Excision of a claw or nail or claw or nail bed. A surgical procedure carried out on single, damaged or diseased claws and at other times in domestic cats for social reasons and exotic cats, canines and ursids for the well-being of handlers and cage-mates.

• nail clipper o. — a guillotine-type nail clipper is used to remove the third phalanx in cats.

Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved.