Taking care of our dog’s nails can sometimes be an arduous task but it is a necessary one.
If a dog’s nails grow too long, the nails push against the ground every time the dog puts weight on his or her feet which affects the movement of different joints by shifting the alignment of the leg bones and that can cause our dogs pain and lead to arthritis. It is hard to imagine that long nails can cause our dogs hip, knee, spinal pain and more, but it’s like that old song, “…shin bone connected to the knee bone…”
Sometimes our dogs allow nail trimming with little protest, but more often than not, if we have not trained our dogs to tolerate (and even love) nail clipping or dremmeling, they are only putting up with it.
“Love it?” You say?
Indeed. Before my fringy dog Pinball came along, all my dogs had their nails demmeled. They came running when they heard me taking out any power tool, disappointment showing on their faces when it wasn’t the Dremmel, but my saw or nail gun instead.
But, when it was Dremmel time, it was party time!
Because Pinball had such long fringe, I could not Dremmel his nails. The fringe from his tail got caught in the sanding drum early on in his nail dremmeling career, and that was enough for all of us. Instead, I had to clip his nails, which is not my favorite. I’ll admit it, I am a “quick wimp” and because of my fear of clipping his quick, I never cut too much away. This left his nails always a little too long.
It was time to teach him the sanding board.
Here is one of my favorite students, Bandit, taking care of his front nails himself on the sanding board. As you can see, he is enjoying himself.
“Nails part #2” will instruct you on how to build a sanding board.
“Nails part #3” will outline how to teach your dog to love sanding his or her own nails on your very own sanding board!
Stay tuned!