If you are one of the many who has tried to trim your dog’s nails; welcome to the club of angst. Let’s face it, neither you nor your dog like to partake in this activity. But for the health of your dog, nail trimming must be done; and done frequently enough to keep their nails short and avoid unnecessary pain and suffering.

Dogs that spend a lot of time outdoors, running on hard surfaces like tar and concrete will naturally wear their nails down and have less of a need for regular formal nail trimming. In reality, our beautiful fur kids spend more time indoors or running on soft surfaces like lawn; the natural wear therefore is not happening and a more hands on approach to nail care must be taken.

Here’s the thing… most dogs don’t like having their feet touched and worked with. Before you even start to consider trimming its nails, you may need to work on ensuring that your dog feels more comfortable with their feet being touched and massaged as this is a very sensitive area on any fur kid from the smallest to the biggest. If you get your dog from a puppy this usually helps, as you can work on their paws and pads from when they arrive. If you get a rescue or a mature dog that hasn’t had any work on their feet then this usually takes a little longer. I always find that positive association with the use of treats to praise my dogs when they allow me to clip their nails has had positive results.

From a purely visual point of view, long nails on a dog look really unattractive. From a health perspective, nails that are too long are at constant risk of being torn off by being caught on a piece of carpeting or furniture. Besides being extremely painful, this kind of injury often requires veterinary care.

Long nails can do serious damage to your dog. When nails are so long that they constantly touch the ground, they exert force back into the nail bed, creating pain for the dog (imagine wearing a too-tight shoe) and pressure on the toe joint. Long term, this can actually realign the joints of the foreleg and make the foot look flattened and splayed. This is a functional problem, compromising your dog’s weight distribution and natural alignment which can leave it more susceptible to injuries, and make walking and running difficult and painful. This is especially important in older dogs, whose posture can be dramatically improved by trimming back neglected nails.

In extreme cases, overgrown nails can curve and grow into the pad of the foot, which needs veterinary care, as they have to be removed from the pad and therefore infection can set in, and in the end, unattended nails create a vicious cycle - the long nails make painful contact with your dog’s paws, he / she avoids having them touched, which leads to unpleasant nail-cutting sessions, which makes both human and dog avoid them, which leads to longer intervals between trims, which leads to more pain…

The burning question? What’s the “right” length for your dog’s nails?

The most commonly accepted rule of thumb is that when a dog is standing, the nails should not make contact with the ground. If you can hear your dog coming, its nails are too long.

Dog’s nails differ from ours in that they consist of two layers. To keep things simple - they have a hard outer covering and a softer and flaky inner layer. The faster growth of the outer layer is what gives the dog’s nail its characteristic curl.

There’s a reason why the phrase “cut to the quick” means to deeply wound or distress -running through a dog’s nail is a nerve and vein called the “quick.” Nicking or cutting this sensitive band of tissue is very painful for your dog – and messy for you, as blood often continues oozing from the cut nail for what seems like an eternity (keeping a styptic-powder product, such as Kwik-Stop, on hand can help promote clotting and shorten the misery).

Trimming a dog’s nail without cutting the quick is easier said than done. If your dog has a white or light coloured nail, the quick will be visible from the side as a sort of pink coloured ‘shadow’ within the nail – please avoid going near it!

If you trim the nail with a nail clipper, trim a bit off the end of the nail in a 45 degree angle, and notice the colour at the end of the nail (in cross section). As soon as the centre of the nail starts to appear white, stop.

In a black or dark-coloured nail, you can’t see the quick and you have to be even more conservative about how much nail you trim off. After making each cut, look at the cross-section of the nail. If you see a black spot in the centre – sort of like the centre of a marrow bone – stop cutting. It’s likely your next slice will hit the quick.

The longer your dog’s nails are allowed to grow, the longer the quick will become, to the point that taking even a very small bit of nail off the end “quicks” the dog. Then the goal becomes a matter of snipping or grinding the nails to get as close as possible to the quick, without actually cutting it. This is perhaps easiest to accomplish with a grinding tool, although it can be done with clippers, too, with practice. By grinding away the nail all around the quick – above it, below it, and on both sides – the quick has no support or protection, and within days it will begin to visibly recede, drawing back toward the toe.

If your dog’s feet have been neglected for months at a time, it might take months to shorten those nails to a healthy, pain-free length. But if you keep at this regularly, it should get easier for your dog to exercise. And the more he moves, the more his nails will come into contact with the ground in a way that will help wear the nails down and help the quicks to recede.

Nail clippers use blades to remove the tip of the nail. There are a couple of different styles to choose from – my personal preference is the scissor type – and their effectiveness is dependent on the blades being sharp and clean.

Grinders are relatively new to the world of canine manicures; and if you choose to go the grinder route, regardless of the type of grinder you buy, make sure it is appropriate for your dog. Some cordless models might be perfectly adequate for a Papillon, but simply may not have enough oomph for trimming the thick, hard nails of a larger breed like a German Shepherd. Much like ensuring a clipper’s blade is always sharp, on a grinder, change the sandpaper sleeve whenever you see it’s becoming worn.

Be sure to acclimate your dog to the sound of the grinder, and then slowly introduce the tool, so that your dog is accustomed to the grinding sensation on his nails. If your fur kid is naturally scared of its nails being trimmed, please do not do all at one time. Start with two nails, treat and always end on a positive note. Don’t keep the rotary tool stationery on one area of the nail, as the heat it generates can be painful for the dog.

If this sounds like a lot of work, it is – at least initially, until you and your dog develop a nail-maintenance routine. And “maintenance” really is the name of the game; it’s far easier for you (and less painful for your dog) to maintain his short nails than to shorten nails that have gotten long, with the inevitable corresponding long quicks.

If your dog’s nails have gotten too long, you need to really commit to frequent trimming to restore his foot health and comfort. Three to four days is probably the minimum amount of time that’s advisable between salon treatments that are intended to encourage the quicks to recede. Once a week is ideal if you want to gradually shorten your dog’s nails and eliminate all that clickety-clacking on your wooden floors. And, depending on the rate at which your dog’s nails grow (and what sort of surface he exercises on) once or twice a month is a reasonable goal to maintain the nails at a healthy length.

By the way - In addition to one nail at the end of each of the four toes usually found on each foot, many dogs also have a fifth nail, called a dewclaw, on the inside of the leg, below the metacarpal (wrist). If your dog has dewclaws, they need to be trimmed – perhaps even more often than nails that routinely touch the ground. Because the dewclaws do not touch the ground and so aren’t worn down, they tend to be pointier than the other nails. But perhaps because dewclaws are so loosely attached to the forelimb, many a groomer or vet will not notice them. We always double check, but please make certain that if your dog has not had its dew claws removed you do mention it to your groomer or vet when having them trimmed.

Nail trimming is an important part of your dog’s health and wellness. If you have any doubts or concerns about trimming nails, please leave it to the professionals like your vet or groomer.