# Puppy HATES his toenails clipped - and I made it worse



## Wolfeye (Sep 15, 2015)

I've been cutting dog's toenails for at least 30 years now. I've never had a dog hate it so much. Bagheera struggles and tries to get away, even though I've never once hit the quick.

Until last night. OMG, the blood! I thought it'd never stop. I finally found and used a styptic product I had bought a while ago, for such an eventuality, and it did stop the bleeding. Finally. I was worried! And now I'm sure he'll fight even harder to NOT get his toenails trimmed. I felt so bad. I love this little guy so much and that I hurt him caused me deep regret. The loss of trust is going to be hard to fix. He may never let me near him with the clippers again.

Any advice for making his experience better would be appreciated!


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## Charliethree (Jul 18, 2010)

Sorry this has happened, I am sure it must have been pretty upsetting for both of you. 

This article may be helpful to you.
http://redmondsammamishveterinary.c...ogs_to_Love_Having_Their_Toenails_Trimmed.pdf


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

It's not the end of the world if you draw a little blood... 

Obviously one thing you want to make sure you do to avoid too much of a cut is only nip the tips as you trim back. And stop when you see the lighter color that is the quik. 

Trying to take too much off too fast will cause the more dramatic bleeding. Which btw... if that ever happens, go to the pantry for corn starch or baking soda. 

It used to take 3-4 people at the vet to hold my Jacks down so they could trim his nails. And at home he was just as bad....

Giving him a treat after every nail was something that helped. I worked that to me doing a whole foot before rewarding. And now I just quickly do front ends before rewarding and same thing with his back end. 

About now, he lets me just take his foot and quickly trim - each foot. No fighting. The last time I trimmed my younger guy's feet, Jacks saw the treats flying and jumped up to demand his turn with the clippers so he could get treats too. 

You have to be calm and firm when handling them too. Don't let the dogs push you around or get silly.


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## wdadswell (Dec 17, 2015)

My last Golden was horrible to do his nails and never got better, as he aged. So this time around, I wasn't going to make the same mistake. Bodie, from the get go hated it, so what I did, was, attached a bully stick to a set of vice grips and sat on it, with the treat, sticking out and I would work on it every day, for 5 minutes, while he chewed on the bully stick. Some days I did 1 nail and played with his toes and other days more, some days, none. I did this for a couple of months. Every time I did it, I would say wait and it got to the point, of him realizing, what I was about to do and having him wait, until I was finished and he never moved.

He's 15 months now and is as good, as gold. I will say, I'm fortunate in the fact, that the majority of his nails are light and I can see the quick


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## Kalhayd (May 4, 2016)

We have a electric nail filing sort of thing- it works well and she doesn't fight me. We also have our vet do it, too. However, walking outside seems to naturally file t hem down.


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## nolefan (Nov 6, 2009)

Whatever you do, DO NOT give up on working with him. If you can force yourself to practice pretend nail clips every day with treats and petting to help him learn to accept the process, you will do everyone in your house a giant favor. I also am a fan of the dremmel for nails if you continue to struggle with clipping. And don't be too hard on yourself, I have made my share of mistakes and the amount of blood they lose is horrifying, it always makes me feel awful, you're not the only one.


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## Wolfeye (Sep 15, 2015)

Thanks for all the advice and words of encouragement. Yes, I know we'll have to keep working on it. I've trimmed his nails 3 times or more already, and treated him afterwards, but this is the first time I hit the quick. I also have one of the grinder types, which is what I started him out with. I may just go back to that device for a while. His nails are pure black so it's hard as heck to guess the line of death, so to speak!


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## aesthetic (Apr 23, 2015)

Maybe you can see the quik if you shine a flashlight on his toes? No experience with black toenails here, but Kaizer has some dark ones that make it hard to see the quik and using a flashlight helps.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Wolfeye said:


> His nails are pure black so it's hard as heck to guess the line of death, so to speak!


Don't go by the outside of the nail. You are looking at the bottoms - where you are cutting. I'm away from home this week (boo!) but I can probably take a picture (or other people could) to show you what you're looking at.


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## Charliethree (Jul 18, 2010)

One of my dogs has black nails on all four paws. I have found the easiest way to trim them is to turn the paw upside down so that I am looking at the paw from the pad side, it makes it much easier to see how much I needed to trim off. I always trim a little long, just to be on the safe side, he came to me as a young adult dog and no way he wanted me touching his feet, it took a long time to teach him that nail trims are a good thing, so I don't want to risk a setback.


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## LdyTlfrd (Jan 11, 2017)

I find that tiring them out can make nail trimming much easier. We adopted my jrt at 4 mos. & from the get go, I always played with his paws and letting the clipper sit by him helped but he still hates getting his nails trimmed. I find that taking him for a long walk makes him more accommodating. Sometimes I get all 4 paws done in a sitting, sometimes only a nail or two, but eventually they get done. 

With my golden, we did the same thing but she still hates it. Luckily she is a good sleeper & I can get the fur between her pads & nails trimmed while she naps. Its like going to the spa for her, falling asleep & waking all beautiful lol


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## Sandy22 (Mar 12, 2016)

Wolfeye said:


> Until last night. OMG, the blood! I thought it'd never stop. I finally found and used a styptic product I had bought a while ago, for such an eventuality, and it did stop the bleeding. Finally. I was worried!


UGH! This just happened to us. I have never liked trimming nails and had read this thread back when you originally posted it, but nothing prepared me for the blood! So much!

I assume that we need to keep the nail area somewhat sanitary for awhile to prevent infection. Will diluted hydrogen peroxide work after he has been outside?

Any advice would be much appreciated.


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## Prism Goldens (May 27, 2011)

The key to the blood problem is doing their nails every single week. The quick will recede and when it does, your dog will not be bled when trimming nails.


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## Wolfeye (Sep 15, 2015)

Prism Goldens said:


> The key to the blood problem is doing their nails every single week. The quick will recede and when it does, your dog will not be bled when trimming nails.


Partly true, but even with short nails you can still cut too much off. It's not like you can see where it is, all the time. Especially with black toenails.

As far as keeping the area clean or covered after a bloodletting, we have never had an issue leaving it alone. Once a good, solid clot has formed it seems pretty impervious to external infection. Dogs aren't susceptible to a lot of things humans are. The biggest fear I have is that he will reopen it, but again, after a good solid clot has formed it's never happened. Takes a good hour or so for the clot to be stable.


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## kwhit (Apr 7, 2008)

Even on black nails you can see the quick. You just have to begin to shave the nails a little at a time when you think you're getting close. The very top of the quick will be a shiny bullseye in the middle of white surrounding it. If you stop there, they won't bleed, (if they do bleed, flour or cornstarch works better than the styptic powders. Plus they won't sting like the powder does). Getting to only that point will make the quick recede and you can get them shorter next time. Here's a picture of what I mean in regards to the bullseye...


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## Good as Gold (Nov 30, 2016)

Thanks for the pictures. We have black puppy nails too here. I've been quasi successful so far - at first by giving him a rawhide strip chew to keep him occupied (which is the ONLY time he got one), but now that he's growing, he's better able to take off with that. This last time, my husband held him on his lap, belly up and standing, and fed him chicken while I got the paws done. I've also been trying to clicker train discretization - not sure that training takes you all the way to getting the nails done, but we're giving it a go anyway. He easily lets me hold the paw, play with it and touch the clippers to it.... but no so happy about the clip. My previous dogs have all had nice pinky nails which are so much easier to deal with.


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