Trimming Dog Nails

A dog feels our energy stronger than our words.

A part of basic dog care, learn how to clip nails yourself - even if you've never done it before!

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Tools Needed:

• Sharp nail clippers
• Good Attitude
• Patience
• Reward

My favorite kind of clippers look like this > >

With these clippers, your dog's nail goes inside the hole. You squeeze the handles, making the sharp blade come out of it's hiding place and trim the end of the nail off. The quicker you learn to do this, the better.

Setup for Clipping Dog Nails

Get yourself in the right mind set. Play a soothing song if you need to. Know you are doing something that will help your dog. He doesn't know that if his nails aren't trimmed it will cause him discomfort. He doesn't know his toes can become deformed if his nails grow too long. You do.

How to Clip Dog Nails

Have your dog lay comfortably on his side where you can get to his or her nails easily. Since I am left-handed, I have each of my dogs lay on their right side. This gives me the best view and cutting angle. I sit close to their belly, usually on my knees and start with the front right paw.

Instead of lifting the leg or paw, I crouch over to keep the foot as still as possible. I hold the foot I'm working on. I line each nail in the clippers and squeeze the clippers hard and quick. This way the dog doesn't have a chance to pull away.

In this picture, my daughter shows how to clip dog nails. After I uploaded this picture I noticed both she and her dog Lulu could use some fresh polish, but you get the point.

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I do both front feet, then the back feet. Sometimes the reward is verbal praise, sometimes a belly rub, and often a treat. My dogs are very food oriented!

Trimming dog nails takes me less than a minute.

Afraid of Making Her Nails Bleed?

A surefire way to avoid cutting the quick is to only cut the tip. If you line up your cut with the bottom of the nail, there will be no vein in your cutting path. Once the nail is cut, the vein moves back naturally. Here, I'll show you exactly where to cut, in a picture:

The purple line I drew is the perfect place for a beginner to start. You cannot make the nail bleed cutting on this line. Well, shoot, I need my nails done too. Bright pink was big in our house a few weeks ago.

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Does Your Dog Shake Hands?

If you have a dog who loves to shake hands, you can try trimming nails while he sits. Ask for his paw and snip, snip, snip. You can then get his back paws while he's standing by lifting one back foot at a time.

Once you get the hang of trimming dog nails, you'll wonder why anyone would be nervous about this simple task. And you'll be proud of the time and money you save too!

Now if you'd like, you can move on to Dog Ear Cleaning.

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