poor thing.
We used to have to shave our cat (well, the vet/groomer did it) every once in a while. She was a longhair, and the older she got the less able to clean herself she was. And she was far too dignified of an old lady to be wandering around with litter clumps all stuck in her fur.

But a leash? I think I would have lost my eyes just trying!

That's an odd looking cat. I'm not keen on the flat-faced cats, they often have really stinky breath, even worse than normal cats.

Last time Bailey was at the vet for her annual jabs I asked if they'd shave around her butt, She's too fat to wash properly and every time I tried to hold her with one hand and sponge off the dags* with the other she'd go to bite me and then would hate me afterwards.

It was really funny watching her when we got home. She went outside, it was a cold day (late October) and the look on her face when the air hit her bare spot! But she was the only cat in the neighbourhood with a Brazilian!

*dag - a lump of poo that clings to the fur round an animal's arse. It's an Australian word, often used in the world of sheep-farming, and as a popular insult.

That cat looks really hot. It's panting, and cats only do that when they're about to plotz. When mine get that way, I wet their heads down to cool off. Hot kitties don't mind getting wet. Ice-cubes in the water dish too.

She's too fat to wash properly and every time I tried to hold her with one hand and sponge off the dags* with the other she'd go to bite me and then would hate me afterwards.

Our fat girl cat purrs when we clean her up around the ass area. It makes the whole experience feel profoundly wrong.

That cat just wants to be home asleep on a windowsill, poor old guy.

ej and PST, I have to have my cat's butt shaved from time to time for the same reason: much like Capt. Kirk, she has a problem with Klingons.

If I do have to wash her off, she yowls and whines, but lets me do it. When I have to wipe out her eyes, though, she always purrs- I figure it reminds her of being groomed by her mother, which is probably what's going on with your cat, too, PST.

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Heh, we call them klingons too, BP. And our kitties love to go out on their harnesses/leashes. When they hear the jingling of leashes they half bowl you over trying to get to the door. Oliver walks all over the park and says hello to everyone. Abigail is happy to be staked out to graze (I swear they're half bovine).

We had a cat when I was a kid whom we used to walk on a leash. He was an inside cat, but seemed to like his quick forays outside. Toward the end of his life, when we had a fenced in yard, he did go outside sans leash. But never wandered anywhere. The funny thing was, he had a sort of dignity about him that not all my cats have had. He stalked the yard when wearing his harness, as if it were some sort of bondage. I still remember the one time he streaked for a tree, me running behind him.