Finally, let’s talk about the tongue. We’ve got a great one, I can confirm! You see, we’ve got these tiny, backward-facing spines called “papillae” that are securely attached all over the topside of our tongues. This instantly converts it into one of the best hairbrushes to be found anywhere on the planet!
For your insight, this is one of the principal reasons why most of us really don’t need or like to be given baths. They’re simply not necessary! Our super-advanced, raspy tongue is quite sufficient to help keep us clean and elegant. It also serves to untangle the stuck-together fur for those of us like me who are longhairs.
You’ve surely seen that every day we spend many hours grooming ourselves since we do take pride in our appearance and want to be in tip-top shape at all times.
We do a lick-around after every meal and at any other moment when the urge or necessity calls for it. This includes getting to those hard-to-reach places like on the face and top of the head by intelligently wetting our paws first and then using them as alternative cleaning devices for where the tongue itself cannot directly reach.
Hey, how about that dedication to keeping ourselves looking decent all the time? I’m not so sure all the humans can say the same of themselves from what I’ve observed.
Anyway, at least for me and a lot of my feline friends, no more thoughts about baths for us, okay? We’ve got this thing under control on our own.
Furthermore, we can do all of this in a group fashion, like when we run into a furry friend. And our mama cats— when having two or more babies as is normally the case— will keep them all groomed until they learn to do it correctly on their own. She will tongue-bathe the whole litter more or less simultaneously, changing from one to the other with an efficiency and loving care that brings back fond memories of my first few months of kitty hood some years ago.
The only disadvantage to this frequent self-grooming that we are totally committed to is that we do tend to build up hairballs in our stomachs. These are truly annoying little things that sooner or later we have to spit out so we don’t block up the whole digestive system.
Fortunately, you can give us a hand at minimizing this problem by doing a little brushing of our beautiful coats if you would be so kind and take the time to do it on a regular basis. How often depends a lot on how much fur we’ve got and how long it is.
This would be much appreciated and provide us with a way to spend some extra quality time together as an extra benefit, if you know what I mean.