Trimming your cat’s nails can be a bit of a challenge, but it is an important job. You know that annoying feeling you get when your toenails are getting too long? Your cat gets a feeling like that too. When they want to shed those long nail tips, that’s when they start scratching everything in sight. Don’t resort to declawing your cat ( declawing is inhumane) to control the scratching behavior – give your cat a pedicure!
Title Photo Credit: Marcin Wichary via Flickr
Click here for a few other humane alternatives to declawing!
The Tools
A few important tools will help you to both train your cat to allow you to trim their nails and actually do the trimming.
Whisker Wishes Nail Trimmers (Amazon.com Affiliate Link)
- Nail trimmers.
There are several varieties of nail clippers that will work for trimming your cat’s nails. One note of caution: while many people use human toenail clippers, these are more likely to cause the nail to split. Clippers made for cats will work best. Keep them sharp to avoid hurting your cat by applying too much pressure on the nail. - Cat treats.
Cats are never quite thrilled about having their nails trimmed. Treats are important for training and can make the experience more pleasurable for you cat. - Styptic powder, cornstarch or a dry bar of soap.
This will come in handy if you ever cut into the quick and need to stop the bleeding. Hopefully, you won’t need it, but better safe than sorry. - Dry spaghetti.
This will be used in the training process. Keep reading, you’ll see. Trimming your cat’s nails is a learning process for your cat too.
Training Those Tootsies
Take some time to get your cat used to having their paws held and let them become accustomed to the clippers. This may take a few weeks, but it will be worth it. Just follow the 3 steps below.
Step 1: Touch those tootsies!
Photo Credit: arrathoonlaa@att.net via Flickr
In a place with few distractions, allow your cat to relax in your lap. Gently touch the cat’s paws for a few seconds. Give the cat a treat when he/she allows you to touch their paws. That may be as far as things can go for a while. Once you are “allowed” to touch the paws, try holding the paw or at least touching the paw pads. Give the paws a little massage. Once again, give treats for receiving the behavior you wanted.
Step 2: Extend the claws.
Now that you can touch both sides of the paw, it’s time to work on getting the cat to allow you to extend its claws. Apply gentle pressure to the paw pad and the top of the toe right behind the claw and the claw should extend. Only work on one or two toes every training session. Give your cat a treat when they allow you to extend a claw.
Step 3: Introduce the clippers.
While still using a relaxing setting with your cat in your lap, start showing the clippers to the cat. Place a treat on top of the clippers and let the cat take it off of them. Continue touching their paws in the presence of the clippers. Let these strange metal objects become familiar to your cat.
Once you feel that your cat accepts the presence of the clippers, it’s time to whip out the dry spaghetti. Go through the process of massaging the cat’s paw, extending the claw, and showing the clippers to the cat. Then as you extend one of the cat’s claws, hold the clippers near the cat and cut a piece of dry spaghetti. This will help your cat get used to the noise that the clippers make when trimming your cat’s nails. Don’t forget to give your cat a treat for allowing you to make that noise near them. As soon as your cat gets used to the noise, it is time to try and trim!
How to Make the Cut
Trim off only the sharp tip of the nail. Avoid cutting the quick.
When you are ready to trim, extend the cat’s nail and look for the quick. The quick is the pink part of the nail which contains all of the nail’s blood vessels. This part of the nail is very sensitive so you want to make sure not to cut into it. Try to trim off just the sharp tip of the nail – just a few millimeters off of the end. There is no need to cut it close to the quick.
If you accidentally cut into the quick, the claw will begin to bleed and you will need styptic powder, cornstarch or a dry bar of soap to stop the bleeding. Don’t panic if this happens, this is not likely to result in any permanent damage. If you are concerned about the injury, call your veterinarian.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Trimming Your Cat’s Nails
- DO cradle your cat in the crook of your arm rather than just laying them in your lap if it is easier for you.
- DO give your cat a treat for letting you clip their nails.
- DO take your time and get the desired results. Training takes time. If you can only trim one nail every session, that’s still a win.
- DO expect that your cat will want to run straight to the scratching post every time you clip their nails. According to cat behavior experts, that is perfectly normal and positive.
- DON’T raise your voice or attempt to punish the cat for not allowing you to do any of the steps in training or the actual clipping. This may cause your cat to associate the training with being punished. Simply reward the behavior you want to see.
- DON’T cut more than one or two nails at a time until the cat is used to having their nails trimmed.
- DON’T attempt to trim the cat’s nails when the cat is not calm and relaxed.
