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Post by bextull on Oct 4, 2014 18:28:31 GMT
If there are 2 things that I am not satisfied with when it comes to Oscar then they are his teeth and his nails. Nail cutting is now an occurrence that is hated equally by both me and Oscar. He hates it and I hate having to do it because he is such a pain. And I've tried everything. Desensitising him to having his nails touched, to the clippers, to the noise of the clippers and even to the sight of the clippers. I've tried guillotine style clippers and the normal scissor kind. I've tired electric nail files and normal nail files. I've tried cutting his nails after he's had a lot of exercise, before his dinner, after his dinner, before walks, after walks, before showers, after showers, early in the morning and late at night. I've tried cutting them with him lying down, standing up and sitting down. And I have tried doing one nail at a time taking about half a millimetre off each time it's cut. Basically I have tried everything but no matter what I do as soon as the clippers come out his tail goes down and he puts on his best "I'm a poor, neglected dog" face. You you touch his nails and his entire leg jerks back, even when he is asleep. He has a way of putting his entire body on your lap if you put his paw down after cutting a nail, preventing you cutting any of the others. And when it comes to his back paws, well provided you can stop him moving around and if you are quick, you might just get all of them cut on one paw if you're lucky. Good luck trying to get the other paw though. His nails are too long and they are like talons of death, especially on bare skin. You hear his nails clipping and clopping before you actually see him and believe me, when it's 2 in the morning and you are trying to put him to bed without waking the whole house up this sound becomes rather loud. As you can see from this picture, his nails easilly touch the floor. Now I did cut his nails about 5 minutes before that photo was taken and I cut them as short as they can go. So I have one last thing to try. I just need to pick up some sheets of sandpaper first. I'm basically going to get him to do his own nails using a giant nail file. Stick the sandpaper on a wooden board, teach him to dig on it (shouldn't be hard with his record of digging) and let him file his own nails. But I'm still open to any other tips anybody may have so please do share them!
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Post by caz2golden on Oct 4, 2014 19:06:57 GMT
Sorry have no ideas to add. You seem to have thought of so many ways already. Sorry to hear you are still having nail cutting issues. Can one of your other family members help by feeding him as you try the nail clipping!
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Post by bextull on Oct 4, 2014 19:24:46 GMT
Sorry have no ideas to add. You seem to have thought of so many ways already. Sorry to hear you are still having nail cutting issues. Can one of your other family members help by feeding him as you try the nail clipping! Family member, no, but a friend did before. It did not help, if anything it made it worse because he kept trying to get up and go over to them. He's also got this thing of pulling his leg back when you're halfway though cutting the nail making you think "Oh crap, I've cut the quick", but no, it's just another thing he does to escape the nail cutting.
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Post by bectil on Oct 4, 2014 20:23:50 GMT
You're brave cutting Oscars nails that short! I absolutely HATE cutting Alfies nails, as I'm too scared incase I cut the quick. So his nails get trimmed regularly. As for Tilly I daren't cut her nails, as we both fall out with each other. She tends to pull away, and does a silly high pitched bark. Thankfully her nails never seem as though they are desperate for a cut, but they wouldn't hurt to have a trim. We tend to do a fair bit of road work with them, so their nails wear down naturally, especially their back nails which never seem as though they need cutting. With Tilly, you can hear her dragging her hind feet every so often. Goodluck with finding a way that works for you both
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Post by bextull on Oct 4, 2014 22:20:29 GMT
You're brave cutting Oscars nails that short! I absolutely HATE cutting Alfies nails, as I'm too scared incase I cut the quick. So his nails get trimmed regularly. As for Tilly I daren't cut her nails, as we both fall out with each other. She tends to pull away, and does a silly high pitched bark. Thankfully her nails never seem as though they are desperate for a cut, but they wouldn't hurt to have a trim. We tend to do a fair bit of road work with them, so their nails wear down naturally, especially their back nails which never seem as though they need cutting. With Tilly, you can hear her dragging her hind feet every so often. Goodluck with finding a way that works for you both Surprisingly I've never actually cut the quick. Sometimes he'll let out a squeal and I'll think "Oh sh*t, what have I done" and nothing has happened. I tend to take off small bits at a time rather than one big chunk of nail so it's easier to get that close to the quick without hitting it. We do field walking so Oscar's nails don't really get a chance to wear themselves down. But on the bright side the pads of his paws are never cracked cause of all the mud.
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Post by migsy on Oct 4, 2014 22:40:42 GMT
Oh dear bextull,it must be a real problem. Has Oscar had a painful experience at any time in the past while having his nails clipped,or may be he is just sensitive to having his feet touched like many dogs? His nails in the picture after clipping actually look o.k. The only thing you can do is constantly give him tasty treats,I think you are already doing this.He could be sensing you are dreading the experience as much as him. Just cut the very tip off them every two or three weeks,don't ever feel tempted to clip off more,then there is no risk of causing him any pain,and try to be calm and matter of fact while doing it as dogs are so quick at picking up on any negativity.Try singing silly nonsense songs to him to take both your minds off it while you are clipping away.Good luck,it must be horrible when you have to go through this on a regular basis.
