I mean, do you start at the head and work down to the tail and the claws? And then there’s the face - it must be a bit fiddly. How do you do that? Is it best to take the fur off with boiling water first?
Would appreciate any cat-skinners out there giving some advice to an enthusiastic amateur.
I wish I had a pic to post of our latest addition, Smoke – a long-haired persian or himalayan or something that had been abandoned out near Fulong that we picked up a few months ago when he was close to death from starvation. He’s big and strong now, extremely affectionate, but seems to have problems grooming himself.
We took him to the vet last week for a once-over and discovered that he’d picked up a skin complaint. So they shaved him pretty well bald – except for his lower legs, face and the tip of his tail. Now he looks like one of those hairless cats kitted out in those furry apres-ski boots the movie starlets wear up in Aspen. He didn’t seem to mind the shaving at all, but he REALLY hated me laughing at him afterwards.
I am delighted to let you know that I HAVE skinned a cat. (As biology / physiology students have been doing since Hippocrates.) I would say that the main consideration is what you want the dead cat for.
If you primarily want the fur, a la Cruella DeVil, then you want a method to harvest it that preserves the hide intact. Strangulation or drowning in a sack would be good practical choices. Beating is risky, better to use rat poison and broken glass (hidden in its feed).
If you are after the meat, and don’t mind getting the hide messed up, then you can use stabbing or projectile weapons. Obviously avoid poisons, and drowning would cause technical complications you don’t want to get into.
And if you simply want to torture the poor animal, then apply skin-devouring insects that will allow the cat to live for weeks in agony.
P.S. When I was a kid one of my friends buried a cat up to its neck, with its head sticking out of the ground, and then ran over its head with a lawnmower. Ruined the lawnmower.
JOKE:
How do you make a cat sound like a dog?
Cover it with petrol and light it–“woof!”
And how do you make a dog sound like a cat?
Strap it to a board and slice it in half with a buzz-saw:
When I was a kid, a moron in our street tried to torture a local stray that was friendly to everyone. Boy, me and my mates gave him such a beating he was off school for two weeks and when the cops that his parents sicced on us heard our side of the story, they wanted to charge him but couldn’t as he was too young. He had to go before the children’s panel, though, and had to undergo psychiatric evaluation.