For weeks Mom tried to trim my nails, but I’m deeply protective of my feet (you know, I need them to run on my wheel for about two hours straight in the middle of the night). I huff up every time she attempts it and because she doesn’t want to hurt me, she’s let it go. Meanwhile, my nails get longer and longer.

You may not know this, but hedgehog toenails have a blood supply—called the kwik—that grows partway into them so that if you cut our nails too short, they’ll bleed. The longer our nails go without a trim, the further forward the blood seeps. You can’t just trim back a super-long nail to a reasonable length or it bleeds; you have to trim it back little by little to force the blood supply back.

Last night I was chilling with Mom and she managed to sneakily trim my nails while I was dozing. She couldn’t trim them much, but it’s a start. I’ll have to be on my guard lest she get another trim in while I’ve been drugged on belly rubs.