What kind of care does a cat need? Here are some tips on how to care for your cat’s nail clippers, ear cleaning, toothpaste, and anal squeezing. How often do you cut your nails and clean your ears? How far do you cut your nails? Nail clippers for humans are NG! The notes are also summarized in an easy-to-understand manner.
Basics of cat care such as nail clippers and toothpaste
Cats are animals that can lick and clean their bodies. Since you can clean it yourself, it is not the case that the owner = the owner does not have to take any special care. So how much care does a cat need?
By caring for the cat, the co-resident can see the cat’s body with his own hands and eyes. If something is wrong with the cat’s body, it can be detected early. Caring for a cat is an important daily routine not only for cleaning the cat, but also for checking the health of the cat.
The basics of caring for a cat are as follows.
- Nail clippers
- Ear cleaning
- Eye and eye care
- Care for the mouth and teeth
- Care around the buttocks
- Combing (combing hair with a comb)
- shampoo
Here, we will show you how to cut nails, clean your ears, care for your eyes, and clean your mouth and teeth, and around your buttocks. For combing , see ” Brushing cats that don’t easily become pills ,” and for shampoo , see “ Cat shampoo that you can do at home .”
Cat nail clippers
If you cut your nails regularly, you can reduce the damage even if you cut your nails in places you don’t want them to. If you are a cat who is free to go out, you do not know what kind of situation your cat will be involved in and your claws will be useful. It’s safer not to cut your claws too deeply, but if you’re kept only in your house, or if you have multiple cats, you can cut your claws regularly to get rid of books, cohabitants, furniture and fittings. You can protect it from damage to your nails.
There are various types of nail cutting tools such as scissors type and guillotine type, but please choose the one that you think is easy to use by picking it up in your own hands. If you use a human nail clipper, your cat’s claws may crack, so use one that is sold for cats.
In addition, if necessary, prepare a hemostatic agent such as Quick Stop to use if you cut your claws too much and bleed, or a bath towel to cover a cat that does not cut your claws gently.
- Structure of the cat’s claws
Cats peel off the outermost claws (hard keratin) by peeling off the claws, and the sharp claws underneath are exposed. When you cut your cat’s nails, observe how each nail grows. Even if you cut your nails in the same way on the same day, the speed of growth should be different. Frequently used nails grow faster, and less frequently used nails grow slower. As a guide, nail clippers should be cut once every 7 to 10 days for kittens and young cats with a lot of exercise, and once every 2 to 3 weeks for older people.
- First time nail clippers
If you are cutting your cat’s nails for the first time, you may be worried about how much you should cut. Also, if you cut too much and bleed, your cat will feel pain. The daily “discipline” is a cat that is hard to remember, but I can remember such painful feelings at once, and from the next time I will not let you cut my nails gently. If you feel uneasy, ask your veterinarian to tell you how much you should cut.
- How to cut a cat’s claws Hold the
cat firmly on your lap and lightly press the paws of your fingers to cut with your thumb and forefinger, and the claws will come out. If you look through your nails with bright light, you should see the areas where nerves and blood vessels pass. The translucent and faintly red streaks are raw nails, so don’t cut them! The white part at the tip is dead tissue, so cut it here, but cut it at least 2 mm away from the raw nails. At first, you just need to cut your toes a little. As you get used to it, gradually cut it a little deeper.
Many cats don’t like being pressed down, not just nail clippers. Some children feel the tension of the owner trying to pick them up with a big surprise, and when they are hugged, they twist themselves and run away. If you forcibly hold down a child who dislikes it badly, you may get injured without having to do it, and the cat will remember that “Hugging = doing something unpleasant”, so when you are resisted, look at the situation. While watching, let’s release the cat as soon as you think it seems impossible and give up on the spot. But to some extent, you also need to show your cat the strength of the owner to convince you, “Nail clippers are absolutely necessary for you and me! So be patient.”
It’s also a good idea to wrap the cat under the neck with a bath towel and cut it one by one. If you still have a lot of resistance, don’t try to cut the claws of your limbs all at once, try attacking only your right forefoot today and your left forefoot tomorrow. Some cats can only cut one cat at a time while sleeping.
Cleaning Your cat ears
Some people are always dry and clean without frequent ear cleaning, while others are prone to sticky earwax and can’t let go of the swabs. The same is true in the cat’s ears.
Cats that are prone to sticky earwax have a predisposition to cause otitis externa because the inside of their ears is easily soiled and yeast is prone to breed. Scottish Folds with broken ears have poor breathability due to their shape, and many children suffer from ear diseases. In addition, cats that are free to go out may come into contact with other cats and receive souvenirs called ear mites. Don’t forget to check your ears!
- When do you need to clean your cat’s ears?
Ear cleaning is not particularly necessary for cats that are superficially unobtrusive. However, for cats with blackish earwax on the outer ear, it is necessary to wipe it clean with a piece of cotton, etc., only within the reach of your fingers. If you use an ear cleaning chemical available from a veterinarian, it also has a bactericidal effect and you can clean your ears smoothly. At my home, I use a few drops of a chemical called “Virbac Epi-Otic” soaked in cotton. Even if your ears are clean, be sure to clean your ears before shampooing. Shampooing without cleaning your ears can cause earwax to swell and enter your inner ear, causing inflammation. Let’s clean your ears first.
Some veterinarians often use a cotton swab to clean the inside of the ear (inner ear), and some veterinarians teach this, but the guide does not recommend this. This is because the cat’s inner ear has a special shape and the mucous membrane is very soft, so using a cotton swab can damage the inner ear and eardrum. If you absolutely must clean your inner ear, it is advisable to have a veterinarian treat you.
