If you’ve ever tried to give a cat a bath, you know how exhausting it can be. The typically water-aversive pets are no strangers to creating an escape plan once they realize what you’re trying to do.
Despite cats being known to clean themselves, baths aren’t entirely unavoidable. My two cats, Tuna and Salmon have long hair that occasionally needs a good wash and groom. Pre-pandemic, I’d take them to a groomer, but these days I’m on my own. Typically, this leads to howling, hissing, and cats running around my home while still soaking wet. This was all before I tried the HATIKY Cat Bathing Bag.
I first heard about it from a friend who had seen one being used on TikTok. The bag is easy to use. It opens at the bottom, you slip the cat in the same way you’d pull on a hoodie (which is easier than it sounds), tuck their head through the turtleneck-like opening at the top, and adjust the size as needed with the drawstrings. It even has a handle on the top, allowing you to easily carry the cat-in-a-bag around, and a zippered opening at the bottom so you can access their paws for the ever-dreaded claw-trimming.
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Given their size, I assumed the bag might be a tight squeeze for my cats, but figured it was worth a shot. The first time I put them in the bags I just let them sit in them and get adjusted. After the initial confusion of why I was zipping them into a strange piece of fabric passed, I was honestly surprised to find they settled in quite comfortably. When I went to give the actual baths, I was met with the same sad look and panicked meows, but no flailing limbs or attempted escapes. I applied the shampoo to the outside of the bag and scrubbed as I normally would, letting the suds work their way through the holes of the mesh and onto their coats. I used the zippered opening at the bottoms to clean their toe tufts, rinsed the shampoo out, did a quick pass at drying them off, took them out of the bags, and they sprinted off to plot their revenge. If Tuna and Salmon weren’t terrified of hairdryers, I would’ve kept them in the bags and given them blowouts to complete the spa day they didn’t want.
Hopefully their self-grooming will be sufficient enough to avoid another bath for at least a few months, but once that dreaded day comes back around, this little mesh bag will help make a once-grueling process a breeze.
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