Nail trimming equals stress for Roxy.

Hi Guys,

Roxy, my 6 year old crossbreed gets quite stressed when I try to trim her nails.

When we first had her (August last year) she didn't like us touching her paws at all, she kept trying to pull her paws away from me.

She obviously had never had her nails trimmed before. They were really long and starting to twist. After about half an hour and a whole lot of stress for Roxy, we managed to get them cut.

She doesn't bark or whine when I try to cut them, however she jumps about madly and even trying to restrain her is very hard, she looks so stressed. After about 10-15 minutes of this, she surrenders and 'kind of' lets me trim them, but she's not at all happy.

We walk on concrete regularly, and she also runs around on stones at the beach occasionally, but her nails don't seem to be getting filed down at all. She's quite light-footed and has funny shaped paws, so I think that has alot to do with her nails not getting filed down when she's walking.

My Westie, however, very rarely has to have her nails trimmed, they are nice and short.

Obviously I don't like putting Roxy through the stress she feels when i'm trying to trim her nails, I don't like to see her go through this either. Her nails aren't to bad at the moment, but do need trimmed.

As a groomer, none of the dogs have been as bad as Roxy when having their nails cut! Roxy is obviously not used to having it done, and that's part of the problem, I think, and it's not nice to see your dog go through the stress.

I was thinking about trying something like Kalms herbel remedy to try and settle her down a bit to have her nails trimmed.

Does anybody have any advice about this? Or a way of de-sensitising her to this part of grooming?

I've tried using treats and lots of kind praise, also not speaking to her at all. None of this helps.

Any good advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks.

I had a bitch like this she was worst with me as her wriggking made me more nervous about hurting her as her quick was near the end of her nails. In the end I resorted to filing her nails every time I groomed her & this worked much better for both of us.

I have pugs, which are well known for hating to have their nails trimmed!! I finally have to give up with the clippers and instead i file them with an emery board at least once a week. I started off by getting someone to feed them little treats as i was just gently filing the nails. And now Gracie especially absolutely LOVES it!! She lies on her back and goes to sleep while i do it.

It takes about an hour to do each dog, but i actually find it quite relaxing Given that your dog is bigger, it might take even longer, but the good thing about it is that now y girls will both allow me to trim their nails with clippers with no fuss so it might be worth a few weeks of slow nail filing to be able to trim them down properly in a few weeks It worked for me anyway!!

I have this with my eldest boxer she just plain hates anyone touching her feet , but i percifere and eventually she stops wiggling but then a reward of her fav treats and a big cuddle also work

Thank you all for the advice. I think i'll have a go at filing them every day.

I know you have to persavere and not give something up just because they don't like it, and that if they beahave in that manner when they dislike something, then you'll stop what you're doing. However, I really don't want to put her through the stress of nail trimming when her nails aren't too bad at all.

I'll start to file them every day while still trying to persuade her to let me cut them, but I won't go as far as totally stressing her out.

why not invest in a dremmel nail grinder, it will file them really quickly, a second of touching with the dremmel will grind them down sufficiently whereas a manual file will get the job done but take a lot longer which may stress her out, just a thought. I'm getting one soon can't wait I've heard great things.

That's a good idea, but i'd be worried i'd grind the nails too far down!

Do let me know how you get on, I may consider getting one, however, she freaked out when I tried to clip the hair from her pads. So I now trim the hair on her pads with blunt scissors.

I don't know what kind of lif she's had for the first few years of her life, so that may explain why she is so stressed when it comes to cutting her nails.

It was a total palava trying to bathe her when we first got her. Thankfully, she's fine with a bath now!

I bought a nail file in Pet City the other day, it works really well, I do her nails every couple of days to keep them under control.

We have a dremel style grinder and it's the best thing we ever did for the dog's nails. It used to be awful struggling with them (that's if you could catch them) but now apart from one they are pretty good.
A quick 3 sec grind on each nail keeps them fine and short and happy stress free dogs

These grinders sound really good, I might invest in one at some point. Thanks for the info.

I managed to ge a few of her nails cut earlier today, without too much fuss.