Great tips!!!!! My kitties hate their claws being cut! But it is important, and your tips were great!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Thank you! My kitties are not big fans of it either. I wrote the article because it is something I’m working on with Cinco and Manna right now. 🙂
Thank mew so much fur sharing this, my P.A. has some nail trimming to take care of and was wondering how to do it… now she knows 🙂
Happy days
Purrs
Basil xox
I’m glad I could be of help 🙂 I’m working on the whole nail trimming thing with my own kitties right now, so I thought I would pass on the advice I’ve been given.
Thanks for sharing these nail trimming tips. My black kitty Vega doesn’t mind having her nails trimmed but my old man Cloud hates it. Silly kitties.
You are welcome! Kitties are very silly people. It is great that Vega doesn’t mind. I hope Cloud comes around for you. We all need to trim our nails sometimes 🙂
I have the tool (guillotine-style, with electronic quick detection- it lights up green if it’s safe to trim, red if you are too close to the quick), but haven’t felt too confident about trimming both cats’ nails.
The information about scratching and its relationship to need for trimming was new to me, and I am curious to see if trimmed nails will slow down the worst offender of my two Persians.
Those sound like some really cool trimmers! I will have to look into something like that. I’ve always had a hard time because I have hand tremors and I’m terrified that I will hurt them. My husband does the trimming and we’re working on getting the cats to be more comfortable with it.
It is true that scratching things and over grown nails are related. Of course, there are other reasons why cats scratch too (marking territory, stretching, attention seeking behavior, etc). As far as the nail are concerned, when they start getting too long, cats will scratch to pull off a few offending layers of nail. Trimming could very well curb scratching if overgrown nails were the cause.
I like the “touch those toes” part the best. Everything after that is not my favorite. – Crepes. Great tips, Despite what Crepes says. Thanks! – Alana.
You are very welcome Alana. Crepes you are a lucky kitty to have a mommy that gives you nice foot massages. 🙂
wow I was wondering what the spaghetti was for and what a clever idea, thanks for the great tutorial.
You are welcome 🙂 I thought the spaghetti was a really cool idea when I ran across that one. It does sound a lot like a nail being clipped.
Great tips. We do manicures once a month and my cats are pretty good about it. I also add the swaddling technique where I wrap each cat in a big soft towel to help calm any nerves.
That’s a great idea! I can see how it would help. The whole process has to be really weird from a cat’s point of view. We take for granted that we already know what having our toe nails trimmed is going to feel like and so it isn’t a surprise to us.
Oh that’s what the spaghetti is for!! Cool idea! 😀 These are really great tips! Thanks for sharing! 🙂 xoxo Roxy & Tigerlino <3
You’re welcome. I thought the spaghetti thing was really cool too. It was a tip from the ASPCA. I’m trying to get Cinco and Manna to be more comfortable with having their nails trimmed.
We don’t like our nails clipped! We’re gonna hide this post from the mom. 😉
Cinco and Manna aren’t big fans either. I wrote this article because I’ve been working on the nail trimming thing with them. You never know, maybe your mom will start giving you really nice foot massages if you let her trim your nails 🙂
I never thought about cutting a cat’s nails. I am terrible at trying to cut my dogs nails so I’m sure a cat would be out of the question. MOL!
Cats are not huge fans of having their nails trimmed. If all else fails, you can pay to have it done for you at the vet or a groomer that takes cats. I’m sure dogs aren’t much easier to work with when it comes to trimming nails.
you should try trimming a bunnies nails almost impossible to do at times,xx Rachel
I bet! Back when I had bunnies, they were not fond of having their feet touched at all. Luckily I was a kid so I didn’t have to do any of the nail trimming 🙂
If only I wasn’t so scared to do the pedicures for our kitties. Mama does that 😉 Thanks for sharing!
You are welcome 🙂 It can be kind of scary to do kitty pedicures. Their toes are so tiny and it isn’t always easy to see the quick. As long as the job gets done, that’s really all that matters.
Thanks for sharing this on Thoughtless Thursday! I love that little cartoon you have. Kitty manis!
You’re welcome 🙂 I’m glad you liked my cartoon. I couldn’t get a clear enough photo of my cat’s nails.
Nicely done. I’m wondering how early one can start clipping those razor sharp needle kitten nails??
Thank you! I would think that you could start as soon as you can tell where the quick of the nail is. Ask your veterinarian to be sure. Training them to let you hold their paws could start at any age.
I often find it easiest to trim Parker’s claws if I can get to her while she’s still asleep…and do it without getting her too awake. Sometimes when I trim the claws of my parents’ cats, I can do it while I’m holding the cat in one arm.
At the beginning of her life as an inside cat, she was more willing to let me, as trimming her claws was not as traumatic as taking a tick off of her paws.