by Eve Atton
(winnipeg, mb, canada)
Over night my cat, Ace, lost all but one claw on his front paws. I was able to located 3 out of the 7. Ace is an 8 year old, indoor, neutered cat.
No blood on his paw, no infection, no swelling. He didn’t eat today and is taking it easy, looking annoyed.
I put cold a cold compress on his paw, but he just won’t tolerate it. What causes that?
He is a vivid scratcher on wood and furniture and to clip his nail is a task that I avoid as much as I can.
Will the claws grow back? Is there an underlying medical condition that causes it?
I just recently got laid off and waiting for my first EI check, taking him to the vet right now is not an option for another 3-4 weeks.
Please help. thank you, I am very concerned.
Eve
Hi Eve… thanks for visiting and asking. My best to Ace.
It is possible for a cat to lose a whole claw under certain relatively extreme circumstances such as a jump that went wring or a fight. Perhaps a claw can be broken or even ripped out.
This would normally apply to one individual claw. But to lose a number of claws without blood and to find them as has happened here strongly indicates that Ace is simply shedding an outer sheath of claw during scratching.
Claw sheath – Photo by
Ivers McGraw (FLickr)
This is totally normal and is one reason why cats scratch. I often find the outer whole sheaths of my lady cat’s claws on the carpet.
The outer sheath of a claw looks like a claw but is hollow and about two thirds to three quarters of the entire length of a claw.
What goes against my assessment is that you positively say that Ace has lost his claws. Can you see claws? He may not like you fiddling around with his claws and as they are retracted it can be a little hard to see them sometimes.
Cat claw sheath
by Alice Wiegand (Lyzzy)
I would double check. All his claws should be in place and a little sharper!
If not please get back and make a comment. As there in no blood or infection, on the face of it, there is not need for a vet.
I have checked the best books on cat health that I have and there is no references to a cat losing its claws through an underlying medical condition in any of them. This supports my assessment.
As Ace is a passionate scratcher (good for him) it is likely that an outer sheath will be sloughed off from time to time.
All should be well but please make a comment if you think I am wide of the mark in my assessment.
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Really worried my cat looks like his lost his toe/claw. There’s no blood and he is walking ok. But keeps licking it. Please please advise. I’m worried
Hi Janice, it is very unusual for a cat to lose a toe/claw. There is a difference between the toe and the claw. The toe is made up of several phallages whereas the claw is attached to the last phalange, the piece of bone and the claw beyond the last joint. And you say he has lost one of his toes. That would be highly unusual because if he was injured and lost a toe as a consequence, there would be signs of injury on his paw, in general, in my opinion.
Can you provide a photograph? It may simply be that you are looking at a piece of the sloughed off nail of one of the toes as described in the article. If that is the case then there is nothing to worry about.
However, if he’s injured and he has genuinely suffered an injury to his toe then clearly you will have to take him to a veterinarian. If at all possible, please provide a photograph and the answer will become very clear to me I suspect.
my 17year old cat lost her claws on the right foot. It also looks like part of the skin has retracted and there are definitely no claws. No bleeding or infection it just puzzles me why she lost them
My first thought is that she has been involved in an accident of some sort but you say there is no bleeding so that seems to rule out this idea. Have you tried to extend them by gently squeezing the toes? This forces the claw out. I don’t know of any disease that causes claws to be lost and I don’t think one exists. Please double check. Thanks for visiting.
Hi would love some help – our 12 year old cat came home last night with a huge gouge above her eye and all her claws missing from 3 paws. We can’t figure out what on earth happened to cause this – do you think she’s been in a fight?
She’s been asleep all day and tonight came down to see us and looked so happy, purring and letting us stroke her. her eye looks so much better and the cut is clean and healing. She let us look at her paws but doesn’t really want us to touch them. She hates going to the vet, is she ok for us to leave her? Do we need to do anything with her paws?
Sarah, I will have a wild guess and say that she has been involved in an accident of some sort perhaps a road traffic accident. She has certainly suffered some sort of trauma in an accident. Are you sure that she has lost all her claws? Are her paw pads injured? Are there any other areas of the paws which are injured? Personally, I think it would be wise to take your cat to a vet to have a checkup to make sure that she has not suffered any internal injuries.
An alternative possibility and one which is difficult to accept and probably unlikely is that she has been abused by a person. There are quite a lot of people out there who like to hurt cats. Either way a vet check I think would be sensible because you just don’t know whether she has suffered injuries that are more extensive than you can see.
Good luck to you both.
Hi Michael
Thank you so much for your reply. We will take her to the vet today – I was wondering if she had been hit by a car too.
I managed to get a better look at her paws last night – no other sign of injury and some of her claws are still bearly there but are completely shredded.
The cut over her eye is looking so much better today too and she’s a much happier cat purring and coming to us for strokes and cuddles.
However, I’m still worried about internal injuries because she was struggling to drink water last night and making a funny rasping sound and doing funny almost sneezy noises.
Trip to the vet today to get her checked out for sure.
Best of luck to you both. Fingers crossed it is not too bad.
I have just found 2 of my cats claws on the floor she is only 2 years old she’s an indoor cat I’m worried she’s eating and walking around ok thanks for reading
It is okay Tina. It seems that what you are seeing is the sloughed off outer sheath of two of her claws. This is normal. The claws shed this “outer skin” regularly. Don’t worry about it. Thanks for commenting.