My cats are about to get beaten (not really, but damn, they’re pissing us off). In the three months we’ve lived in our house, they have seriously managed to rip up a piece of the carpet on the stairs. They have buttloads of scratching posts in the house - like one in every room - but they refuse to use them the majority of the time. I am against declawing, and I’ve always taken the clawing as part of having a cat (yes, we tried to train them out of it as kittens…didn’t work).
So now we’re looking at SoftClaws/SoftPaws for them. Do your cats have them? Do they work? Do the cats chew at them? Do they even realize that these are not their real claws?
We’re just wondering if it’s even going to be worth it. I’d be happy to hear anyone else’s experiences with them.
Is that that vinyl sheath that’s applied right over the cat’s natural claws? If so, I’ve heard of it once…unfortunately I don’t have a cat, so I can’t vouch for their usefulness.
Actually, Elza, I just tried them for the first time about a month ago.
Louie the Large walked across my face (foolishly left there on the pillow and between His Majesty and the window sill) and sliced my nose open. Those suckers can bleed! And the fun of that moment at 4am thinking, “Why is my face warm and wet?”
Anyway, I picked up a pack of the clear ones at Petsmart, along with the special nail clippers. My darlings are used to gettng their nails trimmed - although they cry like it’s horrible torture (it’s not). You have to trim their nails, then you fill the little nail caps with superglue (which is provided) and then you sort of jam them onto the trimmed nail. To my surprise, neither Lou nor Daisy the Petite Flower ever chewed on them or seemed to notice them at all.
The nails continue to grow, and my favorite part is how they both sound like they are tap dancing when they walk down the hall. They are starting to fall off - I have replaced two on each cat. Daisy has pink nail caps which I think she is a little vain about. (I ordered the pink ones from the Softpaws website.) I would recommend colored rather than clear so you can see when they fall off.
So yes - give them a try. Good luck!
I have never used them but have heard good things from those who have. You might want to discuss it with your vet.
I have had much better luck with homemade scratching posts than with any I have bought. I use 2 x 2 piece of wood inside a cardboard tube (from upolstery fabric). Use carpenters glue and jute twine, and glue the twine around the tube. I usually incorporate some catnip in the glue. Let dry and screw the 2 x 2 onto a base large and/or heavy enough to support the post. It should be tall enough for the cat(s) to stretch to use it.
Hehehe - you just made mr. e. scream - I want the hot pink ones for my girl kitty, and the green and yellow ones for my boy kitty. He said he was drawing the line at the colored ones;). Too bad!
Thanks - it sounds like they’re worth trying. If they don’t work, well, they don’t work. We’ve put the scratching post in front of the stairs where they’ve been scratching, so hopefully that will solve the problem in the short term.
Thanks, Snakescatlady. We may try that. We started getting the twine scratching posts as opposed to the carpet ones, and they seem to like those better.
I’ve used SoftPaws on my cat in the past. She seemed to tolerate them pretty well. The first time I put them on her, she walked around shaking each paw with every step for about 20 minutes. Then she forgot about them and was fine. Other than that, the only times she had problems was when some of her fur would get glue in it. Then she’d chew off the cap. If you’re careful not to overfill the caps, this shouldn’t happen.
I quit using them because I got tired of replacing them. The first set is fine because they all go on at once. But after a couple of weeks, I felt like I was replacing a cap a day as they all fell off at different times. YMMV.
Oh my god, you mean you are supposed to clip their nails, then dab in superglue, then hold the little nail covers on until it dries? Does the package come with kitty tranquelizers as well? Because I think that cats and nail clippers and superglue is always a bad combination.
I’ve used them on our cats, and they seem to take well to them. My oldest hates the process, but I have no problem holding her down for the clip, glue, claw insertion process. She just whines a lot. A lot.
The youngest doesn’t make a peep. She doesn’t look like it’s the thrill of her life, but she tolerates it. However, she is very docile by nature.
Saves our sofa. Makes it easier to bathe, them, too - less welts on my arms. They can be a pain to find if you get the clear ones, though. They last about a month, give or take a week.
Is this something you can take them to the groomer for? I can’t imagine jamming those onto Bitey The Aptly Named Cat. The boys would probably handle it OK, but not her.
