We took Mina to the vet yesterday for a rabies shot and to have a toenail checked out. I mention this because we learned a couple of things that were interesting.

First, cat nails normally look like this:

Instead of getting all pointy at the end, however, Mina’s nails are much thicker and longer, as if her nails don’t get to the pointy-point part.  This means that when she hooks them on things, the tip of the nail doesn’t flake off – it sticks.  And what do cats do when they’re stuck?  They try to pull themselves free.

The result, as we discovered yesterday, is that Mina has broken two tiny bones, one in each of her front feet.  One happened at least a year ago, while the other seems to have happened in the last couple of days!  This sounds totally awful, but it’s apparently not uncommon and usually heals on its own.  She doesn’t seem to be in any pain except when we try to cut her nails, which makes sense.  They gave her an antibiotic, and we’re doing our best to keep her from scratching on things.

In addition to her big nails, we were also told that based on the size of her head and her big ol paws, she actually is smaller than she could be – which seemed funny to us since she has such sumptuous fluff – but might explain why she’s always foraging for snacks.  Seriously, look at that fluff: