iPad or All About Cat Pads
When Odin (pictured above) goes outdoors with me, he’s very active climbing trees and doing agility training on a variety of surfaces. The paw pads cushion and act like shock absorbers giving cats the grace of an Olympic gymnast. I like to check all my cats’ paws (and often wash off mud!) afterwards. I use a warm, wet cloth but no soap. Pink pads are harder to clean than black ones but easier to spot any injuries. The pads are tough but can be pierced by thorns or sharp objects or wood splinters (even indoors). By checking your cat’s paws regularly, you’ll know when something might be amiss. These sensitive pads contain sweat glands and can absorb chemicals from floor cleaning and other products. Chances are what ever your cat walk on will be licked off. If painting or doing other household projects, keep kitty away.
Unless a cat is polydactyl, meaning having extra toes, each front foot has four toe pads, a large pad (metacarpal) in the center and a rough protruding pad called a carpal pad. The two back feet have four pads plus a larger center pad (metatarsal). Each toe has a claw plus the extra dewclaw on the front legs. Cats can flex and extend their paws to almost twice their width for gripping prey and climbing surface.
Odin’s paw pads are piebald, meaning there are two colors, pink and black. The color of the fur near the paws pad determines the color. Darker fur results in gray to black pads and lighter or white fur results in pink pads.
How many toes does your cat have? And what color?
17 Comments
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Texas, a cat in New York
Oh that is very interesting, especially about the color of the paw pads. Only Milou has black paw pads and the humans always wondered where it came from exactly. Now they know. Thanks =^.^=
Purrs
catfromhell
Wow! Austin and Kozmo is even more like twinS
Koz has white paws and only the bottom of his pads is pink! Mine is a beautous silver grey – like my nose!
kisses
nellie
Astro Gremlin
Cats seem even more strange when you start looking at their paws. Strange that the extra claw is called a “dew claw.”
JJ
I always learn something new without it being preachy or boring. Thanks for all you do for cats!
Brian
We all have the standard number of toes with color coordinated pads, some furry, some not!
Abby
Piebald!
Wow I learned a lot from your post!
Most everyone in our household is a piebald. MOL
purrs
>^,,^<
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CATachresis
That’s interesting! Austin has white paws and dark pads??? It’s a shame as he loves pink, as you know! 😉
da tabbies o trout towne
dood, pleez dont make us take a math test…we canna count veree good but we due noe sauce’s toes bee piebald like ewe !!!
Deb n Cats
Mija’s are pink and Pilchard, by virtue of being a solid black cat, has solid black pads. Neither one is polydactyl. Pilchard also has the long strands of fur between the toes. My vet said that’s because she doesn’t go outside. Outside cats wear that fur off.
TheNewGrayMare
Misty doesn’t go outside and she doesn’t have long tufts of fur between her toes.
Two main coon kittens I rescued both had extremely furry paws. The tufts of fur between their toes were longer than their nails!
Is Pilchard long haired? Maybe that has something to do with it. Or maybe Misty is just weird 😉
mbavaresco
Well, my four cats are different:
– Nelson has his paws as Odin;
– Bartolomeu has paws with pink pads;
– Ebano, my black cat, have black pads and a peculiarity: he has only three legs;
– Luan has pads with pink gray mixed.
=)
prancer pie
We haf lots of different colored toesies at our house and our Mommy is crazy fur all of them. It must be a human thing! MOL!
TheNewGrayMare
My girl tricked me when I first found her. The fur on her second toe is split where the nail comes out, so she looks polydactyl but isn’t really.
http://www.newgraymare.com/arena/misty_kitten2.jpg
Misty is a snowshoe siamese with all white paws, but all of her pads are black.