grooming
Cutting Your Dog’s Toe Nails Keeping your dog’s toe nails in good shape is important to your dog’s overall health and bones. Why you ask? Because overgrown, broken, or infected nails are not only very painful, they can spread infection and cause severe lameness. Your dog’s limp may not be from arthritis or an injury, it can be a broken, overgrown or infected nail! Inspect your dog’s feet daily. If you handle your dog's feet frequently, you will make your toe-nail cutting job a lot easier. You will also know what's normal so that you can the spot little problems before they become big ones!
Toe nails and feet go hand-in-hand! Every day, massage those feet, spread the paws open, rub your fingers in between the paws and rub the nails; visually inspect your dog’s pads for cracks, injury or mats, check the nails for splits and length, and press all over to see if anything hurts. Look at your dog’s nails and note the shape of the nails to look for wear. This is like an orthopedist checking the soles of your shoes to see how you wear them down. How a dog’s toe nails wear will show you how the dog places his weight on his feet. You just might find orthopedic problems before you notice other symptoms by looking at your dog’s nails. Remember, you are your dog’s first line of defense in catching problems!
Dawn S. Garrett has written a great article entitled, How I Dremel Dog Nails, that shares her knowledge from years of experience dremmeling her dog’s nails, and includes step-by-step photos. This is a perfect article to explain how to cut dog’s nails whether you use a Dremel or a nail clipper. CLICK HERE to read it.
CLICK HERE to read an article from Washington State University's
College of Veterinary Medicine, with clear pictures, of how to cut your dog's nails.
What You Need to Cut Your Dog’s Toe Nails
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your vet for the first time (and as often as needed) to teach you how to do this and to look for any problems with your dogs nails or feet
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styptic powder to stop any bleeding if you cut the quick
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treats
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nail clippers specific to your dog’s size (your vet or groomer should recommend which ones you should use)
- plier-style clippers
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scissor-style curved nail clippers (good for small dogs)
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guillotine-style clippers
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a cordless Dremel tool to grind your dog’s nails down if you don’t want to use a toe nail clipper (A cordless Dremel should shut off automatically if your dog's hair gets caught in it; whereas one with a cord doesn't. So please check the specifics of the Dremel you want to purchase.)
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possibly another person to help you
Keep in mind:
- You don’t want to cut your dog’s quick. So, trim a small amount on a regular basis rather than to try and remove a large piece of nail at one time. At first you may have to do this weekly to try and get the quick to recede.
- Trim nails so that when the dog walks, his nails do not hit the floor and make that click-click-click we’re all too familiar with.
- Cut your dog’s declaws if they were not removed. Declaws are toe nails that are 1-4" above the feet on the inner side of the legs. If they are not trimmed, dewclaws can grow so long they curl up and grow into the soft skin, like a painful ingrown toe nail or they can get caught and torn.
- If you want to use a Dremel, several of our members recommend a cordless Dremel because the cordless Dremels should shut off automatically if the dog’s hair gets caught in them. Dremels with cords can be dangerous because they do not shut off automatically.
- Dogs that are walked frequently on concrete usually wear their nails down themselves so you have less cutting to do. Still check the nails and feet as usual!
- Protect your dog’s feet in the winter snow and ice by using a pet safe product to melt the ice, not regular salt.
- Protect your dog’s paws from the salt used to melt the snow and ice with special dog boots or by using a salve such as Musher's Secret or Bag Balm