TRIMMING YOUR DOG'S
TOENAILS
by Lee Weston
Trimming your dog's toenails can be easy or difficult,
much depends upon the owner, the owner's competence and confidence.
To make it easy, keep the toenails clipped on a regular basis, either by
your veterinarian (which is expensive but relieves you of the responsibility)
or do it yourself about every 10 days. Using a good set of clippers
is imperative to keeping this easy for yourself and simple for your dog
to get use to. Some breeders use a dremel tool with a sanding wheel
on it, but you really should be confident, and competent, in the use of
clippers first. If your dog hasn't had his nails clipped in a "long"
time and they are like eagle talons, then you're going to have to clip
them back a little every couple of days until they are the proper length.
If you note in diagram 1, within the nail is a blood vein that "feeds"
the nail, this "vein" is referred to as the "kwik" of a dog's nail.
Should you cut this kwik while trimming the dog's nail, the nail will start
to bleed. The blood will eventually clot, but in the meantime it
will seem that the blood is going everywhere.
As you cut back the nail a little at a time, the kwik
will shorten also. Only when the nail is kept short can the nail
be trimmed without the bleeding. See diagram 2.
Diagram 3 shows a properly trimmed nail.
The fun part of all this, of course, is getting your
dog to cooperate. If you have been trimming the nails on a regular
basis, the dog will be used to the process, and will not give you a great
deal of difficulty. But, as in our case, we have an abandoned dog
that we adopted and she had never had her nails trimmed. Needless
to say we needed to restrain her before she would let us do this strange
thing to her. With restraint, it is important that no more than what
is necessary is used. Too much will cause the dog to panic; too little,
the dog may injure itself and/or others. It is best that you have
a veterinarian demonstrate to you the first time, how to restrain your
dog safely, and how to trim your dog's nails.
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