Is it NECESSARY to trim a cat's claws?

About 3 months ago I adopted an adult cat of unknown age. I am new cat mommy and still learning the ins and outs of cat care. So I was wondering if it was necessary to trim a cat's claws? I've heard that some cats' claws grow into their pads and hurt them. Does that happen with every cat who doesn't get it's claws trimmed? 'Cause that is the only thing I'm worried about.

My cat, Hypy, is pretty great and he has never scratched up any of our furniture. He also has three scratching posts, only one of which he uses. In a couple of weeks he's getting a cat tree with a lot more scratching posts. He's drawn blood from me and my mom a couple of times but it was only a small scratch. Sometimes if he is in a play mood he'll try to hold my hand when I'm petting him to give me love  bites and lick me. When he does that his claws occasionally dig into me, but don't draw blood. He is a big cat so he doesn't sit on me and hence doesn't knead his claws on me, so that's not a problem. When playing sometimes his claws get stuck in the curtains or his cat bed, but he gets them out pretty easily. Other than that he's not an aggressive cat at all and if he's causing me even a tiny bit of pain, I'll let out a shrill fake cry and he lets go immediately and looks at me apologetically.

Cutting his claws is not the problem because he is a mellow cat and he's let me handle his paws since the first week we got him. I also have cat nail clippers that I used on him once without much problem: once a layer of the claw came off, I don't know when and I don't know how, but it didn't seem to cause him any pain. But I trimmed it as soon as I noticed it so that it didn't tear away when it got caught in something and cause him pain. He was reasonably cool about it even though he was pretty curious about the clippers at first and would try to sniff it as I used it. So trimming the claws is not a problem and I'll do it if I have to, but I don't want to cause him any unnecessary stress (I mean, just because he was cool about it doesn't mean he liked it, right?). But I'm mostly worried about doing it wrong and cutting the quick or doing something bad and causing him pain (I'm a big worrier when it comes to my cat).

Hence, my question. Is it necessary? And if it is, how should I go about doing it, how much should I trim, what precautions should I take, etc?

Claw clipping isn't absolutely necessary, but it's a good idea if they'll tolerate it. It will save a lot damage - not just from scratching, but damage to clothes, blankets etc from enthusiastic kneading too I have a number of pairs of jeans just covered in pulled threads from Asha's kneading on my lap, and a number of blankets with pulled threads too

The other, more serious reason to clip is that it helps stop the cat getting stuck from a caught claw. I've heard horror stories of cats causing themselves serious damage from getting caught up that way - and I believe that one of mservant 's cats actually ripped a claw off when it got stuck in the carpet

So, whilst it's not strictly necessary, it's a very good idea for indoor only cats. I'd never clip an indoor/outdoor cat's claws though, as they may need the sharp tips for self defence.

As to how to make it safer to clip, make sure you do it in really good light. That way, you should be able to clearly see the quick, making it easier to avoid You don't need to take a lot off, just the tips. If you're unsure or nervous, you can always go to a vet or groomer and ask them to show you. [article="29669"][/article]

Check your cat's paws and claws on a regular basis by holding one paw and gently squeezing, the claws will appear.  You will be able to see if any of them are growing around.  It's not an overly common problem but my cat, Dudley, has it in one of his dew claws (side claw, a bit like a thumb).  I just keep an eye on it.  I'm alone and don't have anyone to help very often so he's been going to the vet every three months and the vet trims them.  He should definitely have them done more often.  His claws seem to sheath (a layer strips away vertically) a lot more than is usual.  He's an indoor cat so has no pavement to wear them down.  But he has plenty of scratching posts.  I've been thinking of getting a rasp, and trying to file them instead of cutting them, when I'm on my own.  I'm like you and don't want to freak him out.  His claws are unusual though, and if Hypy's claws are normal, trimming every three months would probably be just about sufficient.  But, no, you don't have  to cut them at all, well, not unless you can hear them clippity-clopping when he walks across your floor.

I expect your cat's an indoor cat also, what with your being in India.  I've been to India several times and I only saw cats in one village in Himachal Pradesh, where a lady was rescuing them, she had lots, I had a very happy time there.  And I saw only one other kitten in all the times I've been - this kitten was ripped apart by a large dog right at my feet.  It was horrific.  Anyway, keeping cats in India is fairly uncommon, am I right?  Do you have a vet who treats cats?  Do you know anyone else with a cat?

