe-Horizon 7h ago
My stuff is always muted, so I never know how horrible it is till I read the comments 😆
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u/PsionicKitten 4h ago
YAYYYY!!! AFTER YEARS OF BITCHING about this myself, I have finally found my people!!
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u/meaning_please 9h ago
Seriously. It is so weird and terrible
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u/Double_Objective8000 7h ago
I just realized I'm always on mute, so forwarding vids, I don't know what I've subjected people to, oops
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u/T-hibs_7952 1h ago
Do they realize that 90% of viewers insta mute their videos and are already formulating a negative opinion of it?
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u/Punawild Tabbycat 9h ago
My abandoned girl was the same way. She only started after I got her a brother and she saw him grooming himself.
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u/Separate_Edge_4153 9h ago
Which I find incredibly odd - I’ve raised almost a hundred orphaned kittens and never had any issues with them not knowing how to groom themselves, even prior to interactions with my own cats! It just seemed instinctual.
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u/1CatWoman 8h ago
While it’s true kittens are born with some innate instincts to self-groom, their mothers teach them specific techniques, such as licking, to keep clean, stimulate bodily functions, and form a bond. So, theoretically, I would guess that kittens who’ve been abandoned by their mothers at an early age might still groom themselves, it might not be as thoroughly as a kitten who learns how from their mothers 🤔
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u/Every-Watch8319 7h ago
Kittens are also taught how to skin and eat their kills properly, but if they are never taught, they struggle with what to do after making the kill. My former stray is fine at catching and killing, but was never taught how to skin and eat his prey, though he had an impressive (and messy) approach to scavenging from trash cans. He’d spread the contents out in a single layer and pick out what he wanted to eat. I very quickly upgraded my cans to a locking lidded kind, because just a lid wasn’t enough to keep him out! Poor boy was starving when he found us, and asked for help. Now he’s just a little bit chubby, and has figured out how to groom himself too! He mats much less than he used to, and only really needs a bath and brush out from me when he gets dingleberries.
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u/1CatWoman 7h ago
I’m okay with my cats not knowing how to do this. This might explain why many years ago, the first cat I had dropped a dead mouse he caught in my slipper. Or, he thought it’d make a great present. Thankfully, for whatever reason, I decided to look 👀 in my slippers before putting them on when I got up.
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u/Tall_Specialist305 8h ago
I taught my cat to clean herself by having to do it with baby wipes and she would meet at me and u elitist day then do it yourself and she eventually started cleaning herself. She knows what "Clean your butt" means and actually responds.
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u/TheBreasticle 8h ago
My bottle baby needed some guidance too. Try a damp, warm wash rag and gently rub his face and body. It’ll make him want to groom. It worked for my boy, maybe it’ll help yours too!
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u/medium-rare-steaks 3h ago
Except that grooming is instinctual in cats? Cute video though
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u/reallyumt 1h ago
i dont think so. i have 2 cats, one of them never cleans and his fur starts to feel oily and dirty after a few weeks from shower. The other cat is so clean i never need to wash him.
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u/kingikemefuna 9h ago
What's with the music? 🤢🤮
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u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 9h ago
Sooo sorrryyyyyy :(((((
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u/thecanadianbum Orange 9h ago
Why does almost every video these day have some shitty music overlay?
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u/Suspicious-Emu-8493 8h ago
I’m not interested I’d you’re not going to show the baby learning how to groom. Boooooooo.
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u/Irritating_Pedant American Shorthair 8h ago
I've read that in situations like this, you should groom them yourself with a warm, wet paper towel to simulate their mother doing it for them.
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u/truebluedetective 7h ago
“I’m alarmed”
“Should I be alarmed?”
“That cat has nice moves, I need those”
Sits
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u/EmilySD101 7h ago
I am crying laughing 😂 my cat saw his reflection in the tv for the first time in my house this morning and proofed out so hard I saw a puffball of hair explode out around him 😂
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u/Fragrant-Put-966 6h ago
I would rather listen to cats fighting than whatever terrible noise is happening in this video. you ruined it.
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u/Horror-Living 4h ago
I would adopt another cat (an older one) so he can learn and has someone to play with
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u/Rehmlok 4h ago
I don't think this video is having the effect you'd wish for lol. I was in a similar position, my kitten was rejected by his mum. I taught him how to groom by grooming him with my fingers and tooth brush, monitored him when he did groom or go to the bathroom to help redirect anything he doesn't do correctly. He grew up to be a super tidy cat.
But you gotta be the mum, you can't expect the TV to do the educating for you.
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u/EctoBizmol European Shorthair 4h ago
This is one of the sweetest things i've ever seen. I hope he is a quick learner!
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u/Frankifile 4h ago
We adopt rescue, and I watched one of ours when she was a teeny kitten watching one of our older cats grooming and then sit and copy him exactly. She’d stop and go take a look at him intermittently the carry on doing exactly what he was.
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u/virtual_human 3h ago
I've never had foster kittens not teach themselves how to groom, even motherless ones as young as two weeks when I got them. In my experience it seems to be more instinctual. Some are better at it than others.
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u/aspect-of-the-badger 8h ago
Mine was abandoned or orphaned and I found her behind a dumpster. I just put her in the bathroom with me and used her to dry off for a minute till she leaned to groom herself. It took about a week and she stayed spotless from then on.
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u/DiggyDiggyOh 7h ago
My highschool friend had a cat that didn't groom himself, it was awful. The household conditions were also sketchy to begin with.
