How to Cut Your Cat’s Nails

Learn how to cut & Maintain your cat’s nails

Cats love to nestle in a lap and fall asleep, but they also like to play, climb and scratch. Although not as large as dog’s nails, cat’s claws tend to be sharper, more needle like.
As part of your regular grooming session, keeping your cat’s nails trimmed will not only be good for their health, your lounge, carpet and curtains will see far less damage, as will your skin during playtime.

Starting to hold your feline while trimming their nails as a kitten will make the event far easier when they’re all grown up too.

Unlike us humans, cat’s claws grow in layers, and you’ll often observe them scratching against coarse surfaces to remove the worn outer layer.

If you haven’t clipped their nails as a kitten, you’ll have to spend a few days gently holding and massaging your cat’s feet, rewarding with treats to get them used to you touching their paws because they’re not very fond of this by nature.

When you have your cat relaxed in your lap, gently press your cat’s toe pad to extend each nail.
You should be able to see a pinky-red part within the translucent nail. This is called the ‘Quick’, which is very sensitive as it contains your cat’s nerves and blood vessels.

Using dedicated pet nail clippers, local pet shops will have for sale, not human nail clippers, pliers or scissors, carefully trim the sharp end of the nail, making sure you do not cut into the Quick.

If you’ve let the nail grow too long, the length of the Quick would have grown too, so trimming off a little each day is advised until you notice over time the Quick receding back towards the cat’s paw.

Using a nail file on a weekly basis can help keeping the nails at a manageable length and prevent sharp ends.

If not maintained on a regular basis, your cat’s nails will curl back towards their toe pad and can often cause pain when they walk or even penetrate their toe pad.

Some inexperienced cat owners feeling uncomfortable about trimming their cat’s claws prefer to take them to their local pet groomers and have a professional take care of them, while getting a bath and blow-dry at the same time.