As Columbine says, you only need to trim the very tips of each claw.  So, you'd be trimming far higher up than the quick.  You might want to put a sweatshirt over his head, then take a paw in turn up a sleeve.  This way, the other paw is out of scratching action.  If you pull the material so that it's taut at the back, it acts like a homemade cat straightjacket.  Just be ultra careful with his head and neck and don't forget about the other paw.  Or, you can wrap him in a towel, which does the same job only it doesn't hide the spare paw so well, so watch out for sneaky swipes from below.  It's a two person job 

As for precautions when trimming, wear jeans and long sleeves, and cover your feet too.  

And, when he's all done, give him some tasty treats to say well done for being so brave   

First comment here is what a confident and happy cat you seem to have there @Hypatia, congratulations on settling Hypy in so quickly - or should I be congratulating Hypy here for training you so well?          He sounds adorable.   

I do trim Mouse's claws, as I trimmed his predecessors'.  In part because his claws grow very quickly and are very hard and razor sharp (possibly because he doesn't use them other than to preen and keep in good condition on his various scratching and climbing posts), and also because one of my previous cats did loose a claw as mentionned by Columbine.   Mind you, clipping claws doesn't prevent that from happening, it just minimizes the risks.   Pal's claws were clipped but had grown sharper again and sadly one got stuck in the looped pile of the carpet I had at the time - she took fright at something and as she turned the necessary sharp corner to get round the sitting room door a claw she was using to grip with and stop sliding in to the wall failed to come out of the carpet when she tried to release it.  This is basically like us humans pulling off a nail so think much pain.  To add to that she had a tight bandage on her front paw for a week to keep it clean (vet administered), and every time she saw the bandage she jumped about a foot in the air because she thought she had some alien clinging on to her.  

When your cat stretches out his paws and digs his claws in to scratching posts and other hard surfaces he is not wearing down his claws but quite the oposite - he is grooming them to remove those old outer bits of claw like the bit you saw and trimmed off for him.  In the wild or with outdoor cats their claws will get worn down a little if they walk and run on hard, rough surfaces just enough to take the tip down a little and this most likely keeps down the risk of feral / wild cats experiencing claws over growing and damaging their paw pads.   It may be rare but this can happen in domestic cats and I have seen it being treated on TV veterinary programmes.  Light trimming of the ends of claws is enough to prevent this, and to reduce the inevitable dammage to clothes and furnishings that happens when you have an active cat.  Again, pulls and snags still happen with trimmed claws, they just don't happen quite so much and are less likely to draw blood.  If you are lucky enough to have a cat who doesn't find light claw trimming distressing it seems a sensible thing to do if you want to minimise the risk of any cat scratch infections and accidental claw-loss.   There are quite a few threads around the site where other cats have had a similar experience to Pal's.

IMO.  If his claws don't bother you, it's not necessary.  I don't trim my cats claws any more.
I can get three or four per attempt pretty easily.
I can do them all at once but usually we've both had enough by the time I'm finished.
His claws have never really been a problem though, so, I no longer bother with it.

Hypatia,

Yes you should trim your cats nails. If you go out of the house and your cat snags his/her nails on something who will be there to dislodge them. For instance, while my husband and I were alseep our kitten Jake had his claws caught in a speeker of our keyboard. We heard him meow alerting us awake and found him stuck. Another instace happened when our 2 yearold female had her claws stuch in a curtain while she trying to stretch on it. I trim their back claws as well as their front claws. Also cats can have ingrown toenails which can become infected and they try to chew them off. I hope this helps.

God Bless

I do front paws on 3 cats and back paws on my declawed cat. All of them take about 5-10 minutes
You just want to blunt the tip.
The emergency room sent my bub home with bluntbluntblunt nails. Almost down to the quick. I don't know if he was causing problems or they just didn't want to risk with his IV or his catheter.

Columbine said:

 

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I really don't care that much about any damage my cat does to my furniture or clothes, probably because Hypy doesn't actually do much damage, and my stuff aren't uber expensive anyway. But I've decided to clip his claws anyway because I'm worried he might hurt himself by getting his sharpies stuck in the curtains or on the beds and his beddings. And while I'm pretty chill about any scratches that he might give me during his over enthusiastic grooming of my hands, my parents are not. So clipping his claws seems best.

