Anyone clip their DDog's nails? Nervous greyhound....

[sunshinestanley]

Our greyhound usually has her nails cut at the groomers. She makes a huge fuss and they tell me she howls when she sees the clippers - they usually give her an entire bowl of biscuits to soothe her

With the current situation, it looks like I am going to have to trim her nails myself. Any recommendations for clippers? Or techniques for nervous dogs?!

Thanks!

Lots of sighthounds really hate having their nails done. Theres lots of advice on how to desensitise them, but after years trying that we have decided on a technique of getting it over and done with for my saluki x greyhound (my other lurcher couldn't give a toss). We put his muzzle on, and one person holds him, usually against the back of the sofa, and the other clips his nails. Over with in 3 minutes, then muzzle off and he gets the good treats, so although he hates it (and will leg it if he sees you with the muzzle), he forgets after 2 treats. We do it weekly so that you never need to take much off.

I'd highly recommend having a look at Positive Dog Husbandry, it's got a whole section devoted to nails and there's also an accompanying FB group. There's loads of information on how to get your dog used to having their nails done, as well as advice on how to maintain them in the meantime. Scratch boards for instance can be really good as they don't even involve any handling of the feet.

All my whippets now love pedicure day (we do it once a week, on Sundays) and get excited when they see the Dremel come out. Even my old girl who has been extremely foot shy for years since a very traumatic experience with a groomer will now happily have hers done which has made the world of difference to her arthritis. It's taken a while to get them all there but it's absolutely been worth it.

Thanks both! Opposite approaches there I'm not sure she'd get used to a Dremel depending on the noise - she's very noise-averse.

I have to say that we had tried everything before this course of action, inc dremel, using a nail file etc etc etc, but nothing worked at all and as he has the massive fast growing saluki nails they have to be done, and even the vet hated doing them so it was a real problem as they'd get longer and longer which is then more likely to get the quick cut on the black nails and make things worse

It's such a problem with the sighthounds as they don't seem to wear them down very much at all. Umming and aahing between a grinder and a clipper. I suspect the grinding will just prolong the trauma for her 😣

We’ve had to do this recently with our greyhounds. The lighter of the two has very pale nails and was a breeze to do, the other has incredibly dark nails and even when we thought we were taking tiny bits off we still managed to catch a quick and the blood seemed to go on for AGES! So I’d just say be very, very cautious of how much you take off and make sure you keep a bowl of cornflour to hand to stem any bleeding.

Ah, good advice, thank you ☺️ She's a rather delicate (pathetic) fawn and her nails are mainly dark grey with 2 or 3 pale ones. Just perusing grinders and clippers now....

The red handled millers forge are brill. They cut wolfhound nails!
There’s also a FB group called nail maintenance for dogs (I think!)

Thank you, Wolfie. I'd love a wolfhound! I've already bought clippers and grinders but I'll go for the Millers Forge if the clippers are no good. Wish me luck!