How we said goodbye to nail trimming nightmares!
I am saddened by some of the stories I hear about owners attempts at clipping their dog's nails. From muzzling to sedation, it seems that so many dog owners are having to go to great lengths to maintain a part of their dog’s good health. Something so simple, yet so important, shouldn't have to be so difficult. If you are an owner that dreads having to get out the clippers or schedule the vet appointment, trust me when I say, I understand where you are coming from. I have a rescue dog that initially barely allowed me to touch her feet, forget about trimming her nails. I will say I only attempted using the clippers once before I abandoned that effort completely. Being that she is terrified of the majority of people, and not wanting to further her anxiety and fear, I did not opt to try a sedated trip to the vets every few weeks.
If you get a furry family member during their puppyhood, please, spend the time getting them comfortable with husbandry procedures. This includes handling of their feet and trimming of their nails, so that as an adult dog this experience is not stressful for either of you. If you did this groundwork and still have issues, or if you adopted an adult dog that struggles with this (like I did), let me share my experience in the hopes that it will make your life just a little easier.
Since I decided to retire the clippers to the farthest reaches of my dog supply cabinet, you may be wondering how I addressed the ever-growing nail dilemma. While searching for alternate solutions I came across the “scratchy board”. Teaching my dog to scratch at a sandpaper covered board allowed her to make her own choice to interact while wearing down some of those troublesome nails. This solution is not a hundred percent since all nails were not becoming filed equally, but through conditioning she allowed me to guide her paw to work on the nails that needed a little extra sanding. This process turned into a bit of a game and she was eager to see the scratchy board come out. Success! Time to move onto the next step.
At this point I wanted her to get used to interacting more directly with both myself and a handheld sanding object since that was much closer to the end goal I was aiming for. Using a small hand sanding block I continued to desensitize her to having her feet handled and allowing me to use the block to work on her nails. This part of the process started to get a bit slow and tedious, but rushing her through this important phase could have resulted in a negative association and potentially ruined all of our forward progress to this point. Being patient, keeping contact short and reward high, we made great progress towards the next goal.
Our final step was to condition her to a Dremel style nail trimmer. Since this not only makes noise and moves, but would also feel very different on her nails, I wanted to make sure I didn’t push her too quickly. I started by simply bringing the tool out and setting it nearby when we were working on her nails. If she showed interest by sniffing or touching the trimmer with her nose, she was rewarded. I then began handling her feet while holding the tool (powered off), even pretending that I was going to work on her nails with it by touching each nail with the sandpaper end before rewarding. She handled this surprisingly well but I attributed that to the amount of time we put into the earlier stages of training. Next was to turn on the tool and reward for being calm or showing interest which quickly transitioned into my touching her feet while the trimmer was on. This became a bit of a game and she even started offering her paw to me (she already knew “shake”). From this point forward it was just a slow transition into using the trimmers on her nails. At first I was only able to touch a single nail very briefly before rewarding, but over time we worked up to an entire foot before she received her reward. Today she will even sit nicely for me when it’s time for her “pawdicure”. A long process but well worth the time invested!
I cannot promise this will work for every dog and I am lucky that her nails are fairly soft so the tool I chose is enough to get the job done. Some of you may be wondering why I did not just condition her to the clippers if I was able to get her used to something else. I did have a few reasons for going in this direction. The first being that her reaction to clippers the first time I brought them out lead me to believe she already had a very negative association. It’s possible we could have worked through it with time, but I needed to make some progress on her nails sooner than later. The other benefit in using the sandpaper is that there was no chance I could accidentally cut her nails too short and hit the quick, resulting in a bloody toe nail and a negative experience. The last reason is based on my effectiveness as her trainer. Our initial attempts at nail clipping were very stressful, not only for her but for me as well. I dreaded having to work through it and I knew if I felt that way my stress would likely be transferred to her. By choosing a solution which initially had neutral connotations we were more easily able to turn that association positive.
Whether you choose to try an alternate route like I have or you prefer to stick with the tried and true, the most important thing is to work on building a positive association with the tool and the process!