I've examined his claws in good light and I've identified the quick (which I had trouble identifying before) and I'm fairly confident that I can do it. The only problem in the aforementioned enthusiastic grooming of my hands. If he isn't too sleepy, he'll always try to lick and groom my hand if it goes near him. Unless I'm scratching his chin or ears, of course. 

Hope the claw clipping goes smoothly and easily :cross:

Brian007 said:

 
I expect your cat's an indoor cat also, what with your being in India.  I've been to India several times and I only saw cats in one village in Himachal Pradesh, where a lady was rescuing them, she had lots, I had a very happy time there.  And I saw only one other kitten in all the times I've been - this kitten was ripped apart by a large dog right at my feet.  It was horrific.  Anyway, keeping cats in India is fairly uncommon, am I right?  Do you have a vet who treats cats?  Do you know anyone else with a cat?

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I think I'll clip his claws once a month or so. I'll start there and adjust the frequency depending on how the claw grows back. Hypy is a very mellow cat for most part and he'll let me handle his claws, or even clip then, I'd wager, without any fuss - other than the tiny problem that he'll try to lick and groom my hand when I'm working. When I tried clipping his claws the last time, I put him next to me, put his paw in my lap so that my elbow faced him. He licked away at my elbow as I worked. I guess I'll have to do that again. I think it's best if I do it alone, because my parents and brother are hopeless at physically handling Hypy so they might only do more harm than good. As for precautions, I was afraid I'd hurt him, not the other way around. But I'll clip only the tips of his claws, just to blunt them. That should prevent any accidents involving the quick, right?

Yes, he's an indoor only cat. And it's extremely uncommon to have cats as house pets. I do have a vet, but as you might have imagined the vet care here is very poor. It's so bad that I double and triple check every little thing when it comes to my cat and never take my vet's work for it. I'll give you an example. When I noticed fleas on Hypy a few weeks after we brought him, I asked the vet what to do and his first response was to leave him be. He said that since cats can't be bathed there is nothing to be done and animals just have insects on them anyway. He only prescribed a spot on after I insisted we do something about it. But people here do rescue cats sometimes. They might not necessarily be house pets but some nice people build a few shelters for local feral colonies and feed them.

Story time. This is a pretty sad story which involves the death of kittens, so avoid it, if you aren't interested:

At the last apartment I live there was a female cat who used to break into houses and drink the milk from the kitchens. Naturally everyone would board up their windows and close the doors. One day my mom and I caught her drinking milk in our kitchen and when she saw us she ran. But I noticed that she as pregnant and I didn't want her to go hungry. So I called her back and wonder of wonders, she actually came back. I guess it was because she'd seen me around many times and I would always try to gently call her to me. And she was also very smart. I basically told her to wait outside and ran into the kitchen to get the milk and when I came back she was still there. So I gave her some milk and that was the start of our friendship. I named her Thomas (after Tom in Tom and Jerry) She'd come to our house pretty regularly and I'd give her milk and slowly started petting her. She'd rub against me, blink slowly and meow sweetly. When it was time for her to go I'd escort her to the 'patio' wall where she'd say goodbye by rubbing against me before jumping to another building's compound wall and disappearing. She was an awesome hunter and brought me a couple of 'presents' too.

She had her kittens and at first she hid them somewhere close by in the apartment complex. She'd of course change the places and once the kittens were walking and moving she actually brought them to me between changing locations to show them to me. The kittens were of course terrified of me. She finally hid her kittens under the staircase in my apartment complex. There are many stray dogs that live outside on the streets in India, many of them unfixed. These dogs somehow caught scent of the kittens and early one morning attacked them, killing all but two. There was a building under construction right before my apartment and from the distance between the two buildings was barely more than 6-7 feet. Thomas hid her two remaining kids there and came to me, looking all sad and weary. But she and the kittens got better and as the kittens grew up, Thomas would spend time on the washing machine that stood on my balcony, watching her kittens from afar and getting scratches and head rubs from me. The kittens, poor things, would meow and scream from the building, watching their mommy, almost as if asking her to leave me and come to them. 

