when will my kitten start clawing things?

abigail

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I have a 12 week kitten who has been in my house for six days. I have several places for her to scratch near her sleeping places and where I play with her, she also likes to climb into baskets and stretch and claw the besket material. The first day I got her the vet clipped her claws and I intend to start tomorrow (wish me luck...yikes). My question is: As she gets older is she going to start shredding furniture or does this current behavior and the fact that we play intensely twice a day mean she might not be a horror when it comes to my furniture, drapes and walls?

As you can tell this cat thing is very new to me, I have allways loved them but when I had them as a child my mother did all the "stuff".
Diana (abi's mentor)
 

lizch6699

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It varies cat to cat but mine personally don't do much damage to the furniture. We have leather couches and there are a few marks from them jumping off of them and onto other things but nothing to damaging. They do like to scratch our lazyboy chair from time to time but they usually stick to the scratching post we have for them. As long as you trim their nails pretty often you probably won't have to worry too much. Be careful not to trim to short as you can make them bleed. I would advise getting some stypic powder before you start, it helps to stop them from bleeding if you do cut to far. Get your kitty used to having her paws handled so that it will make things a heck of a lot easier. Usually I have my boyfriend play with their bellies while I trim their nails so that they're a little more distracted. Here's a good site to teach you how to trim http://www.ehow.com/how_6484_trim-cats-nails.html when in doubt, always cut less than rather than more.
 

lizch6699

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Oh yeah, the 'thumb' nail (the nail most towards the inside of her front paws, just like our thumbs) tends to be the one that grows the quickest on my cats and can be difficult to trim when it gets really long because it begins to curl and it's in a difficult angle to trim. I suggest doing that one at least once a week, and maybe more since you've got a growing kitten
 
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