Toenail Trimming

Another question I'm often asked is how to trim a dog's toenails.

The biggest thing about clipping is going at it with a sense of confidence. If you clip the nail slowly and tentatively, the slow pressure may hurt and the dog is likely to jerk away and your dog will pick up on your nervousness and possibly get nervous himself. The clip should be done with confidence and quickly.

You should first determine where the quick is. This will come with experience. The quick is the blood and nerve supply in the nail. As the nail grows, so does the quick. When the quick is cut, it does sting, just like when you cut your own quick, which may may put the dog off of nail trimming. It's good to have some styptic powder with a numbing agent in it handy. There is actually a little bump (for lack of a better word) on the underside of the nail which indicates where the quick ends. The quick will recede as the nail is made shorter.

When clipping the nail, a lot of people may the mistake of cutting parallel to the ground. The cut should be made perpendicular to the ground or the nail depending on how long the nail is.

The other option is to use a dremel. There are some of these available on television for about $20, but I've found them to be of poor quality. They tend to bind up easily, wear out quickly and burn through batteries. You'll be much better off spending about $60 on a quality dremel that is going to last you for a while.

The advantage to the dremel is you can remove the nail in layers and actually see the quick before it starts to bleed. Also, most dogs like the dremel better than the clippers.

These are just some of the key points to trimming the nails. I found a number of links online that go more in depth. The first link provided below I chose because the illustrations are some of the best I could find. The second is a great video by Sophia Yin on how to get your dog used to having his nails trimmed. It's an extreme case, but the methodology will work with any degree of aversion to the trimming.

http://www.pet-expo.com/trivia/dogs-nailtrim.htm

http://www.askdryin.com/dog_movies.php?mov=youtube&id=274&act=play