Friday, November 28, 2008

How To Clean Your Cat's Nail Sheath

Black gunk builds up under the nail sheath.
You will see gunk in 2 areas:
1. at the start of nail bed
2. under the skin fold

You can wipe it off with bath wipes or soft tissue wrapped around your finger. Q-tips don't really work well because the tips are too soft & round.
Be careful not to be too rough near the nail bed...if possible, go close to it without touching it.
To clean under the skin fold, hold the skin back with your one hand and clean with the other.

Once you clean them, it may last a week or more until the next cleaning.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder about the smell... my Sphynx gets rather stinky feet, so I wash his paws often and clean his nails about once a week.
I wonder about dry paws... as the winter comes, how might I avoid getting dry skin on the paws?

Claire^Monkey said...

I haven't come across a smell problem yet. I would say, at the stinkiest, Monkey's paws smell like corn chips...which I find pleasant :)

Maybe frequent soap & water would dry out the paws, as it would our hands? I use wipes for Monkey's paws. In the winter my place gets really dry because of the heating, so I use the humidifier as often as I can.
I hope this helps!

Anonymous said...

My cat's filthy nail beds also smell jut like corn chips! I thought it might be a yeast/fungal infection.