little_tippler

So my cats are the most adorable things, but they have claws. I would never consider declawing them as I feel very strongly against that. Don't try to convince me please as that ain't happening.

When I'm not trying to "do" something to them, they will let me grab them pretty much any way I want, stroke them, play around etc, but if I try to cut their claws a little shorter or apply anti-flea products they go a little nuts on me - wriggling out of my grasp and sticking claws out in fear. I have always loved animals but been pretty chicken on how to deal with these kinds of situations. I hate pain and I hate getting the hell scratched out of me. They don't mean any harm but sometimes I'm just a coward. It's my own fault becaues I was too lazy to teach them when they were little and now I have trouble if I want to snip their claws, bathe them (once a year), bursh their teeth, brush them, and stuff like this. It worries me as in later life they may need more "handling" so to speak and I'll be useless. I want to learn how to get around this. Does anyone have tips? Like I said, my cats are extra docile but they hate it when I'm trying to do something non-habitual and "annoying" to them. All the rest of the time they are the best.

Thanks for the help

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918