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Trimming Your Dogs Nails

Trimming your dog's nails can be a stressful situation, especially if you've made a mistake before and cut too close to the quick causing pain for your dog as well as a bleeding nail.  But, trimming your dogs nails is an important part of grooming.  Your dogs nails are constantly growing and if they get too long it can make it hard for your dog to walk.  If you dog walks a lot on rough surfaces like cement or pavement his nails might get filed down naturally, but for most dogs a periodic nail trimming is necessary.

The first thing you want to do is make sure that you get a good sharp pair of clippers.  There are a couple of different kinds but I find that the guillotine style is the easiest to use.  These are the clippers that look almost like scissors but the scissors blades would be there are two rounded out sections - the dogs nail gets placed in the center of the rounded out sections and you squeeze.  Another variation of this is like a clipper but with a rounded hole - you put the nail in and squeeze down instead of squeezing together like scissors - a blade comes out and chops off the nail.

In order to be sure that you don't cut the nail too short, you need to understand a bit about the structure of a dogs nail.  On the outside is the hard part of the nail that doesn't really have any feeling but in the middle is the “quick” which  full of blood and can be quite painful if you cut into it.

If you hold your dogs nails up to the light you might actually be able to see a darker line in the nail - this is where the “quick” is and identifying where it is will allow you to be able to cut the nail well away from that area.  But some dogs nails are to dark and you kind of have to gauge where the quick is by  trimming off a little bit of that nail at a time until the nail is short enough, but, hopefully, before you get too close to the quick!

You want to be careful also not to crush the nail which can happen easily if you're using a dull blade.  A crushed nail can actually be painful for the dog and can cause the nail to chip off leaving jagged edges that can get caught.

When trimming your dogs nails, you might also consider using a file to file down the rough edges.  Also, some dogs have hair that grows out between the pads of their feet and nail trimming time gives you a good chance to trim off his hair as it can make walking on the slick surfaces like hardwood or vinyl flooring very slippery for your dog.

One final thing, when it comes to nail cutting time be sure to have some steptic powder on hand just in case you do cut into the quick.  You’ll be able to put this powder in your dogs nails to stem the bleeding and avoid a mess on your rug or floor.

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