November 28, 2005

pedicure time

I am a bad house ape - Rudder and I both are. One of the cats has an ingrown claw, which we found out about by noticing a couple little blood spots on the floor. This isn't even the first time this has happened; it happened last winter right before his last vet appointment and of course we meant to check him and clip his claws more regularly. We have checked them a few times since and there hasn't been a problem - maybe he just runs around less when it's colder? But with all the travel last month, well...

Unfortunately we can't get him into the vet until tomorrow, but the person at the desk didn't sound worried and the Beast doesn't actually seem to be bothered by it, at least not nearly as bothered as he is about our messnig with his feet, even at the best of times. I have met cats for whom claw-clipping is as simple as: pick up cat, grab paw gently, clip claw carefully. This is not the case for either of ours. The process takes both of us and the steps are more like: find cat, who has mysteriously vanished as soon as we decide to clip; saunter casually up to him pretending nothing is going on, carefully hiding clipper; hold cat (one of us) and attempt to mobilize his head so he can't bite; grab paw (the other of us) and clip as many claws as possible before cat squirms away. (If you're going to suggest holding him by the scruff, we have and it doesn't seem to have much effect.) Getting him into his carrier used to be almost as much fun, until someone suggested using a pillow case. It's much easier to sneak up on a cat with a pillow case than with a carrier, and easier to put him into it, then decant cat and case together into carrier.

For the other cat, the reactions are similar but involve less tendency to bite and more struggling to run away. And no, we don't abuse our cats: one was feral as a kitten and the other is so scared of everything we think he may have been abused before we adopted him.

Is it my imagination or do female cats tend to be more placid? Both of ours are male.

For the last several years, every day between Thanskgiving and Christmas I've listed two things: my progress on the Concept II Holiday Challenge (200,000 meters on the erg from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and something I'm thankful for. (In fact, one major thing to be thankful for is that it's never too terribly hard to think of something each day.) So:

Concept II Holiday Challenge: 164900 meters left.
Today I am thankful: that both of our cats have been so healthy for the past 16 and 14 years.

Posted by dichroic at November 28, 2005 12:19 PM
Comments

I would say it's your imagination. My old (female) cat was the squirming-away variety, and my male kitten (~9 mo) is both a lapcat and much more tolerant of claw-clipping. (And it's more important to me with him, since he likes to leap onto my shoulders, and the pointy toenails *hurt*.)

If you could e-mail me with the name of that Italian restaurant, too, that'd be lovely.

Posted by: naomi at November 29, 2005 03:33 PM
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