Rescued cat with dreadlocks loses 2 pounds of matted fur

A cat with an absurd amount of matted hair is getting a second chance after a long overdue haircut.

The Western PA Humane Society shared heartbreaking photos of the cat, named Hidey, after she arrived at the facility last week.

"The amazing ARL clinic staff stepped up and shaved the pounds of mats off of the cats body," they wrote on Facebook. "She is feeling so much better now!"

[embed]https://www.facebook.com/westernpahumanesociety/posts/10154573346940873[/embed]

According to The Dodo, Hidey was owned by an elderly man with Alzheimer's disease who was unable to properly care for her. His family had recently moved him out of his house and into a nursing home when a relative named Paul Russel remembered that the man had a cat.

"When they put him in the nursing home, I thought, 'Hey, he has a cat,'" Russel told The Dodo. "The house was still open, so I went down and left some food for the cat until we figured out what we're going to do. Then somebody mentioned that he had a second cat. So I started searching around, and suddenly this huge creature darts out from under the bed and runs down to the cellar, and I thought, 'What was that?'"

After finding Hidey hiding in the basement, Russel took her to the Animal Rescue League and Wildlife Shelter, an affiliation of the Western PA Humane Society. Vets were able to safely remove the matted hair from her body after putting Hidey under with general anaesthesia.

Although it's not uncommon for cats to get matted fur, Hidey's case was extreme.

"Hidey was really overweight, so that makes it harder for [cats] to groom themselves, and that's when you see matting happen," Western PA Humane Society Senior Marketing Communications Manager Caitlin Lasky said.

Hidey is currently staying with Russel and is reportedly already feeling more like herself.

Read the full article here.

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