Grooming Tips
Depending on the breed, grooming your dog can either be a breeze or a near-full time job. For years, we had Field Spaniels. Since they are a sporting breed traditionally used for retrieving birds on the hunt, they have a dense, double coat. A heavy, water-proof undercoat, and a silky top coat. They required lots of grooming. The undercoat could tangle easily, and the top coat needed reguilar trimming and brushing.
Our current rescue dog (a shepherd/terrier mix) has short hair which drops all over the place. She only requires a regular bath and nail trim. For her bath, we always take her to the groomer which provides a change in scenery and gets her used to being handled by other people. However, we take care of the nails at home. Too many times, our dogs would be petrified at the sight of nail clippers because the groomer had cut into the quick (VERY painful) causing the nails to bleed!
All of our dogs had dark nails which makes it difficult to see the vein in the quick. Allowing the nails to grow too long also is painful for the dog because they will cause the individual pads (like fingers) to spread apart unnaturally. The latest and safest way to trim the nails today is to use the pet Dremel. NOTE: this is very different from the commercial type Dremel. It is battery operated with rechargeable batteries, and spins at a much lower speed than the Dremel that you have in your tool arsenal.
Getting your pet comfortable with a Dremel takes a little time. It is still noisy like its commercial cousin and touching the spinning grinding stone to the nail is a very odd sensation for your dog. It took me a month to get our dog comfortable with the entire process. Now, when she sees the Dremel and I tell her it's "manicure time", she immediately sits and raises one paw. She still gets a treat when I'm finished. Here's how I did it:
I started by simply taking out the Dremel and putting it on the floor in front of her. If she got curious and sniffed it, I used the clicker, said, "good girl" and gave her a treat. I repeated this for almost a week. Next, I turned on the Dremel at low speed and showed it to her. If she didn't shy away, I clicked, praised and gave a treat. This went on for several days. Once she was comfortable with the sound, I would take one paw and gently touch the grinding wheel to one nail. Click, praise and treat.
By the end of the month, I was grinding two feet at a time. I gave her lots of praise and kisses during the entire process. I was also very careful to limit the pressure and time ginding each nail. Remember, it is still a high-speed tool and extended grinding on the nail causes friction heat which can be uncomfortable for your dog. Also, though it's safer to keep from hitting the cuticle, if you're not careful, you can start to hit it which is very painful for the dog.
There are quite a few YouTube videos on how to grind your dog's nail. Watch them carefully to learn the technique of holding each individual nail, protecting the ginder from slipping, and how far/long to grind. One final note: I tried a couple of different brands including ones that included a plastic guard that supposedly protected the nail from being ground too far. Most were cheaply built an only lasted a couple of months. Others allowed the nail to catch in the guard thereby startling the dog. I prefer the Dremel which I have had for two years now and still going strong.