Conquering Nail Trimming
Dargo is all corgi, so he was born hating getting his nails trimmed. I tried the recommended technique: sitting down, dog on your lap, with his back against your belly while you work on his nails.
I failed miserably. Dargo howled like he was in profound despair, and wiggled so much I couldn’t get a single nail clipped.
This was his second trim, so it’s not like he’d ever suffered any pain from it. No, it was more like a genetic predisposition to be mortified by the notion of someone messing with the nails. “You don’t understand,” I can hear him say. “If you trim my nails I’ll suffer great pain and die! Please have mercy and stop now!”
I finally gave up on the “dog on the lap” strategy and now I stand him atop his crate. I start by giving him a good grooming, complete with frequent treats. He loves getting brushed, so it puts him in a good mood, and generally makes for a positive association with “stuff that happens on top of the crate”.
Once I’ve brushed him, I’ll start with one of his back feet, which he’s less stressed about than the front ones. I clip one nail on the back paw, and I give him a treat. Then I take a front paw, clip one nail, and give a treat.
If I trim all the nails on his back feet, there’s a high likelihood that by the time I want to get started on his front paws, he’s going to wiggle up a storm and make further trimming impossible. So I alternate: off one nail from the back feet, then one from the front.
After having trimmed the first nail on the back and front paws, I go back to the back paw and do a second nail there. I give another treat. Then I clip a front paw nail, and give him another treat.
Depending on how wiggly he is, I’ll start scaling back on the treats. Once I was even able to do one treat after each foot, rather than each nail. Some days are good like that! But I don’t worry if I have to give out more treats sometimes. As long as the daily food intake is managed, what’s the harm in giving him treats so he can at least get some enjoyment out of something he has to go through anyway?
The bottom line is that I quickly learned not to feel inadequate in my abilities just because Ian Dunbar and his gang say if I can’t get a Great Dane to lie across my lap and lick my face while I clip all his nails then clearly I’m far too incompetent to own a dog.
The last two times I went to groom him, Dargo actually got very excited as he watched me clear off the top of the crate. He started yelping with joy and jumping around eagerly. He just wanted to get up there and get the party going!
I have no illusions: I know he’s excited about the brushing, not the trimming. But by combining the two activities, I’m able to make the top of the crate a fun place to be, which means he’s a lot more relaxed when I bring out the nail clippers.
Tags: corgi, dog, dogs, grooming., nail clipping, nail trimming, treats