May 19th, 2020 by Amy Varley

Cutting your dog’s nails…something that many owners dread and with good reason as a lot of dogs seem to be terrified the second the nail clippers come out. If you’ve ever accidentally cut any of your dog’s nails too short and seen how much blood seems to come out, you’re probably just as terrified to cut them too, which is why many of us like to leave nail clipping to the professionals! It doesn’t have to be a chore though, so here are our top tips to getting your dog to tolerate (we’re not sure if they will ever ‘enjoy’ it!) having their nails clipped!

Start young

The majority of breeders will have trimmed your puppy’s nails before you even take them home, so if this is the case it’s important to keep this up, regular clips taking only the very tips off should be enough, with plenty of rewards during and after nail clipping. The earlier you start reinforcing to your puppy that nail clipping isn’t anything to worry about, the sooner they will get used to it and keep still for you to do it.

Start slowly

If your dog does not like having their nails cut, for whatever reason, don’t worry! This can be solved for any dog at any age, it will just take a lot of patience and perseverance. Start very slowly with your dog, firstly without even having any nail clippers present, touch your dog’s legs and paws, rewarding them every time they let you. A tasty treat and an excitable “Yes!” Should encourage your dog to allow you to keep doing this. This should continue every day a couple of times until your dog allows you to feel all of their legs and paws with no flinching or trying to pull away. This counter-conditioning could take weeks so don’t give up!

Introduce the clippers slowly – without using them

Place the clippers on the floor and invite your dog over to investigate them. Put a treat on top of the clippers. Don’t make a fuss of them, just reward your dog when they take the treat and/or calmly sniff the nail clippers without backing away. Once your dog appears to be comfortable with the clippers in the room, again run your hands up and down your dog’s legs and touch their paws, with the clippers present, however don’t actually touch or pick up the clippers. Continue this for a number of days until your dog is completely comfortable.

The next step involves touching the clippers to your dog’s paws without actually using them. Tap the end of the clippers on each toe and reward your dog for allowing this. If your dog isn’t comfortable with this or gets twitchy after a couple of toes, then leave the training session for later, and try again with just one toe at a time. This is a vital step in the counter-conditioning so this might have to be practiced for weeks until your dog is really tolerant of the clippers.

Research dog’s nails

Something that many dog owners don’t know is that dog’s nails can actually be ‘read’ as they have a number of layers that indicate how close you are to the quick (the bit that bleeds!). If your dog has clear or white nails these layers are much easy to see, as you can often see the pink quick and therefore will be able to see how much you can cut off. Dogs with black nails are more difficult to read but provided you have followed all the previous steps; you should be able to study your dog’s nails and this makes cutting them a lot less scary! The quick is surrounded by a fleshy dot, so it’s important that when you can see this circle in the middle of your dog’s nail, you stop cutting.

Start with little slithers

To build up yours (and your pooch’s!) confidence, once you think you’re both ready to start cutting your dog’s nails, don’t jump in all guns blazing, no matter how overgrown you think the nails are! To begin with, only remove the very tip of each nail, rewarding your pup as you go along, with a very high value treat once you’ve finished! You may find that your dog will only tolerate you cutting one nail per session. This is fine, go at a pace that your dog is comfortable with! One nail a day is better than none! If your dog is being too wriggly or is feeling overwhelmed and anxious, go back a few steps. This process doesn’t happen overnight, it could take months in total for your dog to completely become comfortable with nail clipping, and it is important not to force anything upon them as this will increase their anxiety and may undo all your hard work with the counter-conditioning!

Once you feel more confident taking a little slither of your dog’s nail off, study the end of your dog’s nail and see if you can see the circle in the middle. If you can’t, then it should be safe to take another slither off. It’s safer to keep taking multiple thin slithers off than to cut a larger piece and risk cutting into the quick!

Keeps some blood-stop nearby

There are a number of products on the market for stopping the blood from dog’s nails from continuously bleeding, and even if you feel completely confident it’s still useful to have some close by, as accidents can happen! If you haven’t got any but cut into the quick by mistake, your standard kitchen flour can be used as a substitute!

Try a nail grinder

For some dogs it isn’t the fact of having their nails cut that they don’t like, it might just be the tool you are using. Some dogs prefer to have their nails filed down, either by hand (Which may take a while) or using a pet nail grinder. These can be purchased online or at most local pet shops, and in a similar way, it’s important to get your pet used to them before you actually use them, so let pup sniff and take a treat from next to/near it, before slowly introducing them to the noise it might make, before using it on your dog’s nails.

Why is it Important to Cut Your Dog’s Nails?

Nail length is more important for our dogs than you may think. If nails are overgrown this can affect the positioning of the feet, and are more likely to suffer a break or a tear – which may lead to infection. Because of this it is very important that you keep on top of your pooch’s nails, either doing this yourself with help from our counter-conditioning or allowing a professional groomer or vet to cut your dog’s nails regularly.