When it was time for weaning them Thomas started avoiding them completely. One day they came to my house and were calling their mom from outside. Thomas was chilling inside. I didn't know why Thomas would avoid her children so I tried to get her to go to them. That angered her. And as long as the kittens were outside Thomas would stay inside. My mom wasn't too fond of Thomas staying inside for so long and forcibly 'scared' her out. Understandably Thomas didn't come back for a few days and in the meantime, the kittens stuck around. In the next couple of days there was a storm and I felt so sorry for the poor creatures huddling together and shivering outside our house. They were 'sheltered' but they still got wet because of the wind. My parents wouldn't let me bring them in. So I put up and diy shelter and gave them milk, did my best to keep them dry. The kittens hated my guts at first. There was a white one with black patches and a tuxedo cat. The tuxedo, later named Dean, was shy and scared-y. Whereas the white one, later named, Sammy, was a fireball and would attack and bite at my toes. But I don't know if it was my effort to keep them dry and fed during the storm or something else, by the time the skies cleared, they weren't scared of me. Dean was still very shy but Sammy made me into her surrogate mother. She'd try to climb up me, try to lick me, meow at me, play with me, run around between my legs and was generally very friendly, if a little tiring. She wouldn't even let me go back to the house and would run in front of me to keep me from leaving her.

My parents wouldn't let them come into the house but they did like the kittens, so did most of the tenants in the apartments. When a dog almost attacked the kittens again early in the morning, we decided to close the gates to the stairs at night and until 8 in the morning, even though it was cumbersome to the men who needed to leave early for their offices, or to the students. After 8 the bike showroom under the complex would open and all the activity would keep the dogs away. We also put a bench on our landing to the stairs to provide a modicum of protection as the kittens played. We did everything we could and the kittens mostly stayed in the balcony and the 'patio' during most of the day. In the mornings, though, they started to go out for a bit. Another storm hit a few weeks later and the balcony would be getting wet. So I arranged a cardboard box in the hallway before my house, which is covered, for the kittens to sleep in. I still remember that evening when after feeding and playing with Sammy for a little while I was going back into the house and Sammy wouldn't let me. So I sat in the hallway with her and petted her as she tried to climb up and give me kisses on my face. She was being extra clingy that day. But I was feeling very sick and needed to lie down so I kinda made a motion for her to get into the box. And she must have thought it was a game, because she did. I hadn't taught her any tricks, but she was smart and she was able to understand my gestures. With her in the box I made a run for my door and closed it behind me. The poor thing must have felt so sad that I left.

The next morning I woke up late and my mother told me the kittens weren't around and they didn't come even when she put out milk. So I looked around and started asking the other tenants. One of the women who live on the floor above mine said that her kid had heard dogs barking loudly in the morning and might have even seen the kittens. She was pretty vague and evasive about it, but I kinda had my suspicions. So I searched the whole apartment, dread filling my heart and praying I was wrong. When I went to the terrace and called for the kittens I heard a meow and I was so happy for the moment. Then Dean came out and started meowing at me. Dean is usually so quiet and so shy, but he seemed so clingy. But Sam wouldn't come out no matter how much I called. So I searched all the way down... and I found Sammy's mangled body under the staircase. The dogs attacked them and Dean managed to escape, but Sammy wasn't so lucky. I couldn't eat anything for two days or even look at Dean. My mom fed and played with Dean while I cried and my dad arranged for Sammy to be buried somewhere out of the town (where we usually bury our dead).

We don't know what happened, but someone seemed to have left the gate the bottom of the stairs open. And in the morning before everyone was up and about the dogs came and attacked the kittens in the hallway, dragging them down the stairs. Someone mentioned that Sammy and Dean might have gone down the stairs and were too late to make it back up into the safety of our balcony. But I think they were just trying to make me feel better. Because I feel guilty about Sammy's death. I keep thinking if I hadn't placed that cardboard box in the hallway, fought harder with my parents to let them into our house, at least during the storm, if I had woken up early that day, or even if I had spent more time with Sammy the day before, things might have been different. I feel guilty about it to this day.

