I need help.
My cat has anxiety but he also has a bad habit of tearing things up, carpet, walls, furniture, people if he’s in a bad mood. I’m not evil so I would never declaw him. So I wanted to try claw caps. I was worried about them originally because CJ won’t even wear a collar. If you try to put one on him, he will bite and claw at his own neck until he’s bleeding to get it off. But we needed a solution to his clawing and we tried everything else. Playing, scratch towers, scratch mats, anything his little heart desires but none of it works. He might use his scratch objects occasionally but more often then not he’s destroying my mothers house.
I thought I would at least try the claw caps, they should be comfortable enough, they wouldn’t hurt at all, no scratching. Etc.
Now, after 45 minutes of struggling to get them on him, one is still on crooked even after reapplying it twice because he wouldn’t stop squirming. I’m worried some are stuck on his fur because again he wouldn’t stop squirming, by the time I got to his last paw he was exerting so many smells (he didn’t spray at least), he was shedding heavily, and when I didn’t let him go he straight up but down on my hand and wouldn’t let go. I had to call my mom downstairs to help me. I gave him some of his favorite wet food as a reward and tried to help him calm down because he was starting to hyperventilate from being held tight for so long.
He’s had them on for less than 30 minutes and at first he was just grooming himself which was normal. He was shedding a lot and it was a new sensation on his claws, I thought he might lick them so I wasn’t concerned. I sat down for a few minutes, and he ran under my bed after I finished helping him groom. He wants space? That’s fine, fair, so I let him go.
Not ten minutes later I hear the plastic clicking and grinding. I looked under my bed and boom, purple claw cap. So I told him to stop and tried to pull him out to make sure he didn’t hurt himself taking it off. A few minutes later, two more were off. At this point, he was trying to fucking swallow the evidence! Obviously they’re plastic and could block his digestive system so I grabbed him by his scruff and dragged him out, getting bitten the whole time, but I had to make sure he hadn’t actually eaten any.
I’ve been sitting on my bedroom floor trying to get him to play to distract him but he keeps running away. He keeps biting them off and I’m worried he’s going to make himself bleed, or worse swallow some, and block his digestive tract. I have to go to sleep soon because I have work in about 8 hours and he’s starting to calm down seeing as he’s no longer trying to eat his claws. I’m worried because I work at night, when he’s most active and I don’t want him to don anything stupid while I’m gone.
I also have bad anxiety and the reason he’s my cat now, and no longer the family cat is because I formally adopted him in college to use him as an emotional support animal.
I have given this cat everything he could ever want, and I love him so much but he makes me worry just as much. If anyone has any advice on how to deal with anxious or stubborn cats please tell me. I feel like I’ve tried everything or at least all the normal things and I need advice from real people not articles.
