New cat owner and worried about my cats claws.

Hi i am a new cat owner and ive been having terrible experiences anytime i have brought my cat to get her nails trimmed. She is not an irritable cat, very friendly, but the last place she really didn't like it. she was biting and scratching and crying. They trimmed her nails and were supposed to put on some soft nail caps since she is pretty young and was going to be around some other animals. When i got her home i noticed that two of her claws on her hind paws were bloody and they only got three caps on one front paw. She would not let me look at her paws but eventually i was able to while she was asleep. Turns out they trimmed one nail really bad on each front paw, it almost looked split. The entire nail was still intact but it was split from the end to the root. Sometime during the night my cat pulled the torn part of the nails off and i thought that would be the end of it. One week later, after she managed to pull off the three nail caps, she is experiencing pain. One of the nails almost looks too short and i cant remember if this was one with a cap or a split one. She is only having problems with one of the paws even though both front ones were trimmed bad. When she extends her claws it is barely there and when she retracts it, the nail goes so far in. She is also experiencing pain when she tries to use her litter box. She will still use it but runs out meowing so loud like she is crying. She then repeatedly licks her paws. She wont let me get a good look at it to see if there is something stuck. I wanted to come here first and post a picture of the claw to see if maybe she just pulled it and broke it so its that short of if there is a problem and something i could do at home to fix it. She seems to be doing fine otherwise. Shes still playing and eating she just really does not like having that spot touched or going in the box without crying. 

The pictures are not the best quality but she would not sit still. It is the first claw. some images it looks like a dark spot. there is also a big gap when she extends her claw between her nail and where it is attached but i could not get her to hold still enough to let me take a good picture.

She may have an infection and need antibiotics. I would take her to the vet, and never go back to wherever her nails were cut.

I totally agree ... A trip to the vets is needed I think. Why do you take her to have her claws trimmed? I've started doing this myself with my old cat because she hardly goes out now but never did when she was younger and I don't with my 2 younger cats... They are both just a year old. Is this something most cat owners do? Xx

samnandy said:

I totally agree ... A trip to the vets is needed I think. Why do you take her to have her claws trimmed? I've started doing this myself with my old cat because she hardly goes out now but never did when she was younger and I don't with my 2 younger cats... They are both just a year old. Is this something most cat owners do? Xx

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I'm guessing because your cats go out that somehow helps keep their nails down? I think a lot of the folks that need to do the trimming have indoor only cats (like myself). I can't imagine taking my boys to get their nails cut by someone, wouldn't trust someone else, especially after reading this! Granted, I have to pin them down with my legs and give them pep-talks between each nail because they (especially Oliver) act like they are being murdered. 

It sounds like they did an absolutely terrible job on your poor cat and there is no way I would go back there! Honestly, I couldn't imagine taking my cats somewhere to get their nails done. The stress for them just wouldn't be worth it. They don't like it when I cut their nails at home, but it takes less than ten minutes every two weeks and that's it. Definitely worth getting in the habit of doing it yourself IMO.
I would also be concerned about an infection or cut/damage to one of her claws. Sounds like she got hurt and put up a fight and they might have treated her roughly.

Ugh, that is awful!!   I would never patronize that business again after they hurt my cat..........and the worst part is (aside from them actually hurting the cat) that it's going to make it harder on you to trim heir nails from now on, because she's going to remember that the last person who touched her feet ending up hurting her  

I trim my cats' nails at home - get a good quality claw clipper & do it yourself.   Easiest way to do it is when you catch her napping.   Just clip as many claws as you can while she's sleeping.  You might only get one or two at a time, just keep track of where you left off and clip more each time you see her napping until you're all done!    This will be cheaper for you and way less stressful for her.    Just be careful not to cut into the quick - I'd get on YouTube and watch a couple instructional videos before you attempt clipping claws yourself (it's really not hard at all - it's just good to get a visual of the quick before you get started).

Also, there's really no good reason to trim a cat's back claws.   Only worry about trimming the front claws (plus the dew claw - that is actually the most important one to trim!  because of its weird location, it's hard for cats to scratch with it, so it can get reallllly long!)

Since she's crying in the litterbox, her feet are obviously hurting her - I agree that you should take her into the vet to get her feet checked out.   I'm so sorry this happened to you guys!!

