Jaali had let the claw on his right ‘thumb’ get really long. It was getting to the stage that he’d have to go to the vets to have it trimmed. Thankfully he’s sorted it out himself.

In the past Jaali has cut his own claws when they’ve got too long. Its much more comfortable for his humans when his claws are nice and short but he lets them get quite long before trimming them.

The last time he trimmed them he didn’t do the claw on this right thumb. Since then it has got longer and longer. Eventually it started to curl round on itself and underneath his paw. Daily inspection showed that it was getting very close to digging in to one of his pads. A trip to the vet seemed imminent because Jaali didn’t show any sign of sorting it out himself.

Then, the other night, after Jaali had climbed onto a chair he started to fuss with his right paw. Perhaps he’d caught the claw as he’d been climbing. Rather than trim it to length, as he usually did, he pulled the old claw off backwards. It didn’t seem to hurt him and underneath, ready formed, was a brand new claw. A nice short claw.

It was hard to imagine what a trip to the vets for a pedicure would have involved. Jaali is a friendly and trusting rat in his own surroundings but he has never been to the vets. He is also completely unable to stay still for more than a few seconds. It wouldn’t be appropriate to put him under just to have his claws trimmed so Jaali would have had to be held still while the offending claw was snipped. Its likely that more than his claw would have been snipped!