Dogs & Claw Clipping?

When my dog was little I used to clip her claws with no problems, her claws were white and not to hard to clip through due to her young age. But now that she's a few years old, her claws have turned black in colour (harder to see the quicks) and, obviously, the keratin has hardened more making it harder for me to clip through them. Solution? The vet!

Now, when I take her to the vet she kicks up a fuss and whines loudly - so loudly infact that the vet's nurse became alarmed! I have to put a muzzle on her to stop her from biting them (they're nice people, very gentle with animals).

I feel that due to her not having had a good deal of interaction with animals and strange people she might be acting adversely. I cannot clip her claws anymore, it's too hard and I'm worried about clipping her quicks.

What should I do? I don't want her to receive injections to calm her down before the clipping process though this sometimes seems like a good idea due to her anxious state. Treats?

You need to just take the "hook" off the end. Any further and you chace hitting the quik.

If you aren't comfortable doing it, see if they will give you a mild sedative to give her before you bring her in.

Take her to a reputable place for doggie grooming. Most places are professional and know what they are doing.

Best of Luck!

I take our dogs to Petco to have their nails trimmed. They muzzle them, but they are experienced and don't usually have a problem holding them down for it because they have several people on staff to help. However, there may be a better way. My dog is missing a toe so she is particularly sensitive about having her nails clipped and it has been virtually impossible for us to trian her to relax when we do it. I'm fairly certain that it can be done, though.

The best if for you to do it, less stress for her. Have someone hold her and put a muzzle on. Calm her by talking, petting, and try to do it after a full day of running around. The more tired she is the easier it is. I think it is more stressful to take her to a vet or groomer since she is in unfamiliar places with strangers.

You could try socializing her. Take her to petsmart or to a dog park and give her lots of treats for good behavior or you could see if you can get a vet to do home visits your talking lots of money there though. Some groomers have grooming mobiles and they do home visits with a big truck and take the dog on board and you can come to and they will clip nails.

Next time though you may try to socialize your animals better to avoid issues like this.

No need for injections.you CAN GIVE HER A PILL THAT WILL CALM HER. i USED TO RAISE GERMAN SHEPHERDS & TRIMMED THEIR nails. If you cut a little deep,put some ALUM on ,it helps stop the bleeding. Just trim small amounts at a time.

Treats work good but only give them to her when she does something good don't just give them to her to her to make he calm down because that then rewards he bad behavoir. You have to wait for her to calm down before the next nail patients is the key and she will get better don't worry.

Wow! Other than contacting Caesar Milano, my only advice is:
Stop worrying about cutting nail too far "back". So, it bleeds - furbaby will not bleed to death. Carpets could become moribund, so cut nails out doors or on kitchen vinyl floor.

Bad sign if baby bites anyone, especially one trying to help.
You simply must get this furbaby under control.
Obedience clases are the way to start

what kind of dog?

Grind down her nails using a Dremel!! I just learned about this technique and I am going to be using it.. check it out here... http://homepages.udayton.edu/~merensjp/d...

They also sell a new product called "Peticure" it is the same thing as a dremel just with a guard.. http://www.peticure.com/

My dogs hate getting clipped no matter what I am going to try this new method since it looks very promising! They say the reason the dog hates nail clipping is because it hurts the quick no matter how careful you are because it squeezes the nail.. grinding it won't do that. the first link gives instructions on how to introduce your dog to the dremel and make it apositive experience.. as you can see in the photos the womans dogs even fall asleep while she is doing their nails!!

Make going to the vets a positive experience, get the vet nurses and vets in on this, hopefully they'll be happy to help. Use set ups ("pretend" situations) to desensitise your little lady to getting her nails clipped.

I would make a plan of how you are going to approach this, starting very low stress and gradually building up as your dog becomes more confident and less aggressive.

For example: Week 1 - visit vet waiting room three times using treats and happy voices, ask vet/vet nurse to stand quietly near dog speaking nicely and toss her a few treats, at home start desensitising your dog to nail clippers by making them part of anything "good", eg. put them in her food bowl so she eats around them, pretend to play with them when she is watching
Week 2 - visit vets x 3, entering empty consult room and spending ten minutes playing with your dog and having a good time, have vet/vet nurse approach dog and crouch down encouraging her to approach, give treats; at home desensitise her to having her paws touched by you, giving lots of treats for good behaviour
Week 3 - visit vets x 3, ask vet/vet nurse to approach, crouch down and pat her gently when she approaches, praise and treats for good behaviour. at home continue desensitising to paw handling/clippers, ask a friend to also touch paws
Week 4: visit vets x 3, get the vet/vet nurse to crouch and pat your dog with the nail clipper in her hand NO CLIPPING YET
And so on and so on until going to the vet is a happy experience!

I'd also desensitise her to wearing the muzzle, just pop it on for a few minutes a few times a day and praise her for quiet calm behaviour. This means if she still has to wear it at the vets then it is not such a bad thing.

Basically your girl has built up a very bad association with the vet clinic/vets/vet nurse and you need to slowly change this to a positive association. Until she is desensitised enough to cope with the nail clipping maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to sedate her... but keep working on the desensitisation so that eventually she wont have to be!

Good luck, take things slowly and if she becomes too stressed at any stage then remove her, the more times she becomes fear aggressive the harder it is to change the negative association.