Thanks everyone for reading my post and offering advice. I have an appointment to take her to the vet tomorrow. I dont plan on ever taking her for her nails again, i was just afraid to do it myself and figured someone at a big store such as petsmart would know how to do it properly. Ill look into doing it myself from now on. Hopefully my lil baby is ok, shes already been through so much. I adopted her from a rescue foundation after her first owners apparently burned her. The foundation got her with missing hair on her back, no whiskers, and it actually singed off parts of her ears giving her shortened ears and spots where very little hair grew back around the front of them. Are there any recommendations for what type of nail clippers to get? ive seen that there are a few different styles, ones that the whole nail goes through and is cut (i think they are called guillotine style clippers) and then there are some others that look like they work more like normal scissors but have rounded points that go around the nail. I want to make sure i get ones that will make it as quick easy and painless for my cat as possible

Poor baby!

Me too I am so afraid to cut my girls nails so I took them to their vet to  trim their nails and it cost 10 dollars. The vet showed me again how to cut it but made me nervous, my cats moves a lot, two people had to hold Mia. My neighbour do that job, she said she knows and she works to a place where she cut nails but after seing your babies claws I am not sure if I trust any except their vet. 

I have bought a couple of clippers specially for clipping pets claws but tbh have found nail clippers for humans the easiest to use ... Good quality strong ones tho ... The ones I use are from asda and said they were for tough toe nails ... Had no problems with them

samnandy said:

I have bought a couple of clippers specially for clipping pets claws but tbh have found nail clippers for humans the easiest to use ... Good quality strong ones tho ... The ones I use are from asda and said they were for tough toe nails ... Had no problems with them

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I use the guillotine type clippers but that's just what I'm used to - you can find some good ones at any pet store, I think I got mine at PetCo.

Believe me, I was scared to death  when I clipped my very first cat claw    I clipped the tiniest sliver of claw, I was so worried about cutting into the quick (though in reality, I was nowhere close to it at all haha)

It gets easier with time, you'll get way more confident after a time or two.  Just always be vigilant and don't feel rushed - if it makes you feel better, I've never cut into the quick or had any kind of bloody accident.  It's really not so scary 

She might be skittish about her paws for a while. I just managed to trim Hekitty's claws myself last week after realizing how expensive it was taking her to the vet for trimming, although he charged me a fairly moderate amount for a vet visit.  This is how I managed my skittish girl...I'd wait till she decided to curl up in my lap, and began stroking her.  Slowly, I worked down her legs, backing off when she got jumpy.  It took a couple of weeks for her to be happy with me stroking down her feet.  At that point, I began rubbing my fingers over and around her claws, and very gently pressing to extend them.  Once she was good with that, I introduced the clippers,  actually using them to stroke her with.  Now she associated the clippers with good feelings, we can clip claws at home, and I don't need stitches.  The only downside is that now she wants her feet massaged every night.

Mamanyt1953 said:

 
She might be skittish about her paws for a while. I just managed to trim Hekitty's claws myself last week after realizing how expensive it was taking her to the vet for trimming, although he charged me a fairly moderate amount for a vet visit.  This is how I managed my skittish girl...I'd wait till she decided to curl up in my lap, and began stroking her.  Slowly, I worked down her legs, backing off when she got jumpy.  It took a couple of weeks for her to be happy with me stroking down her feet.  At that point, I began rubbing my fingers over and around her claws, and very gently pressing to extend them.  Once she was good with that, I introduced the clippers,  actually using them to stroke her with.  Now she associated the clippers with good feelings, we can clip claws at home, and I don't need stitches.  The only downside is that now she wants her feet massaged every night.

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That is super good advice -  since your kitty's claws just got trimmed, you should take the next 2-3 weeks to work with her to get her comfortable with you touching her feet, working up to her letting you massage her paws and gently press her toes to extend each claw.   Once you get her to that point, clipping will be a breeze!    My cats let me rub all over their little feet, but I still do most of my clipping when they're napping anyways, since they're already laying down and relaxed.    If they are up & moving around, I'm not gonna interrupt whatever stuff they're doing to clip their claws, because that greatly increases the chances that they will be annoyed by it 

Sounds like a very bad experience for you and kitty! I have always trimmed my cats nails myself. When they were small kittens I actually used a baby nail clipper instead of the ones at the pet store because their claws were so small. For bigger cats the regular cat nail clippers are better. Just make sure you only cut the tips and you'll be fine. It's really easy to learn to cut their nails. In my experience people at the pet stores always seem to know nothing about cats so I never really feel comfortable going there for things like nail clipping. I don't recommend having the vet do it just because then the cat will associate nail trimming with the vet visit and some cats get freaked out enough from going to the vet. If I do it at home they're calmer and most of the time it gets done in 5 mins