Nail Trimming - It Ranks Right Up There With Eating Spinach

	Step 2 – Nail Trimming Time To Complete: Depends on the dog and your skill level, average is 10-15 minutes Benefits: A Healthy Foot
	As a kid, I used to always eat the things I liked the least on my dinner plate first. Get them out of the way I thought, then everything else would be better. To this day that behavior carries over into everything I do as an adult. I always save the best things for last. Get the work done before the play. Dispense with the unpleasantries first. Get the bad stuff out of the way. So it is with grooming, I do the nails first. I have yet to find a dog that actually enjoyed having its nails trimmed. I have found some that were fairly tolerant to pain and rather stoic about the entire procedure, but I have never had one actually wag its tail and look forward to it. But, it must be done, so I do it first. Get it done with and then get on with the rest of the grooming process. Besides that, you can't do a good job trimming the feet if the nails are long. KKKKatie! - A Most Difficult Dog If a dog is going to be difficult at all, it is going to be difficult with the nail trimming. My Katie was one of the worst, of course, she's an evil Copy (Ch. Candray Copyright) daughter ... all his daughters are evil and I think she wanted to see me hauled away in handcuffs. I would never think of doing her nails at a dog show, I would have been arrested for animal abuse. She could scream so loud upon just seeing the clippers that if we had neighbors they would have been over immediately wanting to know what I was doing to this poor dog. I’m serious, just the sight of the clippers and my dear, sweet Katie would start making a scene. Every clip of the nail was preceded by a continuous howl and punctuated with a high pitched, ear piercing screach. Oh, how I hated to do her nails. Fortunately, (for my hearing) over time and with great care I have managed to convince her that I AM going to cut her nails no matter how hard she fights me and it does not have to be a bloody, painful process if she doesn’t struggle so much as to make me cut too much off at once. The trick to clipping nails is doing it often enough that you become familiar with your dog’s nail structure. With a good sharp pair of clippers you can shave small bits off at a time, gradually exposing the tender quick without actually cutting into it. If you take the time to trim nails frequently and carefully while your puppy is still a puppy, your adult dog will not be a problem. Katie no longer makes a big scene. She has learned there will be no rescuers coming to save her from the evil witch with the Resco trimmers. She still struggles and I still get cramps in my hands but I no longer fear a knock at the door from the SPCA or the PETA folks.
	Hold It! - Are Those Clippers Sharp? If you are trimming nails with a guillotine style of nail clippers, hold the clippers so the movable handle is resting on your fingers while the part that is fixed is pressed into your palm.
	Trim the nail from top side to bottom side, cutting at an angle such that you remove more from the top and less from the bottom or underside of the nail. This is because the quick is closer to the underside than it is to the top side. Take small amounts off at a time. You will begin to see a little white half-moon shape on the cut edge. This is an indication that you are beginning to get close to the quick.
	You want to use sharp clippers, as dull ones will crush or pinch the nail as they cut and may actually cause the nail to split along the grain. This can be very painful for the dog.
	Always have a bottle of styptic powder, like Stop Kwik, around as bleeding can be profuse on some dogs. If you do cut the quick, immediately apply styptic powder to the cut and wait until the bleeding stops before proceeding with the next nail.
	Once you see any sign of blood starting to ooze from a cut, do not cut any more. If you trim to the point where you can see the softer inside tissue, the quick, do not cut any more or you will definitely draw blood. It is quite possible to trim away slivers of hard nail all around the quick fully exposing it without causing bleeding if you are careful and your trimmers are sharp. Doing this will cause the quick to recede more quickly allowing you to cut the nails shorter with each successive trim. This allows you to groom a very tight paw, something that is very desirable on a show dog.
	It is important to keep your dog’s nails as short as possible for healthy feet. This will be the most unpleasant part of the grooming procedure, but it must be done. For an even more in depth presentation on Nail Trimming, please check out this article at Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Rejoice! The worst is over .... now for desert! <PREVIOUS INDEX NEXT>

Nail Trimming - It Ranks Right Up There With Eating Spinach

Step 2 – Nail Trimming