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Cat's claw hanging off. What to do?

  • 02-01-2009 5:45pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 103 ✭✭


    Collected our two cats from boarding today. Everything was fine until about ten minutes ago when one of them climbed up onto my lap and i noticed that one of his nails on his back right leg is completely hanging off! It doesn't seem to be hurting him or anything. It's clicking on the floor as he walks. He's not trying to pull it off or anything. Just wondering what should i do? Leave it alone? Get him to the vet? Any ideas!


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 17,819 ✭✭✭✭peasant


    Unless it's just the clear bit that's loose and you can (carefully) pick it off with your fingers, I would suggest a visit to the vet.

    Even if it's not serious now, it might quickly become so if it gets caught.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 103 ✭✭dsg


    peasant wrote: »
    Unless it's just the clear bit that's loose and you can (carefully) pick it off with your fingers, I would suggest a visit to the vet.

    Even if it's not serious now, it might quickly become so if it gets caught.
    No its actually the whole length of the nail about a cm and a half i'd say. Its kind of hanging off sideways if that makes any sense. Like i say it doesnt seem to be hurting him at the moment but there's no way he'd let me near it.. If it was his front paw it'd be gone by now as he attacks the scratching post with a vengeance when he's near it.
    I probably would have noticed it sooner but neither of them were talking to me when we got home from boarding! I'll give the local vet a shout in the morning and hopefully can get them both in for a quick check up


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,819 ✭✭✭✭peasant


    Cats do shed their claws in layers every now and then. Sometimes it may look like the whole claw is hanging off when it is only the top layer.

    If it's only that and there is a healthy claw underneath, then I wouldn't worry ...otherwise it's a trip to the vet, just to be safe.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,466 ✭✭✭Lumi


    I agree with peasant. It sounds like a claw sheath and he'll probably pull it off himself once he's settled down


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 103 ✭✭dsg


    Ok couldn't get the boys in to a vet today unfortunately. Nobody available. Got a good look at his claw this evening. Some dried blood which kind of scared me. He's definitely not in pain. He's running around and up on his back legs, eating etc as usual, spent most of today asleep as per usual (he sleeps a lot) so i'm not too concerned yet. Definitely going to the vet on monday though. I'm a bit annoyed that none of the local guys would see him today considering this could be painful and serious. Even though he doesn't seem to be in pain, but still how does the vet know that! If i bleed it usually hurts so why would my lovely cat be any different? We'll see what happens monday. I hope he's ok until then. Fingers crossed.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,434 ✭✭✭Rancid


    dsg wrote: »
    Ok couldn't get the boys in to a vet today unfortunately. Nobody available. Got a good look at his claw this evening. Some dried blood which kind of scared me. He's definitely not in pain. He's running around and up on his back legs, eating etc as usual, spent most of today asleep as per usual (he sleeps a lot) so i'm not too concerned yet. Definitely going to the vet on monday though. I'm a bit annoyed that none of the local guys would see him today considering this could be painful and serious. Even though he doesn't seem to be in pain, but still how does the vet know that! If i bleed it usually hurts so why would my lovely cat be any different? We'll see what happens monday. I hope he's ok until then. Fingers crossed.
    Have you noticed him over-grooming that paw? Usually if there's a cut or an injury, they'll be paying attention to it.
    So the dried blood could be what's left after he licked off the rest of it.
    It sounds like he got it caught in something while jumping or climbing and it got partly torn out.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14 chrisdr


    Okay here is my advice. I would take the area that has dried blood on it and get some cotton soak it in peroxide which will kill the germs and gently clean the area off with peroxide. I would also try and get some gauze and bandage that area. Or if you do not have peroxide they soap and water will do well.

    Definitely a trip to the vet is a must because if left untreated infection can set in..Good Luck


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 103 ✭✭dsg


    Went to the vet yesterday. He couldn't believe my cat wasn't in pain considering his whole nail had basically been ripped out. There was the beginnings of an infection so he gave him two injections and gave me tablets to give him. Two in the morning and two in the evening for the next ten days. So now the only problem is getting them into him. I mixed them into food but the problem is i need to keep the other cat out of the room so that he doesn't eat them by mistake. They're so close that they won't eat alone so the cat in the room with the food and the pills sits at the door and cries for the other guy, while the cat outside the room sits at the door and cries too! What on earth am i going to do? He won't let me put them in his mouth. I swear a couple of kids would be easier to look after!


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,772 ✭✭✭✭Whispered


    Stick it in a bit of butter on a spoon, let him eat it off while the other guy gets a spoon of just butter?

    Last antibiotics we had here was synax or somthing, and apparently they taste nice. Dogs loved them and took them like treats. Very handy.

