I’m going home after work and try that on my dog first thing. Will report back…
Sure, it hurts on your finger, which is full of nerves. Try clipping it to the loose skin on your elbow. It’s barely even noticeable.
Seriously?
Do I have more nerve endings than the average human? Or maybe just extra-grippy binder clips? Because I tried several areas of loose skin, and they all hurt.
I’ve seen this done before with clothespins too.
Cat deactivation procedure is ineffective when said cat suffers from addiction : http://www.break.com/index/cat-wont-give-up-cigarettes-2057758
I think the scruff is different though. I think it has built in tough skin that is meant for being picked up by sharp teeth without hurting the animal.
I have no cites to back this up, but I used to pick my kitten up by her scruff and she seemed fine with it. When she’s not fine with something, she lets you know.
Testing this… I now have a big binder clip on my left pinky, the webbing between my thumb and fore finger., and on my mose (why, yes, most of my co-workers have gone home for the day, why’d you ask?)
Meh. I might hurt on my scrotum, but it’s really no biggie on these other parts.
My husband’s cat purrs in the sink when we turn the water on for her, too. Little kitty weirdo.
I like to clip a hair clip onto my cat’s tail; it’s pretty much the opposite of de-activating them. 
(The clip is the kind that slides right off.)
Youtube link to video.
I will be putting that this works with dogs to the test. I’ll post back in a week or so and share my results.
Just as long as the dogs don’t end up sharing your fingers. 
I, too, thought the binder clip would be painful. On my finger it hurts like a son-of-a-gun. But on the webbing between my thumb & forefinger I can barely feel it, and on my elbow I can hardly tell it’s there.
I have on occasion picked my cat up by the scruff. The cat goes nearly limp, into a state we used to call “suspended animation.”
Next time “Squirt” or my mother’s cat, Yum Yum, needs to be Advantaged or have her nails trimmed, I’m going to install the binder clip!
Ooh, I wonder if I can invent the “**kath94 **cat and dog deactivation clip” and get it patented?
Pretend you didn’t see that.
Like anything, it varies from cat to cat.
We used to do this with spring-clip clothes pegs. One of our cats would pretty much fall over, stock-still, one would crouch and growl but not move, and one would belt around the house until the pegs fell off, then she’d sit and clean herself.
Hahaha!
I’ve seen and elicited this reaction before, but only some cats have it.
I can’t do this with my two cats because neither of them have scruffs (and both are sometimes PITA in different ways and could use some calming!). They don’t have any noticeably loose skin on their bodies (compared to most cats) but especially not there; I can’t get more than a little pinch between my thumb and finger, and it’s clearly uncomfortable for them to be pinched like that. Zero calming effect. I could scruff them (although I’ve never liked carrying a cat like that) when they were small kittens and had more skin there, and it did work to calm them down a bit, but past a certain age they lost their scruffs. Probably has something to do with the fact that they’ve been raw-fed since they were tiny and are really muscular.
My cat would let me, but I wouldn’t have the heart to do this.
I borrowed a clip from work because I wanted to do it on my cats, but I’m afraid it’s going to hurt them. And, in turn, they will hurt me. Maybe I’ll work up the nerve.
You could try maybe a small hair clip, maybe, that’s looser?
I wonder if this will get Maggie to set still enough if we have to put Advantix on her. She won’t even let you hold her AT ALL – she kicks and squirms and yowls like she’s being set on fire. (She’s very affectionate, but she just hates being held)
I can’t remember though if that’s the spot WHERE you put the Advantatix, though.
I’ll try picking her up that way, and see if she freaks.
A reminder to folks looking to experiment with this: please don’t pick up an adult cat by the scruff. A grown cat is much heavier than a kitten, and actually lifting them by the scruff is probably going to put pressure on the cat’s throat. At best, it is likely to be very uncomfortable for the cat.
A gentle pull on the scruff without trying to support their weight by it should be okay, and I don’t think the binder clip should cause the cat any serious discomfort, as long as you don’t try to pick them up that way.
Am I the only one who noticed the cat’s ears pulling further and further back the longer the clip was on? That kitty was NOT happy.
I’m not seeing it. The cat’s ears did not move at all until the vet laid it on its side, and then they twitched back a little a couple of times. After he removed the clip, the cat didn’t appear angry at all.