- In such a case, consult a veterinarian!
If your ears are so bad that you can’t clean them every day, you may have earwax, otitis externa or labyrinthitis, so get a veterinarian’s diagnosis early. please.
Also, if the inside of your ear looks clean on the surface, but the cat scratches your ear, shakes your head, or cares about your ear, there may be something wrong with your inner ear. We also recommend that you consult your veterinarian as soon as possible.
Clean your Cat eyes
I see cats that have rheumatism when they eat. This is a phenomenon especially seen in cats with short noses. If the distance between the nose and the eyes is short, the lacrimal duct is inevitably clogged, and it is easy for the eyes and tears to come out after eating a meal. Some cats have a chronic sinusitis that has not healed due to a cold at an early age. Even such cats tend to have tears in their eyes after eating. If you leave it on your eyes, light-colored cats such as white will change their hair color due to tears. Bacteria tend to collect in that area, so if you notice any tears in your eyes, gently wipe them with a piece of cotton.
No special chemicals are required, but if it is very sticky, you can wipe it with boric acid water soaked in cut cotton. Some cats don’t like being touched around their eyes, so be careful not to get cut cotton in your eyes as soon as you hug them and relax on your lap.
Some children are not good at grooming their faces, such as having their eyes and eyes sticking to them, even though they are always doing self-grooming. The cat itself has a calm face even if it has black and hard eyes and sticks to it, but if you notice these eyes, pick them up. If left untreated, children with weak skin may develop dermatitis.
If the eyes and eyes are dry and dark, it is not considered to be a lesion, but if it is something like clear water or milky white to yellowish sticky, a bacterial infection such as a cold is suspected. So please consult your veterinarian immediately.
Toothpaste and mouth care for cats
Older cats often have problems in their mouths. Not only old cats, but also cats that have bad germs in the oral cavity and cats that have weak tooth enamel, so before an important family member (cat) hurts due to a problem in the mouth, it is usually done. Let’s take care of the oral cavity and check the health.
- The state of the mouth that I want to check carefully on a daily basis In
everyday life, whether the color of the gums is beautiful pink, whether it returns to pink immediately after pressing the gums with a finger, or it is specially strange Observe especially if you have bad breath, make it difficult to eat, or have saliva.
- Relationship between food and teeth
It seems that many cats who prefer dry food have relatively clean teeth. Cats are not very chewable animals, but hard dry foods seem to be moderately irritating and less likely to cause plaque. Oral care foods specializing in plaque prevention are also on sale.
- Challenge to brush your cat teeth!
Cats that mainly eat canned food tend to get their teeth dirty, so why not try taking care of your teeth if you have permanent teeth? Simply wrap a slightly moistened cut cotton around your finger and gently rub the outside of your teeth once or twice a week. It is difficult for tartar to stick to the inside of the teeth, so use the outside. Almost no tartar is attached to the front teeth (incisors). Since the back teeth have a complicated shape, tartar tends to accumulate, so polish them intensively. Toothpaste gels for cats are also on sale, but some cats like or dislike the taste. Even rubbing with a cut cotton that does not apply anything will be effective.
- If you have a bad tartar If you put a
scaling device available at a drugstore on the boundary between your gums and tartar and scratch it with force, you can easily remove the tartar, but if you make a mistake, you will have a big bleeding! A cat that has a pain may never show its mouth again. When plaque builds up in cats, they also suffer from periodontal disease, just like humans, and eventually have to extract their teeth. Cats with severe tartar should consult a veterinarian to remove tartar before this happens.
Clean your Cat butt
Cats can spew a very odorous liquid from their buttocks if they feel scared or have unpleasant eyes. At my home, there is a child who scatters this odor when combing near the buttocks, so be sure to squeeze the anal sac before combing this child.
This odor is a liquid secretion from the odor bag around the anus. It is the same as the one that is put out when a weasel or a skunk is attacked, and it is put out from the hole just beside the anus, around 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock on the clock face. The secretions from the anal pouch are usually excreted together with stool, but when diarrhea, constipation, obesity, old age, and stress make it difficult to get out, a large amount of them accumulate in the bag. And if you get inflammation due to bacterial infection, you will get anal pouchitis.
Therefore, I squeeze the anal sac regularly and give out this liquid, but since it smells abnormally, the best time to squeeze the anal sac is shampoo. If you don’t shampoo your cat often, try squeezing your anal sac about once a month when combing.
- How to squeeze the anal sac
All you need to prepare is tissue paper. It is better to have a wet wipe to wipe off after squeezing.
Many cats don’t like squeezing the anal sac, so it would be easier for them to work together, with one holding the cat’s head and body and the other squeezing. The person who squeezes lifts the tail from the root with one hand, applies a few pieces of tissue to the anus, and pushes up around 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock on the clock board from diagonally below, using a moderate amount of force. If you have a lot of secretions in your anal sac, you can see the hole in the anal sac bulging when you raise your cat tail, and you can feel it bulging with your fingers as you get used to it. When a lot of secretions are accumulated, it will pop out vigorously, so do not let go of the tissue paper until it finishes! I will write it many times, but it really smells, so if you get any secretions, wipe it clean so that it doesn’t get on your cat’s body. If you don’t feel any holes or bulges in the anal sac and you don’t have any secretions, you don’t have to try to force them out.
Even cats that look beautiful on the surface due to self-grooming require various care if you consider the health of your family. Not all care has to be repeated at once and every day. All care is basically something that cats don’t like very much, so do it little by little when your cat is most relaxed and when your co-resident feels comfortable. By touching the cat’s body many times, you can understand the health of the cat and increase the intimacy with the cat.
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