dew claw sheath

Question
Hi! I'm hoping you can give me some clarity on what's going on with my adult male cat. As it's the weekend I can't take him to the vet until Mon. Both dew claws are surrounded by a papery layer, it's almost like the "cuticle" or sheath is overgrown. He isn't avoiding walking, and he let me touch them for a quick look...not long,though. Is this normal??? There's no pus/blood or swelling as far as I can see.
Thank you for your time,
Shan

Answer
It could be that the nail is just shedding, which it will do. It will then have a thin, papery layer on it that the cat usually pulls off themselves.

I have seen many of these lying on my floor over the years. It seems that the dew claw is the one claw that this happens to the most, probably because they cannot "scratch" with that claw on a post or tree to shorten or help shed the outer nail.

If these don't shed, the nail becomes to thick and if a cat was to rely on their claws to survive, a thickened claw would be a liability to them. Dew claws are used for grabbing prey and "hooking" them as it were, so they are very important to the cat.

So they shed these keratin layers often. None of them like their dew claws touched!
I would have it looked at just to be sure that is all that is going on with it, but it's probably not an emergency.