Tired Kitten

Going out to have adventures and meet an adoring public can be exhausting! Cupcake barely made it out of her Sleepypod Air carrier after she got home on Saturday.

black and white tuxedo kitten lays halfway out of Sleepyod Air cat carrier

Cupcake loves to nap inside her carrier during the day, but she is usually in or out. But this busy day tired her so much, she fell asleep halfway in and halfway out.

First, she went to the pet store. She likes to see her friends like the guinea pigs and the birds. Her friend the checkout lady was glad to see her again and noticed how big she is getting.

black and white tuxedo kitten looks at birds on display

She went to the hardware store to help pick out light bulbs, but she started to get impatient, because she knew her next stop would be her favorite: Starbucks, where she can play in the planter.

This weekend, she rearranged some of their mulch in the planter for them. You can see she is hard at work on that project in this photo.

tuxedo kitten hidden among plants

After she had finished that, it was time for a walk. The coffee shop is in a shopping center with lots of floor-to-ceiling windows she can look into. Cupcake met some people who were waiting for a table at the nearby brunch restaurant. She also had a nice visit with the lady who was working at the front desk of the tanning salon. The tanning salon lady has a cat who walks on a leash, too!

black and white tuxedo kitten on leash

After walking all that way, she was glad to get back to Starbucks and have some “puppaccino.” The people at the coffee shop really love her and give her far too much whipped cream, but she’s a delicate girl and only eats a little bit.

Lots of people dropping in for their morning coffee are surprised to see her sitting on the table, eating out of her own cup. They like to tell her about their kitties at home, so Cupcake heard lots of fun stories about other kitties, too.

black and white tuxeo kitten licks whipped cream from starbucks cup

It’s no wonder that Cupcake is all worn out and ready for a nap by the time she gets home from her adventures!

black and white tuxedo kitten lays belly-up halfway out of Sleepyod Air cat carrier

Did the weekend wear you out, too?

Two Toys are Better than One

Cupcake: Hey, wait up!

tuxedo kitten meows at feather toy

Cupcake: I love to carry the feather toy.

Tuxedo kitten carries feather toy

Cupcake: I caught this. It’s mine.

Cupcake: Look, there’s a mouse, too!

Tuxedo kitten plays with two toys at once

Cupcake: Maybe if I grab the mouse first…

Tuxedo kitten plays with two toys at once

Cupcake: Every time I open my mouth to grab the feather toy, the mouse tries to run away.

Tuxedo kitten plays with two toys at once

Cupcake: Maybe I should just stick with the feather toy until my mouth is big enough to hold both toys at once.

Tuxedo kitten carries feather toy

Defeating Shedding the Eazee Way

Ashton sheds. She isn’t the biggest cat in our house, or the longest haired, but she seems to shed the most. And here in Florida, shedding season is all year round.

So when I saw the Eazee deshedding tool at Global Pet Expo, I immediately thought of Ashton, and I couldn’t wait to try it out with her.

Ashton tests the Eazee deshedding tool

The deshedding tool I had previously used on Ashton had metal teeth that cut her undercoat. When is was purring and asking for more, it’s hard to stop grooming her. That actually led to me overgrooming her. I went for about six weeks last year not being able to take a photo of her back because a metal deshedding tool thinned even her topcoat, making the black fur of her back look streaky gray from her undercoat showing through.

The Eazee deshedding tool promised to be different. Instead of metal teeth that cut live hair, it has plastic ones that only remove dead hair. If it prevented me from overgrooming Ashton and making gray streaks on her back from cutting her topcoat, this sounded like a great idea.

Eazee brush teeth

There are two interchangeable sets of teeth for the brush, one set white and another set black. The white teeth are for daily grooming, and the black teeth are supposedly for more intense grooming. Ashton doesn’t need anything more intense than the white teeth, but maybe they would make a difference or a cat with longer or curly hair.

It’s easy to tell by the way Ashton responds that the Eazee deshedding tool feels good. Ashton leans into it, and you can see her tail is up, a sign of happiness.

This is the hair that came from about ten seconds of brushing. You can see that Ashton has plenty to spare and needs some brushing to remove the loose parts of her undercoat.

The Eazee is made of a static-free plastic, , and it has a thumb switch you can use to retract the teeth. When you retract the teeth, the hair falls right off the deshedding tool’s head.

Ashton: Did all that hair come from me?

The thumb switch for the adjustable head position means you can extend the teeth less for short-haired cats or extend them fully for long-haired cats. It also means that you can fully retract the teeth both for removing hair from the deshedding tool. It also provides a simple way to store the tool. There’s no separate cover for the teeth that you can misplace.