    If the butter doesnt work, all you can do is pop it in his mouth, hold his chin up and rub his throat. :D Then hope it doesn't pop out the side of his mouth.


  • Registered Users Posts: 21,404 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    If the butter doesnt work, all you can do is pop it in his mouth, hold his chin up and rub his throat. :D Then hope it doesn't pop out the side of his mouth.
    When you're rubbing his throat, just wait (sometimes for a looong time) until he sticks his tongue out and licks his lips. That's usually the sign that he's actually swallowed it. The vet may also be able to give you a pill dispenser, a kind of syringe thingy that allows you to pop the pill in his throat without getting your fingers eaten off :)


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 103 ✭✭dsg


    Ah good thinking. I like those ideas. Will try the butter trick tonight and see how we go. If that fails i'll try tricking him into thinking they're a treat and if that fails i'll pop back to the vet tomorrow. Will probably wait til my other half gets home to try feeding them to him because the little sod is ignoring me since we got home from the vet last night. Good thing i'm not the sensitive type.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 53 ✭✭B'witched


    I normally put the tablets in a bit of cream cheese. Works a treat everytime with dogs or cats, they just love it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 997 ✭✭✭MsFifers


    I crush the tablet up and mix in it with a little bit of their favourite food. You can give the other cat a bit of the food in its own bowl (maybe a bit more so it keeps its head in its own bowl for longer! :D). You will need to sit between them supervising until the medicine is all eaten up.

    I think you should mention it to your Boarding place too. They really should have noticed something like that. You might have been able to avoid the infection if they had treated it straight away.:(


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,413 ✭✭✭Toulouse


    Depending on the tablet, sometimes you're not supposed to crush them so I'd check with the vet first.

    I always found hiding the tablet in a treat like ham or tuna worked. Failing that a towel and alot of patience :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,658 ✭✭✭✭The Sweeper


    As Toulouse says, if the tablet is supposed to be slow release you shouldn't crush it, so check with the vet.

    Pilling a cat goes one of two ways - smoothly, where they swallow, or not, where you end up wrestling them as they tongue the tablet out of the side of their mouths after holding it for just long enough that it starts to melt and you've wasted a tablet.

    If you CAN crush the tablet, try this - with worm tablets, which are usually quite large, cut them into quarters. Antibiotics are often smaller and so are easier to leave whole or just in two halves. Hide the piece inside a small treat - for my lot, a little piece of raw meat, about a square cm or a little smaller, works a charm. (Alternatively, I'll buy something like salmon for my dinner and cut a small piece off the end of that for the fish-loving kitties. Keep it raw and, because it's a meaty fish, it's a good pill disguiser.) Cats aren't big chewers - their teeth are designed to shear pieces off for swallowing.

    I find if I try butter or yoghurt, they just lick the pill clean and leave it behind. With small treats, they gobble them without noticing - and you can keep all cats together if you have a little dish made up ready with lots of treats on it. Keep the pill-stuffed pieces to one side, and make sure you intersperse them with non-booby-trapped treats. This way you can also be 100% certain that the right cat gets the right dose.

    I find if I crush tablets into powder to go into their food, they can taste the bitterness and just leave both food and tablet, double the waste. Cats can't taste sweet things, so making them sweet doesn't help.

    (By contrast, dogs are the easiest things in the world to worm. Train them to catch a treat that's thrown to them. They get excited by the game, and eventually you can just go 'treat, treat, worm tablet in treat, treat' and they barely even notice, big slobbery gobblers that they are.)

    Good luck with it - you may find that simply pilling the cat by hand will work for you, you may not. I can pill our big tabby by hand without a problem, but getting worm medication into our wilder boy has always been a major drama. I used to ambush him when he was asleep with a syringe of paste (because he runs away if he's awake and sees me coming with something in my hand - he even recognises if I have my hand behind my back). I usually get half of the paste into his mouth because he becomes extremely agitated, so I put the rest on his front paws so he has to lick it off . The treat alternative is working a lot better with him. Wrapping him in a towel just isn't an option, because of just how extremely upset he gets.

    Different strokes for different cats, (no pun intended!)


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,189 ✭✭✭boomerang


    If all else fails, swaddle your cat in a big towel, nice and snug so that he can't pop his arms out. He won't struggle so much if the towel is wrapped tightly around him but obviously not so tight that you're choking him! Then get another person to open his mouth and pop the tablet right down into the back of his mouth, at the base of the tongue. Then close his mouth and rub his chin. You'll know he's swallowed it when he licks his lips.

    This is what we have to do with the very nervous cats at our sanctuary that are hard to medicate. Sometimes we use a pill popper, which helps. They're cheap as chips and most vets have them.

    Good on ya for being so attentive to your cat and getting the vet asap. :)


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