We moved from that house a couple of months later. Dean was with us the whole time. I wasn't much involved with him, my guilt eating away at me, but my mom stepped up by feeding him and playing with him. When we left I made the other tenants in the apartment to promise that they'd feed Dean and give him shelter in that apartment complex. They were all pretty good about it, especially the couple that lived across us. Dean hung around for a month after we left and slowly he stopped coming there. But my mother saw him when she visited our neighbors, just before Dean stopped coming and the tiny happy thing here is that he remembered her. When she called his name he came out of nowhere, running towards her and she gave him some milk. Apparently he had grown.

As for Thomas, she visited me one last time before we moved. On the day we were leaving, just a couple of hours before we left, she came into the house and meowed at me as we were all packing. I hadn't seen her since that day when my mom chased her out of the house. She had apparently come back a couple of time but I missed her both times and she left as soon as she saw her kittens. But that day, even though Dean was there, as if she knew that was the last chance we had of seeing each other again, she came to the house and we had a meal together. After that, I heard she had another litter - which was pretty soon after we left so she must have been pregnant when she came back. She too stopped coming to that apartment. Sometimes I think about Dean and Thomas and hope those two are okay, but I still feel guilty - for leaving Dean and Thomas behind, Thomas especially, and for not being able to protect Sammy.

My current cat, Hypy, actually looks a lot like Thomas in terms of coloring. But Hypy has a longer coat. And their personalities are also pretty different. But after the bad experience I've had, I've decided to never let Hypy be an outdoor cat. That is the main reason she's an indoor cat.

Note: I know I said I fed Thomas and the kittens milk, but back then I didn't know better. I also didn't have access to the internet so I didn't know much about cats and how to look after them. Most cats break into houses to drink milk so I thought feeding them milk would be appropriate. And whenever we had non-veg food in our house, which was like once or twice a week, the cats got pieces and bones from our table. Again, I didn't know better. I used to think the slow blink Thomas did meant that she was sleepy, lol! 

MServant said:

 
First comment here is what a confident and happy cat you seem to have there @Hypatia, congratulations on settling Hypy in so quickly - or should I be congratulating Hypy here for training you so well?  

  

    He sounds adorable.   

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Yes, Hypy did train my very quickly, lol! And he settled in remarkably fast. Within 24 hours of getting him, he was showing me his belly! I think we were meant to be, because at the shelter that I got him from, while all the other cats for meowing for food or looking at me and my mom curiously from a distance, Hypy came up to me and started rubbing himself against my legs. We are still figuring out the finer details of living together, but he is pretty well settled. 

So, I think I will clip his claws. Because loosing a claw sounds awful and I don't want that to happen to him. His claws do get stuck on the curtains or the beddings when playing, so I think this is for the best. Thanks for your advice!

BassCat said:

 
IMO.  If his claws don't bother you, it's not necessary.  I don't trim my cats claws any more.
I can get three or four per attempt pretty easily.
I can do them all at once but usually we've both had enough by the time I'm finished.
His claws have never really been a problem though, so, I no longer bother with it.

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EveandJakesMom said:

 
Hypatia,

Yes you should trim your cats nails. If you go out of the house and your cat snags his/her nails on something who will be there to dislodge them. For instance, while my husband and I were alseep our kitten Jake had his claws caught in a speeker of our keyboard. We heard him meow alerting us awake and found him stuck. Another instace happened when our 2 yearold female had her claws stuch in a curtain while she trying to stretch on it. I trim their back claws as well as their front claws. Also cats can have ingrown toenails which can become infected and they try to chew them off. I hope this helps.

God Bless

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lalagimp said:

 
I do front paws on 3 cats and back paws on my declawed cat. All of them take about 5-10 minutes
You just want to blunt the tip.
The emergency room sent my bub home with bluntbluntblunt nails. Almost down to the quick. I don't know if he was causing problems or they just didn't want to risk with his IV or his catheter.

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Thanks, y'all. I think I'm going to clip Hypy's claws, just to blunt the tip. They don't bother me, but I don't want him to pull a claw out by getting it stuck somewhere, like what happened to some of the other posters' cats. I'll just do it once a month and go from there.

