In article ,
J. Clarke wrote:
Robert Bonomi wrote:

In article ,
J. Clarke wrote:
Mark Hopkins wrote:

Have you ever tried to bathe a cat?

Flashed on a friend who loved cats and loved his wife, who was allergic to
cat dander. Solution--remove the dander. So once a week he bathed six
cats. Surprisingly, the cats got to where they liked their bath, would
line up to be bathed, and became petulant if he didn't bathe them on time.


When I was growing up, our cat felt the need to supervise people baths.
Sitting right on the edge of the tub. With his tail dangling _into_ the
water.

I don't recall ever finding out his opinion of a -cat- bath. But he did
like to be _vacuumed_. Directly by the hose of a regular canister vacuum.

Never encountered a cat that wouldn't run in terror from a vacuum. OTOH,
the neighbor's cat used to like to come over and get swept with a broom.

What can I say. The cat was practically bigger than the vacuum was. grin
Anyway, he'd just lay down on his side, and when one side was done, he'd
roll over.

I don't remember how he got _introduced_ to it, but this was an _old_
green Eureka canister. It was extremely quiet, despite having a lot of
pulling power. Did a _great_ job of pulling out the old winter under-coat,
come spring time.

I gotta tell ya, vacuuming the livestock is a whole *lot* more efficient
than having to vacuum all the furniture, rugs, etc. to pick up shed hairs.

We also had a big Chesapeake Retriever who would 'shake' _on_command_ --
no, not 'shake hands', though he did that too, but after a bath. We would
tell him 'stand still', tent a big towel over him, and say 'Okay, _now_
shake', whereupon he would. Was also _real_ handy when bringing him in
from outside when it was raining or snowing.

Probably a big surprise for those who can't resist giving orders to somebody
else's dog too.

Chesapeake's are *smart* -- _ANNOYINGLY_ smart. However, in this case, he
knew the difference between 'sit' / 'shake', and 'stand still' / 'now shake'.
Heck, for 'shake' (hands), if you put out your left hand, he'd use his left
paw, and if you put out your right hand, he'd use his right paw. And if you
then said 'the other one' he'd drop whichever paw he had up, and offer 'the
other one'.

The 'stand still... OK, now shake' DID impress the hell out of any visitors
who happened to see it -- almost invariably the reaction was "I wouldn't
have believed it, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!"