Can I just get the kitty tranquilizers? My normally very docile, well-behaved kitty turns into a hellcat when it is claw trimming time, and due to her extreme diligence in the claw-sharpening department, that is all too often. I think a little Kitty Sleep-Eeze in some tuna would be just the ticket for her.
(Sausage, we have a Bitey, too. Her real name is Max, but she seems to have a taste for human flesh.)
I’ve seen a cat with the Soft Claws, she was white and had them in every color they made. She seemed to know they got her attention and would reach out to pat you with her paw so you could coo over her.
I’ve been lucky to never have a furniture clawing cat, but my two current cats really liked to scratch on the rugs. They’ve got a big cat condo they scratch the heck out of, but they seemed to need something horizontal, so I made a twine covered board scratching mat they use. You might want to provide a horizontal scratch spot if you haven’t already, and maybe rub some catnip over the places you want to encourage them to use.
When my two monsters took to nibbling the leaves on my orchids I got some of that liquid you use to help stop fingernail biting (my vet okayed it). One application and they never touched any of my orchids again. Maybe a dab of that where they like to scratch would discourage them if you could somehow get them to scratch and then lick their paws soon enough after for a connection to be made. Of course, getting cats to do something you want is a toughy.
Too cool. Ours is less into human flesh nowadays and more into various plastic objects anymore but she lives up to her original name during grooming (done by myself) sessions.
I use them on my two cats, and it works pretty well for me.
The tough part is putting the original ten caps on. I wrapped the cat in a blanket (the ever-popular “cat burrito”) for the job. They chewed at them for a little while, but soon forgot they were on.
The caps don’t seem to bother the cats at all, and I sometimes see them scratching at the furniture and carpet as if they don’t realize that their claws are capped.
You do not have to hold the claws on when you apply them. Just clip the claw, put the glue inside the cap, and slip it over the claw. It only takes a few seconds.
Every night at bedtime, I pick up each cat, look at his paws, scritch him, and give him a yummy treat. If a cap needs replaced, I do it, but often, they don’t. This way, the cats associate replacing the caps with yummy treats and scritching, and they come to me at bedtime when they hear me get out the can o’treats.
I know they sound silly to a lot of people, but they’ve been a great solution for me, since I don’t want my carpet and furniture destroyed but won’t consider declawing the cats.
I’ve been using them. They’re great but you have to keep on top of it. Of course they don’t all fall off at the same time. My smart little kitty knows exactly which claws are uncovered and one claw can be pretty destructive.
Still, it doesn’t take very long to put them on and it’s more humane and less expensive than de-clawing.
The colors are fun. People don’t know about SoftPaws think I’m painting his claws.
Yep, they have all of these - they have several cardboard scratching posts with catnip all over the place that they love. These cats are spoiled more than Tori Spelling. That’s what I don’t get - they love their scratching posts, but they STILL go and scratch the carpet.
We’ve been cutting their nails since they were little - I started when they were kittens - so that shouldn’t be a problem. I know we’re going to have to hold both of them down for awhile to get these things on, so we’ll see how it goes.
I just replaced one of Daisy’s pink toe caps and it took about one minute. The special nail clippers the Softpaws people sell make the job a lot easier. Daisy only weighs about 6 pounds so it’s a one (wo) man job.
I wanted to post a picture of Daisy and her pink toes, but I can’t get the link from Shutterfly to work - it directs you to the sign in page. I can’t track down directions on posting photos in SD FAQ either - any suggestions?
[sm hijack] I have a polydactyl male who is declawed (I didn’t do it - he was a clinic cat at the vet where I worked - I adopted him after his hip was broken by a door) but doesn’t seem to realize it. He only goes after cardboard boxes, but will sharpen the hell out of those toes when he sees a cardboard box! [/hijack]
I used them many years ago. I didn’t put them on myself - God, no, she’d have scratched the hell out of me. We had them put on by a groomer. And put on, and put on, and put on, as they’d fall off after about six hours, until we said “no” and had her declawed (she had sent Brainiac4’s cat to the vet three times for stitches, this wasn’t about furniture).
Hopefully, the glue is better now. But give them a try.
Ours is less into human flesh nowadays and more into various plastic objects anymore but she lives up to her original name during grooming (done by myself) sessions.