@Hypatia  that's an awfully sad story but thank you ever so much for telling it.  I doubt whether many people on the CatSite know about the danger from dogs to the few cats and kittens in India.  There are packs of dogs everywhere and they are extremely menacing and scary.  I've had to throw stones at packs of them, growling, with saliva dripping off their snarled teeth, for blocking my path, and refusing to let me go forward or backward.  Your kitten's death wasn't your fault in the slightest, I very much doubt he would have reached the age he did were it not for your care.  The people in your building must not have given any regard for the life of a cat when they chose to leave the gates open, I met many people in India who didn't value animal's lives.  I'm just grateful that you do, the cats of India are safer for having you on their side.   It's ultimately your government's responsibility to deal with all the dogs (and there are rabid dogs amongst them), but I know that at present in India this is not going to happen.  I hope and pray that one day action will be taken to round up all the savage dogs, then cats might return to the streets, as I'm sure there must have been more cats many years ago.  

In India there are more dangers to cats than the dogs.  I've been to places, such as Shimla, where there are so many pesky, vicious monkeys, that everyone carries a monkey-smacking stick.  I expect monkeys enjoy tasty kittens also.

But, sad stories aside, I'm happy that you've found Hypy and that he has found you.  And it's great that you're both here on TCS, as you can learn great advice, and be amongst likeminded catpeople.  

By the way, cow's milk isn't toxic to cats, it just gives the majority of them diarrhoea, I think they're lactose intolerant as are many human beings.  The odd cat here and there, like Brian, are not intolerant to cow's milk.  I used to give Brian some "milkies" as a treat sometimes and also sometimes to take the edge off his obsessive compulsive "hunger" syndrome.

I have had many cats in my life, for over 50 years. I have never trimmed any of their claws. I do check once in a while if a cat is elderly or less active to make sure the claw isn't curving back into the pad, but I have never had this happen. I believe that when you trim their claws, they will scratch surfaces more to sharpen them back up. They just don't grow like a dog's nails which I did trim regularly. 

MServant said:

 

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Columbine said:

 

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Brian007 said:

 
@Hypatia  that's an awfully sad story but thank you ever so much for telling it.  I doubt whether many people on the CatSite know about the danger from dogs to the few cats and kittens in India.  There are packs of dogs everywhere and they are extremely menacing and scary.  I've had to throw stones at packs of them, growling, with saliva dripping off their snarled teeth, for blocking my path, and refusing to let me go forward or backward.  Your kitten's death wasn't your fault in the slightest, I very much doubt he would have reached the age he did were it not for your care.  The people in your building must not have given any regard for the life of a cat when they chose to leave the gates open, I met many people in India who didn't value animal's lives.  I'm just grateful that you do, the cats of India are safer for having you on their side.   It's ultimately your government's responsibility to deal with all the dogs (and there are rabid dogs amongst them), but I know that at present in India this is not going to happen.  I hope and pray that one day action will be taken to round up all the savage dogs, then cats might return to the streets, as I'm sure there must have been more cats many years ago.  

In India there are more dangers to cats than the dogs.  I've been to places, such as Shimla, where there are so many pesky, vicious monkeys, that everyone carries a monkey-smacking stick.  I expect monkeys enjoy tasty kittens also.

But, sad stories aside, I'm happy that you've found Hypy and that he has found you.  And it's great that you're both here on TCS, as you can learn great advice, and be amongst likeminded catpeople.  

By the way, cow's milk isn't toxic to cats, it just gives the majority of them diarrhoea, I think they're lactose intolerant as are many human beings.  The odd cat here and there, like Brian, are not intolerant to cow's milk.  I used to give Brian some "milkies" as a treat sometimes and also sometimes to take the edge off his obsessive compulsive "hunger" syndrome.

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I just wanted to update y'all on how the claw clipping went (and to gloat a little ). I decided to try clipping Hypy's claws and see how he reacts. But he was surprisingly easy going about it. I mean, I know he is mellow but even I didn't expect this. At the start he gently pulled his paws back every time I tried and would try to hold my hand and lick me, but didn't even try to walk away or anything and let me examine his paws with a scowl on his face that spoke of his irritation. I continued to shush and pet his flank as I worked and by the time I was done he was dozing in my lap (well between my spread legs but his head was on my thigh). I am happy to report that in the first attempt itself, I managed to clip all the 10 claws on his front paws and the 8 on his back paws. I only set out to do 3-4 front ones, but he was so compliant that I decided to get his back ones as well. His back claws were pretty blunt but they were long and you could see the tips of two of them (on each paw) even when retracted. So I decided to shorten them. Everything went smoothly and I hope that good luck continues. I'll see how he behaves now - if he'll scratch a little more to sharpen them or whatever, and how fast they grow back and go from there. Thanks everyone, for the help! Y'all are an awesome community.

