Nails By Sasha

Handy hints on clipping nails
A guide to clipping your pets nails.

The most common reason for avoiding nail trims is that owners are afraid of cutting the nail too short which can cause bleeding and pain for the animal. This creates ill feeling around the procedure and possible mistrust in the dog. The result being that nail cutting becomes an event surrounded by angst and drama.

If nails are left too long this can cause painful feet and deformed toes. When a dog’s nails contact hard ground like roads and footpaths the hard surface pushes the nail back up into the nail bed. This either puts pressure on all the toe joints or forces the toe to twist to the side causing the toes to become very sore.

For very active dogs who walk often on varied surfaces, cutting nails may not be necessary.

Many dogs also have front and back dew claws. Dew claws are higher up, like our thumb, and don’t reach the ground. These can become quite sharp and long and almost always require clipping at some point even if the others don’t.

Often nails are clipped too short because the dog doesn’t like having their feet touched and they will often move around or try to run away causing the person with clippers to slip. This is especially so if they have had a bad experience with nail clipping in the past, and the cycle of fear and stress continues. However, nail clipping doesn’t have to be as daunting or stressful as it this. De-sensitising a dog to the stress of nail clipping is possible and can even make the activity a fun, treat filled experience.

Check out this great video from Dr Sophia Yin on how to counter-condition a dog to nail clipping and have a practice at home. The diagram above will show you where to clip long nails in order to get it right and prevent any accidents.

Always remember, when it comes to clipping nails less is more and more often is best.

These tips will also help with other species, including cats, bird and rabbits. Dr Yin has a great article on Fin, the cat who’s afraid of toe nail trims.