In the animation below, you can see how quickly the deshedding tool pulls hair loose from Ashton. It practically piles up at her hindquarters as I brush her.

Ashton being brushed with th eeazee deshedding tool

I recommend not grooming your cat with this on the sofa like I did! You can see how much of Ashton’s dark fur ended up on the pillow and sofa cover. Pierre is probably hoping he won’t be blamed for the mess!

Pierre sleeps next to Ashton's hair

Speaking of Pierre, I tried the Eazee deshedding tool on Pierre, too. Pierre doesn’t actually like to be brushed. He just wants to rub the scent glands on his cheeks against the brush, especially the glands in the corner of his mouth. The result is what looks like obsessive rubbing against and chewing on the deshedding tool while he drools and purrs.

Pierre has cheerfully rubbed his mouth bloody on other brushes and grooming tools, so he has to be carefully monitored around anything that looks like a brush or any kind. He wasn’t able to injure himself with the Eazee deshedding tool because its teeth are plastic instead of metal and have slightly blunted edges. This extra safety measure is really reassuring. If it can’t injure the delicate tissue around Pierre’s lips, it won’t scratch him anywhere else, either… if he ever lets me brush anything but his cheeks.

PIerre with Eazee groom

Both Ashton and Pierre agree that the Eazee deshedding tool gets enthusiastic paws up for removing their hair so they don’t have to do it by getting a hairball.

Tips for the Deshedding

It’s easy to get gobs of fur off of Ashton, but some cats don’t have the same texture coat she has. For best results when deshedding your cat:

Make sure your cat is dry. This isn’t a grooming tool meant for cats who you have recently bathed and haven’t completely dried yet.
For shorter haired cats, only extend the teeth of the comb to the first setting. There is a longer setting for cats with longer coats or thicker undercoats. Ashton’s thicker undercoat really works best with the longer teeth.
Not only does the Eazee deshedding tool come with there two combs — white for every day deshedding and black for intense grooming — the combs themselves are reversible. One side of the comb is for thicker coats and the other side for thinner coats. If you aren’t getting the results you expect, you can reverse the comb in the handle for better results.

Eazee Deshedding Tool Giveaway

We want you to have a better shedding season, too, so one lucky reader will receive an Eazee deshedding tool so your cat can feel as good as Ashton and Pierre after their grooming.

Just enter via Rafflecopter below. Though prizes only ship to US addresses, readers worldwide are invited to enter. If a winner lives outside the US, they can gift their prize to a friend or shelter in the US. Entries end Wednesday, July 26, 2017, and will be chosen by random drawing.**

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Winners will be notified via e-mail. Prize winner must provide Sometimes Cats Herd You with a physical address to which the prize will be mailed within 72 hours. If this information is not received, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.

FTC Disclosure: We received this product for free as part of our agreement to run this review and giveaway. The opinions in this review are my own and not influenced by any outsider. Sponsored posts always reflect our honest opinions and feature products we use ourselves and love.

Cupcake on the Go

While the other cats have been adjusting to a kitten among them, Cupcake has been adjusting to something else: life on the go.

Newton, Ashton, and Pierre live at home unless they need to make a vet visit. But Cupcake goes out and sees people to keep up the social skills she learned at the BlogPaws conference.

Of course, Cupcake does go to the vet. She just finished her kitten vaccinations this past weekend.

She goes other places, too. Some places that allow pets have surprised us, like our local Lowe’s home improvement warehouse. Cupcake thought some of the noises there, like the paint mixing machine, were really alarming, so we probably won’t go back there for a while.

tuxedo kitten and pet friendly sign

Of course, she visits the local pet stores. The day we arrived before they opened, she stood like any other impatient customer, peering in to see when the employees would let her in.

tuxedo cat looks into plate glass door

Cupcake also likes to visit local coffee shops that have outdoor seating. There, she can watch the people go by, and the ones who love cats stop to greet her.

tuxedo kitten makes face at sound while sitting on cafe table

She even has friends who she sees at the coffee shop weekend after weekend. They are already remarking on how much she is growing up!

tuxedo cat on coffee shop patio

She also has met some of the other non-human visitors to the coffee shop. She got a good look at a well-mannered dog at a nearby table this weekend.

tuxedo kitten looks at dog on coffee shop patio

Cupcake’s favorite coffee shop has outdoor seating in a courtyard where she can sit in the planter and pretend she is queen of the jungle.

She can also climb the tiny trees in the planter. These trees are about the height of a human, so she can’t get lost or stuck this way.

tuxedo kitten climbs tree Cupcake is learning the social and confidence skills she will need for a lifetime of adventures, and she can’t wait to share them all with you!