Nail trimming (again)

[edzbird]

Well I just have not managed to get near Megs nails. Last night at Dog School, our trainer was boasting about having cut the hair of Zeba, a feisty Yorkie who goes. When Zeba's mum does it she has to do it in several steps (rather like our Little Nelly @kateincornwall ), and she gets really aggressive. Well he'd done a good job so I said "Can you do Meg's tiippy-toe-toe nails?" - Well he likes a challenge. I offered to bring her muzzle next week, but he said "no, don't need that, we'll have a go now" and out we went.

I held her lead while he chatted to her, tapping her feet, legs, chest quickly and gently with the clippers. She was a little suspicious and started to twist about. So he sent me away, and looped her lead around the gate post. Chatting away to her, he very quickly snipped a little from each of her front nails. I was peering out of the stable, watching - about 10 yards away. No snarling, biting, squealing, pulling away - he just did it. Mind you, she didn't want to speak to him for the rest of the evening (she normally loves Andy and takes every opportunity to run to him instead of me - little cow-bag). He is totally right in saying "it's nearly always the owner's failure" - yep, he's right. I'll have a little go next week. See what we can do. Confidence.

 

[Boogie]

Hmmm - she might be more wary when she sees him with the clippers next time?

I‘ve bought a curved glass dog nail file for Ted and I’m hoping to start getting him used to it early. Tatze never needs her nails clipped, they stay naturally short. Just the dew claws, which the vet does.

I think Ted‘s will be a different story.

 

[kateincornwall]

Reuben hasnt had his cut yet, I suppose its because we walk on woodland trails with sort of gritty surfaces . Nelly , well this usually 100% passive little tyke turns into a whirling dervish the moment we try, enter the Vet nurse , worth every penny of the 15 pounds it costs . We think maybe one of her previous owners had hurt her , poor lamb xx

 

[snowbunny]

I won't do Bella's. She needs them doing, all of the dogs do. However much we walk, they don't wear down enough on the surfaces we're on. Out of all the others, Willow is the most hesitant about having hers done: she loves the process of jumping onto the trimming spot on the sofa, hates the actual "doing", so she's always pushing for her turn, but lots of the time pulls back after giving her start button behaviour. So she takes a lot of effort and energy to keep on the right side of "yes, we can do this". I love the start button and they all use it to tell me I can go. When there's no choice and it's a case of "these need doing now and you don't have a say in it", the cue is that J sits next to her on the sofa. He doesn't restrain her, although he's recently started giving her really vigorous neck scratches which really seems to help. My new diamond bit for my Dremel is a godsend that makes the process so much quicker and easier for everyone.

Bella is a whole other level of foot sensitive though. She is incredibly distressed by it, and I know that the amount of time it would take me to get her to a place where she tolerates it would be unfeasible. She's not in the slightest bit aggressive, but she will scream and shake from fear when she sees the clippers (scissor-type or Dremel), or if I touch her feet. Even when I'm trimming the hair on her feet I don't actually touch the foot, and she will still scream sometimes. Cutting hair. So, yeah, the nails aren't happening.

My decision is that the best thing for her is to defer the job to a professional groomer. She will still hate it, of course, but the professional will be able to get through the process a lot more quickly, and without any damage of trust between me and Bella. Of course I will do what I can to continue to work on desensitisation, but having me not in the picture for trimming at all will make that go a lot more smoothly.