Pet fur: It looks great on our cats, but on our clothes? Not so much. Here’s how to manage cat shedding to minimize the fallout and keep your home and clothing furfree.

How to Manage Cat Shedding: StepbyStep

Whether your feline friend is a yearround fur machine or is just a supershedder during seasonal changes, it’s important to stay on top of grooming and cleaning. Follow this stepbystep guide on how to manage cat shedding and you’ll be on your way to a happier kitty and a healthier home.

Gather Supplies

You’ll want to keep the following on hand to help tackle cat shedding:

Nutritionally balanced cat food: https://www.chewy.com/b/food387
Flea and tick protection: https://www.chewy.com/b/fleatick404
Deshedding cat brushing tools: https://www.chewy.com/f/desheddingto...
Pet blanket: https://www.chewy.com/b/blankets15464
Vacuum cleaner (especially one designed to pick up pet hair): https://www.chewy.com/b/vacuumssteam...
Lint roller: https://www.chewy.com/b/hairremoval...
Cat supplements, such as fish oil and probiotics (optional): https://www.chewy.com/b/vitaminssupp...

1. Feed Your Cat a HighQuality Diet

Not only does this help ensure your cat has a healthy skin and healthy coat—which can lessen the amount of shedding in some cats—but they’ll feel better in the short and long term.

Talk to your veterinarian about the best food for your cat. Need to make a switch? Follow this guide to changing your pet’s food to help the transition go smoothly: https://be.chewy.com/transitioningyo...

2. Use Parasite Protection

Use parasite preventatives to help ward off fleas, ticks, ringworm, and other bugs that can cause fur and skin problems in your cat. These parasites don’t take any time off, so prevention is key all year long.

It’s important to consult your veterinarian to determine which medications are best for your pet—and to determine how often to give them. Cats with severe allergies to parasites, for example, may need a more robust treatment schedule.

3. Groom Your Cat Daily

Regular brushing can help remove loose hair on your cat’s coat, which means less will end up on your couch and clothes—and in your cat’s belly, for that matter, so it has the added benefit of reducing hairballs. Just a few minutes of brushing every day is all that’s needed.

If your cat will tolerate them, deshedding tools are slightly more aggressive than the average cat brush—but they also remove more pet hair during those highshedding seasons.

4. Clean Your Home

One of the easiest ways to prevent cat hair from taking over your furniture? Never let it touch your stuff in the first place. A petapproved sofa cover or throw blanket won’t reduce your cat’s shedding, but it’s a lot easier to clean than the couch itself.

In addition to furniture covers, you'll need a quality vacuum. To win the war on fur, you need the best weapons—and your standard broom just doesn’t cut it. (Brooms mostly just move fur around your home.) A vacuum cleaner can pick up fur and trap it inside its canister. Plus, many come with special attachments to suck cat hair out of the nooks and crannies of your furniture.

You might need to run a vacuum over floors every one to two days in areas highly trafficked by pets, especially during highshed seasons like spring and fall.

Finally, drywiping with pet hair remover tools can help keep cat fur under control, too. Consider these tactics:

Keep lint rollers on hand. The sticky tape easily lifts fur off your clothes, furniture and walls.

Slide on a pair of rubber gloves and rub down any areas such as sofas, fabric, and blankets that need extra cleaning. The fur will stick to the rubber, allowing you to collect it and toss it in the trash.

Try a squeegee tool. The rubber blade will collect fur the same way rubber gloves will, especially if you dip it in water.



Cat shedding is a fact of feline ownership, but there are steps you can take to minimize the fur fallout and live in harmony with your kitty.



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