Many people find trimming their cats nails to be a horrible experience where you and the cat are traumatized. It doesn’t have to be that way. Here are some tricks to help you trim those claws with as little difficulty as possible.
To trim their nail:
- squeeze the pad of their paw to reveal the nail.
- Then clip the nail using rounded clippers (you can buy these at a pet supply store)
- Clip the nail back to just before the quick – you don’t want to cut the quick because that will hurt and cause the claw to bleed. If you do cut the quick you can use products like quickstop to quickly stop the bleeding. If you don’t have quickstop you can use flour or starch.
Tips for easy trimming:
- Keep your trimmers close by so you can trim her nails when the opportunity presents itself.
- Trim your cats claws when they are sleepy. They will be more relaxed and more compliant. This means they will be less likely to jerk their feet away.
- Take your time. If you can only get a couple of claws done, that is fine. Come back and do more later.
- Be positive. If you are not stressed out, your cat is less likely to be stressed out.
- Keep petting her and giving her positive reinforcement. If the experience is good for her, it is less likely to be a problem in the future.
- End on a positive note.
Animals retain memory of previous experience. If you take your time and keep the experience more positive they will be more likely to have a positive experience next time. If you end on a bad note, then it will likely be harder the next time. If your cat gives you a really hard time, try only doing one claw at a time. That way they don’t have time to get too upset. This will set it up to be easier in the future.
If your claw trimming ends up being difficult, don’t fret. Just try again next time. As you get more comfortable with it, so will he.
If you are unsure of how to trim their claws, ask your vet to show you. They would be glad to help!