@Brian007  Yes, unfortunately dog attacks are one of the main reasons for street cat deaths. I recently noticed a stray in my street and a few dogs tried to chase it. The poor thing was able to escape into a home's gated courtyard. Even Hypy saw this and I found myself terrified for my cat. Hypy is so trusting and obviously not street-smart. Sometimes I worry myself to sleeplessness thinking about Hypy accidentally getting out and getting attacked by the dogs.

The government does have TNR programs in place and rabid dogs do get put down if there are any complaints by the residents, but that's about it. It also doesn't help that most cities and towns don't have shelters for the street animals. And in some places the monkey populations are also a nuisance. There used to be tons of monkeys at my grandparents' place when I was younger and they sometimes even snatch babies. I've never heard of monkeys attacking cats, but then until I got Hypy I've never heard of people snatching cats, even house cats for their meats, so I'm not sure about that.

Thanks for your kind words regarding Sammy. She was very dear to me and I hope she'll forgive me and we can be reunited if there is an afterlife. The people at my old apartment were far kinder than most people are to cats. I think it was the kid of the woman living above me that left the gate open and he probably didn't know better. When I talked to him a few days later he seemed very shaken up and didn't want to talk about what happened. But the other tenants didn't mind the presence of the animals and fed them whenever they could. Which is more than what I can say for so many others.

My current neighbors are a Muslim family and if anyone in India is raising a cat as a house pet, it's most likely Muslims (because they don't believe cats to be bad luck and cats are kinda revered). She said that the cat they used to own at their old apartment house went missing one day. It was allowed to go outside and roam the premises and peed and pooped outside (the cat didn't even have a litter box, because she went out). When looking for it, they asked the landlord about it and he said that he had taken her away and left her at the beach! He just did it and admitted to it. Apparently people were complaining about seeing the cat first thing in the morning, as it is considered bad luck so he got rid of it. The family couldn't say anything about it (if it were me or any reasonable person they might have picked a fight or something, but these people were sad but otherwise nonchalant while describing their landlord's actions).

So you see, the people at my old apartment were far better. They at least made an effort to keep the dogs at bay to protect the kittens. But you are right. People here don't think animal lives hold much value and even if they value an animal's life they don't think them a priority. I mean, I'm not sure an average fireman here would try to save a cat. And my relatives are all very astonished at much care I put into my cat's diet, health, fitness and overall goodness. It doesn't surprise me, but it does make my life a little difficult because I have more things to worry about when it comes to my cat, and very little support.

At least I can always count on people like you on this site to give me advice and a word of comfort <3

@MServant  Mouse has a lovely, velvety looking paw.  

@Hypatia  your written English is excellent, I'm impressed.  

Thank you @Brian007, Mouse's paws are every bit as soft and velvety as they look and, like Hypy he is happy for me to touch and stroke them.  He's also fine about me clipping his front claws but is less happy when I hold him to clip the back ones - and when he wriggles oh boy does he wriggle, and he is a very long cat when he wants to be.       I pretty much only see Mouse's paws when I hold them and push to extend his claws to check them or clip them:  he was so well trained in good manners by his cat mama. (Actually I just took a closer look at his current avatar photo and had to laugh at how he holds his toys when he's 'killing' them  ). Hypy must have been too.    

Brian007 said:

 
@Hypatia  your written English is excellent, I'm impressed.  

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Aww, thanks. That's a huge compliment for me because English is not my first language.

Hypatia said:

 
Aww, thanks. That's a huge compliment for me because English is not my first language.

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You would never know from you posts here - your written English is very good.        

I love that this site is so international:  it makes the information and support here much more valuable, and we can learn about new ideas and methods of care we would otherwise never hear of.  It can reach out to cat lovers living in parts of the world where vet and cat care information are difficult to find, and offer to support to people who do not have anyone around them who understand how or why cats can be so valuable in our human lives.