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Post by alfiemummy on Oct 4, 2014 22:44:03 GMT
Could you maybe do an extra walk each day on a harder surface? I never have to clip Alfie's claws (except dew claws) as he walks on pavements regularly. Even a short 10 min walk each day could make a difference.
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Post by orpheous87 on Oct 4, 2014 22:51:53 GMT
I feel your pain bextull as trying to clip Ellie's nails is a nightmare. She tries to eat your hand, making it impossible to do more than one nail at a time. Her nails look really, really long too but I don't know if that's just because of her having quite short hair on her feet (compared to Pepper anyway). Although, looking at your picture of Oscar's feet, her nails also seem to protrude further than his do, so if I cut them any shorter, they wouldn't touch the floor at all. I can't suggest any other ideas either. You seem to have covered them all! Let us know how the sandpaper idea works out though, it might be something I can try with Ellie too, lol.
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Post by bextull on Oct 4, 2014 23:14:37 GMT
Oh dear bextull,it must be a real problem. Has Oscar had a painful experience at any time in the past while having his nails clipped,or may be he is just sensitive to having his feet touched like many dogs? His nails in the picture after clipping actually look o.k. The only thing you can do is constantly give him tasty treats,I think you are already doing this.He could be sensing you are dreading the experience as much as him. Just cut the very tip off them every two or three weeks,don't ever feel tempted to clip off more,then there is no risk of causing him any pain,and try to be calm and matter of fact while doing it as dogs are so quick at picking up on any negativity.Try singing silly nonsense songs to him to take both your minds off it while you are clipping away.Good luck,it must be horrible when you have to go through this on a regular basis. He's never had any painful experience with having his nails clipped. He's never had a groomer do them or a vet, always me. He doesn't mind his paws being touched, just the nail itself most of the time. A part of me thinks it could be because of pressure on the nail beds as a result of pressure on the nails the whole time. It's not good if you can hear the dogs nails on the ground as the walk apparently. Something I read a little while ago with regard to agility dogs and pressure on their legs. Then it went on to talk about how constant pressure on the nail beds can affect how the dog walks and stands and have bad effects on health etc. It sounds like a tiny thing that hardly matters but honestly, after I cut Oscars nails so they are just barely off the ground when he stands, he stands much better than when they actually touch the floor. He also runs better on hard surfaces. I'm going to trim the nails on his remaining 2 paws tomorrow and then get sandpaper to make this nail file. I'm hoping it will end all the issues. Then all I've got left is the teeth (and don't get me started on that).
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Post by migsy on Oct 4, 2014 23:27:19 GMT
Good luck with it bextull,are you thinking emery paper?a fine one should work a treat.
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Post by bextull on Oct 4, 2014 23:40:29 GMT
Good luck with it bextull,are you thinking emery paper?a fine one should work a treat. Yep. Duct taped onto a board of plywood. Prop it up against the wall or something and hopefully he'll dig away at it with a bit of encouragement.
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Post by zahada on Oct 5, 2014 13:09:19 GMT
I had a nail cutting problem with my rescue whom we got at 10 months old. This was 10 years ago.
I don't use clippers, I use Dremmel drill with a rotary emery disc attachment.
She used get into a panic and would use her teeth on me. She didn't bite but put her mouth around my hand and squeeze. I guess she was telling me to back off. So for quite a while our nail sessions were very stressful. I had to muzzle her, lay her on the floor and get on with it.
Clicker training didn't work. So I had to think of something else as a reward. What can be a reward for a stressed dogs? Your ideas please. I found the solution but would like to hear your opinions.
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Post by orpheous87 on Oct 5, 2014 13:59:27 GMT
Does the noise of the drill not scare the dogs, zahada? Ellie does the same as your rescue did. She doesn't use pressure really, just enough to make me move my hand away. I would think that letting the dog run away from you would be a reward, but probably not one you'd want to use while trying to do something like cut their nails. Speaking of nails, a friends Springer ripped his dew claw off today on our walk. Lots of blood, but no pain for the dog apparently as he continued running round like a loony!
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Post by zahada on Oct 5, 2014 14:41:39 GMT
The noise did scare her initially, as did the vibration. She got used to those quickly. It was the actual contact with the rotating disc that I think she found frightening or unpleasant. Reward wise - running away is not, in my opinion rewarding, although she may disagree . She has ripped her dewclaw a few times and she showed pain. She is very sensitive. She split her other nails a few times, no pain. Anyway, would like other people's thoughts before I tell all. We can learn so much from others.
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Post by orpheous87 on Oct 5, 2014 18:24:06 GMT
That's what I was wondering as I've often thought of it being an alternative to use for Ellie. No, I wouldn't actually use running away as a reward. Although the dogs would very likely disagree, yes. Benson apparently doesn't show pain if he's hurt. He never yelps or anything apparently. He'd partially done it the other night, been to the vets and been given antibiotics but told to continue with normal exercise. So he had normal exercise today and ripped it pretty much completely out of the pad. There was a tiny bit left in, so I'm guessing he'll have to have that removed. Sorry for the hijack bextull!
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