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Dog Nails and the importance of good dog nail trimmers.

 

Dogs hate it when you touch their feet so do so with care and gain your animals trust.

Trimming your dogs nails.

My dog jumped off the sofa, where he wasn't supposed to be in the first place and immediately started limping.  I thought he had broken his foot or strained it.  I checked to make sure his foot was not broken and then took him to the vet when he continued to limp the next day.

The vet couldn't find anything wrong with it, took Xrays ($175.00) ouch! and then told me he still couldn't find anything wrong with it but maybe it was because my dog had overly long nails.

Dogs are called toe walkers.  As they stride out their toes hit the ground first much like a race horse.  The toe grabs the surface with the paw pads so when a nail is too long the first thing that hits the ground is the nail and it gets jammed back into the toe and causes much pain.  repeated jamming of the nail can cause bruising and swelling and this is what happened to my dog.

He jumped off the sofa, jammed that nail back into his toe and it hurt like **ll!
Have your dog's nails trimmed at least once a month.  Some dogs don't have a problem with overly long nails but some breeds, like mine which is a digging breed, have huge nails that grow constantly.

Think of your own nail.  How painful it is when you have a hang nail or the top of the nail gets ripped off and pulls at the skin.  Now magnify that a hundred times and you will know the pain a dog feels when his nails are cut to the quick.  It's like torture and that's why they use it wars to get information out of prisoners.  Don't do that to your dog.  He will cringe every time you get out the clippers.

 

If your dog has white nails, you are lucky because you can see the quick quite easily just by looking at the nail.  You will see a red line (blood) extend through the nail.  Never cut into that area.

If you are squeamish about cutting your dogs nails, there are groomers who will do it for you for around $10.00.
If your dog has black nail be extra cautious and cut just a tiny bit of nail off and then do the same amount for all twenty nails and dew claws.

A great gift for Christmas is a pet portrait by Lorri.


 

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The views expressed on this site are my own.  I am not a veterinarian and I urge you to take your dog to the vet first.

 

 

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