LaPerm Care Calendar: Curls, Wet Combing and Sunburn

LaPerm care runs on one rule that overrides the rest: comb the coat wet, never brush it dry. The curls come from a dominant mutation and a coat that looks straight once it has been over-handled and ringleted when it is left alone with a little water.

The second number is the bath interval: 6-8 weeks. Closer than that strips the sparse undercoat; further apart and the coat clumps at the base into felted pads that cannot be combed out without pain.

Weight and body condition

Birth weight is 80-110 g; at 8 weeks, 600-900 g; at 6 months, 2-2.6 kg; adults 2.7-4.5 kg, with males heavier and longer. This is a moderate, athletic cat, and the curls hide the waist. Weigh monthly and run both hands along the ribs every week: you are feeling for ribs you can count without pressing, not for a pad of fat over them.

An adult eats about 1/2 cup of dry or 5 oz of wet a day in 2 meals, with 10% more in a cold room. The coat costs the cat almost nothing in heat loss — it is a rex coat, not a heavy double coat — so do not feed it up as if it were a cold-climate breed. A cat that looks chunky under the curls is usually 300-500 g overweight, and the fix is 10% less food for 8 weeks.

The curl cycle, month by month

Kittens are born bald or nearly so, and some arrive with tabby markings that fade as the coat grows. Curls appear within 2-3 weeks and are usually loose and wavy. Between 4 and 8 months the kitten coat comes out, and many cats pass through a 3-6 week straight phase that alarms owners. That phase is normal.

Period	Coat state	Bath	Extra job
Jan-Feb	Dry indoor air, curls flatten	Every 7-8 weeks	Humidity 40-50%; no wool bedding
Mar-May	Spring shed, loose curls	Every 6-7 weeks	Daily comb for 7-10 days; wash beds weekly
Jun-Aug	Coat thins, pale skin exposed	Every 6 weeks	Shade 10 am-4 pm; check ear tips weekly
Sep-Oct	New coat, tighter ringlets	Every 7 weeks	Mist daily; do not over-comb new growth
Nov-Dec	Full winter coat	Every 8 weeks	Warm bed; dry fully before release

How to wet-comb without wrecking the curl

Fill a spray bottle with warm water, mist a section until it is damp but not dripping, then comb once through with a wide-tooth comb, root to tip, in the direction the coat grows. Work in 4 sections: back, each flank, belly. Do not comb the same section twice — the second pass is what pulls the wave out. A teaspoon of conditioner in 500 ml of water makes the comb glide, and at that dilution it needs no rinsing.

Skip slickers, rubber curry brushes and anything with fine metal pins on the body coat. Those are tools for undercoat, and this cat barely has one; used twice a week they flatten the coat into a frizzy brush for a month.

Bathing: 6-8 weeks and no more

Bathe in a sink with 10 cm of warm water at 38 C, using a gentle cat shampoo diluted 1:5. Work it in with fingertips, not a brush, and rinse for twice as long as feels necessary — residue is what makes a rex coat look greasy within 3 days. Towel dry, then air dry at room temperature; a hot dryer felts the curls. In winter, keep the cat in a 22-24 C room until it is dry, which takes 2-3 hours.

Never shave a LaPerm. The curl pattern does not reliably return in the shaved area, and the coat can grow back patchy or straight for 6-12 months. If a mat has to come off, clip only the mat with a 10 mm blade.

Skin, ears and sun

The sparse undercoat means pale ear tips, the nose leather and thin patches on the belly burn in direct summer sun. Glass does not block the ultraviolet that causes it, so a sunny windowsill is a burn risk. Keep direct exposure under 30 minutes a day for a pale cat, and check ear tips weekly from May to September for redness, then crusting. A crusty sore that has not healed in 3 weeks needs a vet.

Ears get cleaned every 2-4 weeks with a vet ear cleaner on a cotton pad. This breed produces little wax, so brown discharge means mites, yeast or bacteria rather than "time for a clean". Nails every 3 weeks, because toe curls hide overgrowth.

Screening calendar: heart and teeth

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is reported across the rex and Oriental groups. A first echocardiogram at 12 months, then every 12-24 months, is a reasonable baseline for a pet; breeding cats are screened before each mating. The founding population was a single litter, so the gene pool is narrow and parent echo results matter more than pedigree.

Dental disease is easy to miss: cheek fur and a busy temperament hide tartar and a sore mouth. Lift the lip every 2 weeks, book a dental exam every 12 months from age 2, and brush 3 times a week.

Warmth, company and the room

This is a rex coat with no insulating underlayer worth the name, so the cat feels the cold at 18 C and camps on a radiator. Hold the living room at 21-23 C, provide a covered fleece bed, and add a heated pad on the lowest setting in winter. It is a company cat: 15-20 minutes of active play a day plus a second cat prevents most of the night racing this breed is known for.

Five care mistakes

1. Brushing the coat to tidy it up. The curls flatten and take weeks to return.
2. Bathing every 2 weeks because the coat looks limp. It strips the sparse undercoat and makes it limper.
3. Using a hot human hairdryer. It felts the curl at the root.
4. Letting a pale cat sunbathe behind glass in July. That is how ear-tip burns start.
5. Shaving for summer. The curl may never come back properly in that patch.

When to call the vet

A mat that cannot be combed out without the cat crying, an ear that discharges brown wax despite cleaning, an ear tip that stays red and crusted for more than 3 weeks, refusing food for 24 hours, or a resting respiratory rate above 30 a minute. Book a visit if the cat stops jumping onto its usual perch; in this breed that is a more reliable cardiac sign than a cough.

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