Today it's officially been 2 full weeks since little Mina moved in with us. I think she is somewhere in the 5-6 week range, although she might be older and just small for her age. She definitely has all her baby teeth, and she's pretty much fully weaned and litter-box trained.
Since we have the opportunity to raise her right, I want to get her comfortable with having her teeth brushed and claws clipped. I really want to raise Mina to be a very good little cat. Until we can get her tested for FIV/Leukemia and see if she and Vesper can live in harmony, we don't know if she can stay with us forever. Obviously if she can't stay with us, I want to raise a very sweet cat for someone else to love...
Vesper, my senior cat, never ever allowed us to do either of these things -- and so, at 17 years, she has no more big teeth (just the little ones in front). Dental problems have been her major health issue in the last few years.
Does anyone have tips for training kittens to be easy going about dental hygiene and nail clipping? Is it OK to start clipping claws at 5-6 weeks, or are they still too little?
With Vesper we've been lucky -- although she will ferociously defend her claws from clippers, she doesn't scratch furniture or people (except by accident). Still, I feel bad I wasn't brushing her teeth all these years, but I just don't know how to do this so it doesn't traumatize them.
