Dingleberry Filter.

July 29, 2008 3:45 PM

Dingleberry Filter: Can I wipe my cat's butt with baby wipes?

The question is pretty straightforward.

I know that "pet wipes" exist, but I don't have any at the moment. I DO, however, have an unlimited supply of baby wipes. I just want to know before I try it if it will make my cat turn into a newt or explode or something.

posted by grapefruitmoon to Pets & Animals (23 answers total)

Dunno. We used (when we had a cat with this problem) warm water on a paper towel. For Big Jobs, sometimes the cat got dipped in warm water. Sometimes scissors were (carefully!) deployed. Unless your cat is so fat he can't reach to lick himself there, I'd say beware of baby wipes, since they may leave residue that will make him sick when he cleans himself.
posted by rtha at 3:53 PM on July 29, 2008

Best answer: I do this all the time. I started using them (the unscented kind) after buying cat butt wipes that had a horrible perfumey smell, and realizing I had just spent way too much money on them because I thought they'd be better for my kitty, since they were for "cats". I just get the most basic, gentle, unsmelly kind I can find. No complaints from kitty.
posted by MsElaineous at 3:54 PM on July 29, 2008

Yes, you can wipe your cat's butt with baby wipes, but it's much simpler and less expensive to wipe it with a wet paper towel.
posted by amyms at 4:01 PM on July 29, 2008

Response by poster: amyms: I've tried the wet paper towel. The results were sub par. Hence, the urge to get more technology involved.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:04 PM on July 29, 2008

Best filter ever.

Wet paper towels will do it once the baby wipes run out, if ever. I would say that if the cat ever gets sick from the baby wipe smell, start using paper towels. I'm sure some baby wipes are much smellier than others.
posted by crunch buttsteak at 4:05 PM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wait, is this normal? What is your cat eating that he has dingleberry problems? I've never noticed this with my two monsters. Then again, we have dogs in the house. Sorry for the mental image.
posted by desjardins at 4:13 PM on July 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: She doesn't have dingleberries ALL the time, but when she does, I want them GONE and not on my furniture (which thanks to my domestic-partner's sense of minimalism is all white). She has some laziness issues.

Oh, and she eats catfood. Regular Iams catfood. And not plants, like her step-sister. Funny, the plant-eating cat has no dingleberries, but does consistently barf up whole leaves, so their grossness completely balances out.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:19 PM on July 29, 2008

Dingleberries are often suspended by licked-up fur, so you might find that brushing her more often will help, as well as being enjoyable for both of you.
posted by flabdablet at 4:23 PM on July 29, 2008

I am concerned about whatever alcohols and other chemicals are in the baby wipes. Remember, the nether region is one of your cat's most favorite areas to lick. Whatever you wipe with down there is going to get licked up and absorbed into her system. IANAV, but if it were me, I would go with something that is specifically designed to be used on cats. Or, just stick with wet paper towels and add a little more elbow grease.
posted by kitty teeth at 4:34 PM on July 29, 2008

What's in/not in "cat butt wipes" that makes them different from regular old baby wipes?

Also, someday, I'll forget that I favorited this thread. It'll be a slow, rainy, boring day, and I'll click through my favorites in search of something to reawaken my dozing brain. I will find this thread and laugh milk out my nose.
posted by Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger at 4:34 PM on July 29, 2008 [4 favorites]

Go ahead and wipe kitty's bum with the baby wipes. My mom did this all the time with our sensitive-stomached dog.
posted by radioamy at 4:40 PM on July 29, 2008

baby wipes are just fine. I use them our our 20 lb behemoth daily. Shaving his ass regularly helps, too. :)
posted by arnicae at 4:52 PM on July 29, 2008

Go ahead and wipe kitty's bum with the baby wipes. My mom did this all the time with our sensitive-stomached dog.

No wonder the dog was sensitive-stomached. I'd hate being used on a kitty's bum, and I'm not even a dog.

More serious advice: consider checking out the litter box. Perhaps it can be retrofitted so as to reduce the possibility that dingleberries emerge -- e.g., a narrower aperture, or a broader runway area.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 5:11 PM on July 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

I too have found that regular ass-shaving helps. The groomers even call it a sanitary trim. And it's like ten bucks--what's never picking off dingleberries again worth to you?
posted by calistasm at 5:57 PM on July 29, 2008

You people will talk about ANYTHING!

that said... the better half will just pick up the offending cat, take it to the laundry tub, turn on warm (not hot, not cold) stick said offending cat butt under the water and rub with a rag...

She only goes to this extreme to teach the cat a lesson about cleanliness, which often has an impact on four other observing cats as well...
posted by HuronBob at 6:01 PM on July 29, 2008 [3 favorites]

I've been told that dogs/cats are more sensitive to lanolin (it gunks up their fur). I attempt to find wipes without said lanolin.
posted by answergrape at 6:09 PM on July 29, 2008

I use baby wipes on my cat, and every now and then he gets a bath. As other people have mentioned, shaving/trimming the fur around their back area is helpful (my cat is long haired so he gets pretty much everything that he could get dirty this way cut short, which includes the fur on his upper hind legs and the base of his tail).
posted by quirks at 6:50 PM on July 29, 2008

I use baby wipes on my cat because she's too fat to lick her own butt. YCMV, but the upside to this is that I don't have to worry about her ingesting the ingredients in the wipes.
posted by iamkimiam at 7:09 PM on July 29, 2008

I've used baby wipes on my cats safely. As an alternative to wipes, you could try out my current solution: have two cats who lick each other's butts clean as needed. And sometimes when it's not.
posted by kiripin at 10:24 PM on July 29, 2008

Ha! We use babywipes for our (tail-less and therefore often cleanliness-challenged) cat all the time! I can't believe so many other people do. As other people have suggested, I use the unscented ones and alcohol-free if we can find them. Often the...stuff...is hanging from our cat's butt because of too much fur in his system, but we've found that laxatone works really well to help push it through. Amazon sells tuna flavored and all 3 of our cats beg for it, even the two that don't need it. But only that brand--no other brand has interested them at all. Good luck!
posted by lagreen at 9:41 AM on July 30, 2008

Watching Mrs. Rykey do this to our princess elicits a mixture of amusement (the cat makes these hilarious protesting meows) and guilty disgust (she's wiping the CAT'S ASS with something designed for babies... are we really this bourgeois?!) in me.

But yeah, it seems to work.
posted by Rykey at 5:53 PM on July 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Just a note on your other cat eating your plants...I was having this problem until I planted a pot of cat grass for my cat...now he eats that instead. It's good for his digestion and it keeps him from eating other plants.
posted by kathleenl at 8:20 AM on August 2, 2008

Response by poster: kathleenl: Yeah, we have a small pot of cat grass for the plant-eater. Then there are the three days between when the dead grass is removed and new grass grows when she eats the other plants. And pukes them up.

It's a good thing that cats are so adorable because between the dingleberries and the puke, they're pretty gross.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:12 AM on August 2, 2008