You responded to a post about cats, saying they should never be bathed unless explicitly stated by a vet. I was just wondering what your sources were on that? I've always heard its ok to bathe cats, but not smaller mammals due to there inability to control body temperature while wet. A quick google search didn't find anything saying not to bathe cats either. I own cats, so I'm really curious about the care of them.
I don’t have a handy internet source for you, but that’s what I remember from back when I thought I was going to become a vet (and also as a lifetime cat person with several cats) and read animal health books like crazy and shadowed vets etc.That was a while ago, so perhaps my younger self thought it more dire than it really is.
Still, there are some things I do know for sure. Cats can have very, very sensitive skin. For instance, a flea allergy can make them lose all their fur in sensitive regions like their bellies and their thighs and genitals if they get even a couple fleas. They are also allergic to or can be poisoned by lots of products that humans use safely in their own products - for instance, Tea Tree Oil is TOXIC to cats, and yet if you walk down the hair-care aisle for humans there’s tons of it in our products. So definitely don’t wash a cat with anything but water if you aren’t using products specifically designed for cats. And I mean CATS, because you can't use dog product on a cat either. My brother rescued a cat who had been given dog flea medicine instead of cat flea medicine and then abandoned. She had nearly fatal seizures because of the wrong stuff and had lost almost all her fur as they tried to get her better.
Kittens, I remember vaguely something about not washing them because of something about an immune response on their skin. Though that might be rabbits? Like I said, it’s been a while.
Now some cats were taken away from their mothers too young when they were kittens, and they never learned proper grooming behavior. These cats will often get oils built up on their fur and have a less healthy-looking coat. They might need a little help washing from time to time, though a good brushing helps more than a bath. Baths really are only a useful thing if their fur gets matted or really dirty. And sometimes cats get into a gigantic mess and could use a hand getting clean all over. One of our cats was very adventurous and would very occasionally fall in the creek and come back completely soaked in mud. We would give him a bath then.
But in general, it’s completely unnecessary to bathe a cat since most of them are consummate groomers and will do a much better job than you will of keeping their fur clean and the appropriate levels of oils spread throughout. The human concept of clean is really not the same thing as what’s healthy. Plus it can be traumatic to force a cat to bathe (unless they’re one of the rare few who likes water), so why would you torment them for something that is unnecessary?