Question
We live in a warm climate and have two cats.
One of the cats is local and seems fine with the heat but the other one comes from the Northern region and has a lot more fur.
In Summer, the heat is quite high and I used to shave her to help with the temperature. The shaving would still leave about 0.5 to 1.0cm of hair vs. the 2.5cm she normally has depending on the body area.
The cats are living indoor, but have access to the terrace if they wish; Although in Summer they are rarely there, they are usually found where the AC and shade is.
I was told that we shouldn't shave a cat because fur helps not only with heating, but it also helps with cooling and shaving it interferes with the cat's ability to cool down its temperature.
I have two questions:
1) is that true?
2) if it is the case, how does the fur help with the cooling since I always understood that the fur just creates an isolation layer to avoid loosing temperature, but in this case body temperature is still higher than outside temperature, so I don't understand how isolation can help.
Answer
Cats' fur has evolved not only to keep the cat warm in the cold nights in the desert but to keep the heat out during the day in the baking desert temperature.
But the insulating fur cannot keep the cat cool, so cats seek shade and lie belly down on the hard ground to transfer heat away from the body. This is why cats often prefers to lie on the concrete or stone floor.
So the fur of a cat does reduce how fast it gets heated by the outside temperature. If you shave the fur, you remove the insulating layer of air that the fur provides.
To learn more about cats, please take a look at learnonline.cats.org.uk. A lot of information about cats can be found there.
Answered By - trond hansen