How To Restrain a Fractious Cat and Trim Cat Nails

This is Dr. Andrew Jones. In this section of Veterinary Secrets, I'm going to show you how to properly restrain a fractious cat and secondarily how to trim her nails. So this happens to be my cat, Gussie. She really does not like having to get anything done to her at all. Whether I'm just trying to perform a sample exam on her, show you any type of veterinary procedure, be it the least invasive thing, even just to pet her for an excessive period of time. She's a very moody cat, as you know. Yes, that's Gussie. She has her own ideas around what she wants and what she likes. Definitely on her own terms. So to begin with, if I'm doing anything to her, especially such as trimming her nails, she decides she can lash out. I don't know if you can see that or not, but even just trying to restrain her properly, she's giving me a big hook. Gussie must be nearly 17. It's hard to know, but it doesn't matter. She's 17 and she's feisty. So in terms of proper restraint, what it means is just sitting her here in this... I've just got a big long blanket. You want to make sure you can restrain her front and her back legs. We're just going to pull one leg out at a time. So big long blanket. I'm going to cover her entire body up here. As you can see, she is here. So she's well restrained. She's all wrapped up. It's like swaddling a baby in a big towel. So what you're trying to do is just swaddle them up as best you can. If it means covering her head, anything you can, just turn your cat into a more pleasant creature. So with her, she can't see. She's much more, as you can see, she's much more likely to be more amenable. Her nail is trimmed. So there is one side. We're going to lay you on your side. I'm just going to get your right leg. Oh yes. Yes. Happy New Year to you too. Yes, Gussie. Don't even surgery on you. That's just to do your nails. Generally doing the back legs a lot easier. You just sort of pin your cat down from the back. They're really fast with their front legs. Not so fast with their back legs. Those are a lot more pleasant and easier. They're quick with their nose. Getting those front legs and claws out. And when you're doing the nails, I don't know if you can see it now, so visually it's quite easy to see her quick. So I'm trying to cut the nail back all where it's white and avoiding the blood supply. These nail trimmers themselves are actually special nail trimmers from the clinic. Any pet supply store is going to have them. They're really nice in terms of trimming a cat's nails. They open quite wide, so I've got the full length of the nail long enough. So if the nail has gotten a bit long, up high, I can trim those properly too. So I don't know if you can see there or not, but I've just pushed out her nails. They're extended. They're usually retracted. And you're just looking at the white. The pink section is where the blood supply is. The white section is the nail that you're wanting to trim off. And I'm trimming about a quarter of an inch in front of that pink part. There it is. Trimming your cat's nails. Thank you for watching this edition of Veterinary Secrets. What I want you to do now is click that link above. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel. And then when you go ahead and sign up for my newsletter, I'll send you my new special report on pet food. Dr. Jones's advised list of dog and cat foods.