Dog nail cutting tips - any help appreciated.

[dballance]

My dog absolutely hates having his nails cut. I know this is something that many of us encounter. Does anybody have some good suggestions for how to work with the dog to make it less stressful for both him and me?

[BainsBane]

1. This isn't what you want to hear

but I have only two suggestions: pay to have it done, or take the dog for a lot of walks on sidewalks. The pavement wears down the nails. If you have a small dog with thinner nails, it might be easier, but it proved impossible with my dog. I bought a gizmo that was supposed to make it easier, and it was a complete failure.

[hollysmom]

2. I wish - it takes several people to hold down my little but determined dog. finally,

Finally I have started using a manicure set that you use to sand down people nails and I use it to round out my dogs nails. They are not short but they don't rip my skin off any more. She tries to escape when she hears the whirrr, but does not fight as much as when clipping and I am not afraid of hurting her and causing blood. I never get it down much but doing a little at a time, it helps

[PoliticAverse]

3. Dremel nail grooming tool...

http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/dog-behavior/trimming-your-dogs-nails

[dballance]

6. I have a Dremel.

I'll have to go to their site and see they have something specific for dog nail trimming.

[PoliticAverse]

7. The nail grooming model is battery powered and 2 speeds,

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=7300-PT

but it is the tip that really matters which is a #430 or #407 sanding drum.

Dremel nail trimmer manual: http://mdm.boschwebservices.com/files/r19424v3.pdf

[Mosby]

4. use a bypass clipper

And you can do a whole paw before he wakes up.

[applegrove]

5. Do one paw. Wait a day. Do another

paw. Doggie will forget if you the whole thing over a week.

[roody]

8. Even just a couple of nails per day.

Give her a dab of cheese as you cut the nail.

[alsame]

9. I've always trimmed

my dogs' nails myself, except for one. She never got used to it and would get very anxious.

With her, the solution that worked was to have them done professionally while I held her, stroked her and calmed her down by speaking softly. It worked for us.

[Ino]

10. I taught a cat who hated me to peacefully let me trim her claws.

Hopefully, your dog doesn't hate you, so it should be easier! Do it in baby steps with rewards.

This is how I taught the cat, who would attack me just for walking by her, or picking up something next to her -- much less actually touching her! Keep in mind that it was either she let me trim her razor sharp, hooked claws so I didn't get shredded multiple times a day, or she'd go to the Humane Society where she'd surely be put to sleep cuz she was crazy aggressive. It was a desperate situation for both of us.

She did not respond to treats, so I had to use her regular food. My goal was to hold each of her paws 3 times, for 2 seconds each time. (I wore thick leather gloves.) After each paw hold, she would get one piece of kibble. If she let me complete 6 paw holds, she would get her whole bowl of food. If she tried to pull her paw away, or backed up, or grumbled at me, that was OK. If she hissed, swatted, bit me, or ran away, I would calmly say "OK, I guess you're not hungry." And I would put the food away. Then we would try again a few hours later, for a total of four times a day.

At the end of the second day of training, she was so hungry that she finally endured 5 paw holds for 5 pieces of kibble, then one more for a whole bowl full.

Day 3, we did the paw holds again without any swatting, biting, etc.
Day 4, I moved on to squeezing her toe gently to make the claw unsheath. Again, she was calm and looking forward to her piece of kibble.
Day 5, unsheathed her claw while holding clippers in other hand, not near her, but she could see them in my hand. No problem.
Day 6, unsheathed her claw while holding clippers near her paw. She's not even paying attention to me, focused on the food bowl.
Day 7, unsheathed her claw and just touched the clippers to it. She didn't notice.
Day 8, trimmed her claws. She didn't care!

I continued pretending to trim her claws, or actually trimming them, before each meal for about two months. Then sporadically. Somewhere along the line, I quit wearing the gloves. She learned to trust me, we resolved our differences, and she is my cuddle cat now.

Hopefully your dog will let you move through the conditioning for extra treats, so he won't go hungry. He just needs to get used to it one little step at a time.

[dballance]

11. Thanks for all the good advice folks

I'm sure I can use some combination of all the good advice here to make my life and Nikko's life easier. When I first got new kitties I made sure that as kittens I played with their paws all the time so the no cutting thing was never issue with them. No cutting has only become more of an issue with the dog now that he's older and doesn't get outside as much to get his nails trimmed through natural wear and tear.

[truth2power]

12. My big dog would never let me cut his nails..

He would cry piteously when i tried to use a clipper.

Then I bought a Dremel but it took me forever to try to grind the nails down. Then I went back to trying the clipper, but as you probably know, if you wait too long between clippings the quick grows out to the end of the nail and they bleed all over everything, which is what happened and I had to call the vet in a panic when I thought he was going to bleed to death.

Even PetSmart couldn't dremel his nails properly. Then the groomer who clips him in the summer told me she'd gone to a special training on how to dremel nails. So for $15.00 I figured I'd give it a try.

She took him in back and in about 10 minutes she brought him out with his nails all nicely ground down. I don't know how she did it, but I am grateful.

So if you can find someone who has some expertise in dremeling, I'd say that's the way to go.

I hope this helps.

[TorchTheWitch]

13. I'd let the vet do it since I'm chicken

I'm very lucky though that my dogs are Akitas and they are fussy about their feet always cleaning them thoroughly and chewing their own nails short and smooth. Since Akitas are so fussy about their feet starting from when they're pups you have to get them used to having their feet handled since at times you'll need to look at them closely for one reason or another. I've tried to do that with all of mine but they all hated it... "no touchy me feetsies!" (Boo didn't even like it if I was looking to interested in a foot, and he'd try to hide them from me under his body).

I guess the best advise I can give is start handling your dogs feet a lot and make it out to be a fun game just to get them accustomed to your handling their feet and needing to be still. Of course, treats and praise when they allow it can only help matters. I freely admit though that nothing on earth got any of my Akitas to be ok with having their feet handled... they just didn't like it. Though I can handle their feet in play, it's the holding still part for inspection that they hate.

Since dogs pick up on our feelings if when you go to clip their nails if you're feeling anxious about it they will, too. So, it would probably help the dog and you as well to start out slow with just handling the dog's feet. That helped me a lot to not feel anxious about touching their feet after spending a lot of time just doing it in play to try to get them accustomed to it. It was holding them still or inspecting them that crossed the line for them. Like I said, I'm just really lucky that my dogs took care of their own nails on their own so I never needed to clip their nails.

It may be that your dog just won't stand for having their feet handled or get used to the clippers. If that happens, there's nothing wrong with throwing in the towel doing it yourself and just let a vet tech do it. I understand that vet's don't charge hardly anything for nail clippings, and unless a dog is a real wild thing about it mine doesn't charge anything, and people just have it done on a regular visit or stop into the waiting room, and a tech will come out and spend about 10 seconds doing it (I don't know how they can do it so fast... maybe they get expert at it having to do it so often).

[Auntie Bush]

14. I take my dog to our local pet store...$5.00 + $5.00 tip. Done!

Best money I ever spent. Rosie is a horror to clip. She screams and yelps like she was being killed. I couldn't even watch at first. Now I can and she stopped screaming but she'd bite if she could. The cutter is amazing and well worth it.
I could never ever do it.