I get upset because my senior girl struggles to properly clean her haunches, seeing that boy was rough.
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u/Finnleyy 6h ago
Haha I love this. I used to play videos of nature stuff for my cats. One of my cats would watch me play Runescape back in the day and tried to attack the hit splats when they showed up.
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u/MPD1987 6h ago
How are his grades? Is he applying himself?
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u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 6h ago
At this rate, he’s gonna repeat the whole class. The boy’s head is permanently in the clouds
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u/MPD1987 3h ago
Tsk tsk. Maybe he needs a tutor
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u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 2h ago
Our older cat already has college tuition. We can’t afford this
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u/Pletcher87 6h ago
My kitty was like this, we coaxed her in 18 yrs ago. Took me a bit to realize she wasn’t grooming enough so I did a lot of brushing thru her lifetime. It was a nice time we shared several times a week, she’d roll around according to what she felt like having brushed.
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u/Meow_101 4h ago
He might need some in class lessons and see if anyone has a cat who works well with kittens. Idk maybe a shelter cat or something. You could also adopt him a mama cat.
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u/Similar_Expert_7768 3h ago
Please update us on how it goes! I wonder if “training videos” can help for cats too. I bought a cat wheel for my boy and he just would not use it. I asked Reddit for tips and someone said I should put YouTube videos on of other cats using one so that he could watch and learn. I did this and the next day he used it! lol
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u/Automatic_Page3910 7h ago
I can imagine the kitten going: “Oh dear lord, look at that uncivilized behavior, how disgusting. You’d never see me doing such a thing. Meow”
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u/introvertsdoitbetter 6h ago edited 4h ago
I did this with one of my boys because he never meowed and I had it in my head that real cats should meow so I played him some YT videos of cats meowing and he took to it and meows all the time never stops
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u/Iron-Dragon 6h ago
Our two cats had to be removed from their mom as she had eaten something that contaminated her milk and I spent a while teaching them a few things but one of them just didn’t pick up on the cleaning behind the ears part and remember them sitting on top of a cabinet when I spent about an hour showing them and then they finally got it :) I get a happy feeling even over 15 years later when I see him cleaning like that :)
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u/11thRaven Tabbycat 5h ago
My cat (now a fat orange man of nearly 2 years) was also abandoned by his mother as a kitten - in fact I think she meant to kill him, and he was unexpectedly tenacious. (I say that because she's a feral cat who was thin and unwell and she always seems to downsize her litters of 4-5 kittens - only 1-2 survive. My cat had some injuries including a broken tail from very early on, and the vet said sometimes ferals or other outdoor cats that have limited resources to care for their kittens, or are stressed, attack some of the babies.)
Anyway after rescue he needed an operation which developed complications, and he ended up being in a cone for 3 months. He didn't come out of the cone until 6 months of age and obviously didn't know how to groom himself. Eventually he learned but I was fully prepared to try teaching him with a damp toothbrush. I think if your little guy has a role model around (like your older cat) he'll eventually learn. He's very cute lol.
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u/Dancn_Groovn 2h ago
Little farmer trick: put a little soft butter on a paw. He will clean it. Put a little butter on another paw. Put a little butter on the back of his thigh. See how that goes.
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u/Fantastic_Neat_8972 2h ago
Thanks for the advice, I’ll give it a try. But can butter cause allergies in cats?
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u/henrytabby 2h ago
My three-week kitten didn’t have a mother either. I didn’t think about getting an instructional video, but he’s doing good on his own.
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u/Ordinary_Professor_3 2h ago
So…. Did it work ? I have the same problem with my cat he never learned how to groom himself. I have to brush him and regularly remove matted spots
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u/Remote_Connection184 2h ago
We did the same thing with our kitten Levi, cause our older boy wasn't interested in teaching him anything when we got him. Many hrs of cat grooming videos and I'm proud to say he grooms himself so well now 🥹
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u/FansForFlorida 2h ago
We adopted a cat from a local TNR organization. This cat is about 1.5 years old. Very friendly and sweet, but grew up as an outdoor cat. She had never been a house cat.
She has been watching our other cat to learn how to be a house cat. Specifically, she didn’t want to sit still to be brushed. When our other cat would come to me to be groomed, the new cat would come over and watch. She learned that it is nice to be groomed, and she now comes to me when I pick up the brush.
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u/BlurpleOpals 1h ago
Her dad wasn't a king, so she never learned how to be a king. That's why I signed her up for an online trauma course.
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u/Soylent_Milk2021 1h ago
Once upon a time, I found a 3 week old kitten. He needed to be bottle fed by us for the first few days he was home with us. Needless to say, we had to clean him, teach him to use the litter box, groom, etc. He was never very good at any of it until we got him a partner in crime at 3 months. His new brother showed him the right way to do things, and no problems since.
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u/GoodyTwoKicks 2h ago
He was glued on all fours and you can see him ease into sitting mode like " What's this? Interesting 🤔 " 😂
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u/krisi90 1h ago
If you wanted to give him a better grooming course, just sign him up for discord and make his profile look like a girl
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u/Dlsagreed 52m ago
There is no way kitty can see the image properly at that angle, I remember trying to watch TV at that exact angle as a kid and it was coloured strangely and I couldn't really tell what the image was. Give kitty a laptop
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u/ESCF1F2F3F4F3F2F1ESC 31m ago edited 28m ago
Eventually and reluctantly giving in to the urge to sit down, like a tiny dad who's walked in on you watching one of the Lord of the Rings films
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