The Easy Way to Cut your Dog’s Nails

The outcome of long toenails can cause pain in your dog’s feet.  This is because when your dog’s nails touch the harsh ground, like kitchen floor or even sidewalk, the harsh surface can push its nails back up into its nail bed. This pushes a lot of pressure on the toe joints of your dog and exerts the force on the toe itself, causing the toe to twist a bit to the side.

Due to this, the toes of your dog can become a lot sorer than you think. Even with the slightest touch, your pet may feel pain.

Sometimes this pain can feel like your dog has arthritis. As a result, when you pick your dog up to cut its toenails, your dog might fuss when you touch its paw. If this happens, have some dog treats with you to calm your dog down and be a bit slower.

This is why you should be cutting your dog’s nails often. The consequences of not cutting your pet’s nails are a lot more serious than you may assume. To avoid all the pain and chaos for your dog, try cutting its nails often.

Now that we have discussed the consequences of long dog toenails, let’s talk about the common fears you might fear during it:

WHAT IF I CUT THEM QUICKLY?

If you’re a dog owner, you probably know what a quick is. It’s a part of a dog’s nail that supplies blood, and if you cut it, the blood starts coming out. This is often what humans are afraid of, and so are dogs. In the case that you have been a dog owner for a long time, you might not be that afraid of cutting your dog’s nails because you may be a lot more experienced by now.

Well, when it comes to cutting the quick and accidentally making your dog bleed, you can use one of the following things:

• Styptic Powder
• Corn Starch
• Styptic Pen
• A Piece of Cloth

Any of these things can reduce pain or stop blood flow. Have a styptic pen at home to stop blood flow, and as for the pain, you can try other things as well for reducing it. Now you know how to stop the blood flow and reduce the pain in case of an emergency.

PREPARING YOURSELF

You can try going to the pet store and taking some skinny chopsticks or toothpicks with you first. This might sound crazy, but it can prove to be quite helpful. You can try cutting tools on a skinny chopstick or a toothpick first. See how that works out for you and what kind of tools work for you better. Notice which tool you can handle on a better level and consider going on to the next step. Make sure you choose the exact tool works for you.

There are certain types of dog nail trimming tools that you can either go and buy from the pet store or either from the local supermarket. You would need to get hang of the tool and then go for cutting your dog’s nails.

EASY WAY TO CUT DOG NAILS

• First, try trimming your dog’s nail either outdoors or in a room full of light
• Seeing the nail structures on pigmented nails is easier than looking for them in white nails
• The insensitive nail, which is the part of the nail that you want to cut, will show up like a chalky ring near the sensitive “quick”
• Keep your clipper blades nearly parallel to your dog’s nail, and try not to cut across the finger
• Try not to squeeze your pet’s toes, because it hurts!
• Make sure you use your fingers to separate the toe for clipping
• You can even try using a blunt-edged scissor to cut excess toe hair and gently hold the paw
• Dogs don’t die from accidental “quicks,” so give a treat to your dog if you make an accidental “quick” and don’t freak out
• Try to make nail cutting fun for your dog!
• Cut about every 2 weeks for good maintenance. If you want, you can shorten them every week.

When the insensitive nail is thinned out and the “quick” isn’t really getting quite supported by it, the “quick” itself will dry up and almost completely recede. That might enable you to cut your dog’s nails even shorter in the future.

Every dog’s nails are different, however, long nails are a big no-no. They cause irritation for your dog and become cracked or dry. It may show a vivid separation of the insensitive nail and the tissue too. It actually makes trimming back longer nails quicker and easier, however, it can be quite a hassle.