Can cats still catch mice and have the ability to defend themselves if their nails are trimmed? The reason I'm asking is I have a young semi-feral neutered male who lives in my yard/my garage/sometimes my house who loves to be outside. He's always in at night but he really can't stand being cooped up and he gets a little frisky unless he's out and in any case my house is pretty isolated in the middle of nowhere so he's generally safe. Well, his nails are getting long, even tho he uses scratching posts and stuff, and lately he's been getting stuck to the back porch carpet, and if he's in the house sometimes he'll get stck to the carpet, so I'm assuming his claws are too long. But I DO still want him to have use of them because every now and then I'm sure he'll get in a little cat skirmish every now and then and I also LOVE the fact that he catches mice before they make it to my house =P.. So does trimming them make them less effective? And wowsers how would i go about doing that in the first place (he's a tad rowdy..lol)..
tia =)
tia =)