Grooming Longhaired Cats: Persians, Maine Coons and Ragdolls

A Persian, a Maine Coon and a Ragdoll, the cats that genuinely need a professional groomer

What these breeds have in common

The longhaired cats are the ones that genuinely need a professional, and the group most likely to be left until it is a problem. Persians, Maine Coons, Ragdolls, Norwegian Forest Cats, Siberians, Birmans, Himalayans and Turkish Angoras.

The coats vary more than they look. A Persian carries a fine silky coat with very little undercoat that grows continuously. A Maine Coon or a Norwegian Forest Cat carries a genuine double coat with a dense insulating layer underneath. Both mat, for different reasons and in slightly different ways, and neither should be approached with scissors.

The thing that catches everybody is that these cats look immaculate right up until they do not.

What this group means for grooming

The cats that genuinely need professional grooming. Mats form against the skin under the armpits and behind the ears where an owner never looks.

What actually decides the grooming

The coat type, not the group. It sets the tools, the interval and the price, and two dogs in this group can need completely different appointments.

A cat keeps the parts it can reach immaculate

This is the whole problem in one sentence, and it is why longhaired cats get left. A cat spends a substantial fraction of its waking life grooming, and the coat it can reach is beautifully kept. That is exactly what convinces an owner nothing else is needed.

The parts it cannot reach are the armpits, the inside of the back legs, the belly, the ruff under the chin, the base of the tail and the area behind the ears. Every one of those is hidden when the cat is standing, so nothing looks wrong from above until a mat is large enough to change the outline.

Often the first sign is behavioral rather than visual: the cat objects to being picked up, or becomes irritable about being touched along the sides. A mat pulls on the skin every time the cat moves, so a badly matted cat is genuinely uncomfortable rather than merely untidy.

Anything that reduces a cat's flexibility accelerates this sharply. Weight, age, arthritis, dental pain that makes grooming uncomfortable, or a spell of illness. A cat that has managed its own coat for eight years can pelt within one season after any of those, with nothing visibly changing on top.

Check weekly by running a comb through those six places rather than by looking at the cat.

Never cut a mat out of a cat with scissors

This is the single most important thing on this page and it is worth stating without qualification.

Cat skin is thin, loose and highly mobile. When a mat tightens it does not simply sit on the surface, it draws the skin up into a fold underneath itself, and that fold sits directly in the path of a blade coming in from the side. The skin feels like part of the mat under your fingers.

Lacerations from exactly this are one of the most common home grooming injuries veterinarians see in cats, they are often long, and they happen to careful, competent people who were being gentle. The wound is frequently much worse than it first looks because the skin separates.

Clippers used flat against the skin are the correct tool, and a groomer is the correct person. If a mat is tight, close to the skin, or anywhere near the armpit or groin, it is not an owner job.

The other half of the rule: never bathe a matted cat. Water tightens a mat like a knot pulled wet, and a coat that could have been combed out before a bath sometimes cannot be after one.

Lion cuts, and finding a groomer who takes cats

A lion cut shaves the body and leaves the head, the lower legs and a tuft on the tail. It looks dramatic and it is a legitimate answer for a badly matted cat: it removes the whole problem in one session rather than putting the cat through a long, painful dematting, and unlike a dog's double coat it carries no regrowth risk.

It is best understood as a reset rather than a routine. The goal afterward is to get back to a coat that can be combed. For a cat that will genuinely not tolerate brushing at all, keeping it short on an ongoing basis is a reasonable choice made with open eyes.

Finding somebody is the practical difficulty. Plenty of dog groomers do not take cats, and that is a sensible decision rather than a failing: cats need different handling, different restraint, quiet, and a groomer who knows when to stop. Search specifically for a cat groomer or a cat-only salon, and ask whether they work without sedation, how they handle a cat that objects, and whether the cat can be seen away from barking dogs.

Sedation is a veterinary decision and not a grooming one. A severely pelted cat sometimes does need to be shaved under veterinary supervision, and a groomer suggesting that is looking after the animal.