Sometimes cats have to be trimmed.  And its usually relatively traumatic.
If you have them shaved it doesn't have to be done so often, and also gets
all the tangles out.

My aunt routinely has her Himalayans bellies, or rather pretty much
everything but their backs heads and tails shaved.  Not as extreme as this
guy.  They won't let her brush them and they don't keep the tangles out
themselves.

They are rescue cats, so it isn't like she had the chance to train them
better.  Her first Him, adored brushing and always looked wonderful.

Poor grooming and Matting.

Oh yeah.  I used to do 4-10 body shaves or lion cuts a  day.
This is a photo of a lion cut that has been done very well, with a
close-cut blade:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/lioncut.asp
That looks like one of my cuts, actually.

A body shave keeps the hair on the legs longer and the tail is kept
intact, although the "panty" area may be trimmed.

Gross warning...

"Little trims" aren't worth the money, and they look like crap.
Usually it's people who have a Persian or Himmie and are too lazy to
groom the cat.  So they neglect it for 6 months, the cat becomes
completely matted from head to toe - often with globs of poop stuck on
it's butt for weeks (sometimes complete with maggots**), and then they
bring it in to the vet for a shave and a bath.  It's amazing how people
will pay $400-$1200 for a cat and then neglect it.  Of course, by the
time they bring it in, it's so matted it has to be sedated to be
groomed,  and that adds another $20-$65 to the grooming bill.  I have
groomed cats where the job costs the owner $85.00-$100.00 when all is
said and done.

I will never have a long-haired cat for this reason.  Simply too much
trouble to keep it groomed properly.  Very few people properly groom
their long-haired cats.

**maggots were fairly common.  The case that took the cake (well, one
of them) was the woman who brought her cat in for "worms".  The cat was
emaciated, covered from head to toe in matts, had maggots all over its
butt, had an abscessed vulva and was hyperthyriod on top of it all.
She should have been turned into animal cruelty for neglect.  The truth
is, she was so stupid she didn't know they were maggots, and couldn't
figure out why the cat hadn't peed or pooped in days.

-L.
(Can you guess one of the reasons I quit being a vet tech...? ;)

I had one semi-long hair whose fur used to mat dreadfully
during a summer of rolling around on a concrete driveway.
Shaving her might have made better sense than trying to clip
the mats with a scissors.  ...Especially after the time I
clipped a few, only to have her come in a bit later with a
huge gaping sore where she'd been licking at a spot I
unknowingly nicked with the scissors!  (Yes, she had
complained, but this was the cat who yelled as though she
were being tortured whenever I changed her flea collar - I'd
learned to ignore a few screams.)  After stitches and a week
in a belly bandage, I decided to let the vet handle them,
the next time.

But Biskit wouldn't care if her whole body was shaved or if I told them
to make her look like a French poodle. The 'do is for me, not her. She
just likes the comfort. I don't think dignity figures in for a cat re:
their haircut. (although they *do* know when they are being laughed at.
Heck. She doesn't know what she looks like anyway. When she looks in a
mirror she thinks it's another cat.

Sherry

I thought that was  you are going to sleep with fishes If you get my drift
or was that just something the Godfather said

Never mind. That movie did quote a lot from Moby Dick, so I assumed
that was one of them. According to several web sources, the phrase
is unattributed, and appears in many languages and cultures.

Joyce

My grandmother said this to me many moons ago before Star Trek was invented.

Tweed

.....since a few people seem to be uncomfortable with me posting them.
And at this point it really doesn't matter if i did get permission or
not.   I never said I didn't but i never said i did.   I thought it was
quite disturbing and thought that I would share just how ridiculous
this was.

There isn't any way to formally identify the cat anyway.  I didn't name
the cat, the owners, or the clinic.  And the pics aren't even that
demeaning.  Now if i had put, "Look at how sadistic the owners were by
wanting this type of haircut."  Then that would be different.  If i
said this cat was abused in any form that would be totally different.

All I did was take pictures of a cat with a funny haircut and shared
them with my friends.

That's all.  

Kristi

Well, in the OP Kristi said:

So that does not say, she's allowed to post them.

And later on she wrote:

but that referred to the - ehm - eccentric hair cut and that it was
not a mistake by the owner.

I sincerely hope, that no one gets into trouble here.

Squarely Yours
Michael