Nothing Butt Huskies

Keeping a dog’s toenails trimmed is an important health care necessity. If a dog’s toenails grow too long it can impede normal walking, affecting gate, toenails can split and break leaving the dog vulnerable to infection.

Depending on the dog, the surfaces he walks/runs on, the kinds of activities he engages in, the nails may not need to be cut often, a trim about every 6 weeks has been recommended to me.

A lot of people are a little intimidated by the thought of trimming their dog’s toenails. They are afraid of hurting their dog, indeed we can hurt them if we don’t learn the proper way to trim their nails and understand the various tools available to complete the task.

Dog’s toenails have blood vessels and nerve endings inside them, in tissue called the “quick”. The quick ends near the curve of the nail.

It’s important to clip just beyond the quick, so as not to cause bleeding or pain.

All the nails, including the dewclaws (in the thumb position on the front feet) should be trimmed so they don’t get caught in bedding, on carpeting, fences or crates and break or split the nail.

There are a variety of tools available made especially for clipping your dog’s toenails. Hand held clippers are most commonly used and come in two styles, scissor and guillotine.

Either style cutter will quickly and easily cut the tips from your dog’s toenails. I prefer the scissor type, as it has a stop, a metal piece that prevents the dog’s moving about from forcing the nail into the cutter too far just when you’re about to cut, whereas the guillotine style doesn’t have this feature.

Today, there are a variety of dremel tools being marketed for dog nail grooming that offer a method of filing the nail down slowly, rather than cutting it off, thus preventing cutting the quick.

If you make a mistake and cut into the quick, you can use a styptic pencil to stop the bleeding or a q-tip or tissue to apply pressure will stop the nail from bleeding relatively quickly.

When cutting the nail, I hold the paw in the palm of my hand, pressing lightly on the toe of the nail I want to trim with my thumb and index finger, holding it steady, I line it up in the cutting tool so I can see the pink quick just beyond the curve of the nail and quickly snip.

I’ve found that the quicker and steadier the cut, the less splintering of the nail, the more clean the cut will be.

If you’re unsure about doing this on your own, it doesn’t hurt to have a family member assist you by steadying and petting the dog.

I’ve found it easiest to do when the dog is in a prone position on the floor. I’m able to quickly move from foot to foot with little or no repositioning of the dog.