Overgrown claws are not only a furniture problem. A cat's claw grows in an arc, and left long enough it curves back around and punctures the paw pad. It is painful, it gets infected, and it is entirely preventable with a two-minute trim every couple of weeks.
Almost nobody avoids trimming out of laziness. They avoid it because they are afraid of cutting the quick and hurting their cat. So start there.
Finding the quick
The quick is the pink wedge of blood vessel and nerve inside the claw. Cutting it hurts and bleeds, and one bad experience will make your cat suspicious of the clippers for months.
On pale claws it is easy. Press gently on the top of the toe and the pad underneath to extend the claw, hold it up to a lamp, and the pink triangle is visible. Cut a few millimetres beyond the tip of it. When in doubt, take less.
On dark claws you cannot see it, so you work by feel and colour. Take a sliver at a time, and after each cut look at the flat face you have just made. While it is white and chalky, you are in dead nail. The moment a small grey or dark dot appears in the centre, you are approaching the quick. Stop there.
The technique
- Pick a bad moment for your cat and a good one for you. Sleepy and full is ideal. Never right after play.
- Sit with the cat facing away from you, in your lap or against your chest. Reaching over the top of a cat that can see the clippers is how you lose.
- Take one paw, press the pad to extend a claw, and cut the very tip at a slight angle, following the natural curve.
- Do two nails and stop. This is the part people get wrong. You do not have to do all eighteen in one sitting, and trying to is how a two-minute job becomes a wrestling match your cat remembers.
- File the edge if it feels sharp or ragged, so it does not catch on fabric.
If you cut too far
It will bleed and your cat will object. Press a clean cloth on it firmly for a minute, or dab it with styptic powder or cornflour. It stops quickly. Let the cat go, do not try to finish, and try again in a few days. It is unpleasant but it is not an emergency.
Building the habit
If your cat has never been handled this way, do not start with clippers. Spend a week just holding a paw for three seconds and letting go, with something good happening afterwards. Then a week of pressing a pad to extend a claw. Then cut one nail. Cats accept almost anything that arrives slowly and refuse almost anything that arrives all at once.
How often
Every two to three weeks for most indoor cats. Outdoor cats wear their front claws down and need less. The back claws grow more slowly than the front and can usually go twice as long.
Do not trim the dewclaw last, trim it first. It is the one that never touches the ground, so it is the one that curls into the leg, and it is the one everybody forgets.
This is general guidance, not veterinary advice. If a claw has already grown into the pad, or the toe is swollen, red or warm, that needs a vet rather than a pair of clippers.