Well apparently, as cats age, their nails thicken, and it can get to the point where they stop shedding. And if you don't notice it, the nail will keep growing in a circle, until it stabs into their own paw meat. From what I read, this is extremely painful, because it just keeps digging deeper, and never stops.

You can prevent it by checking all your elderly cats nails every so often. Apparently they can become ingrown in as little as 3 months, if it's gonna happen.

Now my cat needs a vet appointment, because one of his nails did this, and it's too bad for me to safely fix. I think he'll need antibiotics.

We didn't see it because we usually only trim his front nails, not his front thumb(?) nails, or his backs. His backs are fine, but they will be getting checked going forward.

Mods, hopefully this is allowed here. I know it's mostly memes, but this is the most cat centric place I could find on Lemmy. And I certainly didn't know this before today. If I'd caught it sooner, I could've saved him some pain. Maybe someone else can save their pet the same fate.

Edit: Cat tax:

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't even have to be elderly, one of mine slid out of a walnut tree and one of her nails twisted and punctured a paw pad. It got infected and I didn't catch it until she was already running a fever. :(

[–] beastlykings@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Good point! We live in an apartment, so the most outdoors our cat gets is the balcony. But he loves it, sits in the sun.

We've tried bringing him outside many times, in different ways. He always hates it. He's a chicken. He prefers the safety of his balcony 🤷‍♂️

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Yeah, of the four we have now, two are TERRIFIED of being outside. Bad experiences.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While you should check them more in old age, check them all regularly at any age. They can get broken and need smoothing out, can get ingrown if they don't use their scratching post thing often enough, or in one case one of my cats front 'thumb' claws grew in a tight enough circle that it never really caught on the scratching post. We ended up needing to trim that one claw regularly.

Check them claws!

[–] beastlykings@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Yep the tight circle is what my cat has right now. After the vet takes care of it, we'll have to trim it regularly too.

[–] fishos@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you have a polydactyl cat(extra toes), check them constantly. Mine isn't able to catch all of them on the scratching post so they don't all shed correctly. He'll get overgrown nails that are like 3-4 sheddings worth. When you cut them they shed layers like an onion as the different layers pop off.

[–] kat_angstrom@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Same, our polydactyl has one giant claw on each front foot that simply doesn't shed and needs clipping every 3 months or it starts pushing into the pad.

[–] fishos@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Mines won't curl into the pad, but they become thicker and thicker. You can tell when you remove it that it was causing pressure at the nail bed. He'd have these really long white nails that you couldn't see through to the quick at all because of how many layers there were.

[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Check weekly? I can't imagine doi g it any less, because they can't articulate problems they are having.

This should be a part of regular pet maintenance