Do you have a dog that is not prepared to play ball when it comes to getting their claws trimmed? This is a common problem in dogs that predominantly exercise on grass or woodland, rather than road walk. My 11 month old Weimaraner, Carla is a lockdown puppy so has had limited experiences of many routine things that she should have been exposed to at a much earlier age. This included trips to the vet and getting her claws clipped.
As soon as we got Carla I signed her up to a complete pet plan with our vet, something I would always recommend. Not everyone realises that this usually includes claw clipping during routine visits. If you’re lucky this, combined with some road walking, will keep the claws under control. However, during lockdown the vets weren’t able to offer claw cutting. This meant Carla had virtually no contact with the vet and was very dubious when we arrived there to get her claws clipped!
Due to Covid guidelines I wasn’t able to go in with her so I left her in the capable hands of the nurse who seemed besotted with my 27kg puppy. 10 minutes later the lovely nurse, now looking slightly harassed, was dragged out by a rather wide-eyed Carla. The nurse very politely informed me that Carla was not keen and realistically may need to be put under anaesthetic for claw cutting if I can’t do some training with her to get her calm! Oh gosh! I needed to get this sorted and quick as poor Carla was tapping her way around our house on the wooden flooring.
So I started to think of all of the ways I could get these claws under control. My first port of call was a lovely friend that is a professional dog groomer. She works from home so I thought Carla might not be so daunted going to her house rather than the vets. Apparently not. My friend did her best and managed to trim the back ones but having sussed out I had lured her there to get her claws cut Carla used her 27kg of muscle to insist that enough was enough!
Back to the drawing board… I knew there were plenty of alternative products to tackle claw trimming and since conventional clippers were a complete fail, I hit the internet. I soon discovered the Grinder! This is a nifty electronic nail file that promised to slowly file down the claw to a respectable length so that Carla could walk around the house in silence. The reviews all said how amazing this piece of kit is especially as the noise levels were very low. This all sounded too good to be true but I clicked “Buy Now” and my Grinder arrived the very next day. I followed the guidelines and over the next week or so slowly introduced Carla to the Grinder. Great news – she loved it! She played with it and let me put it on her nose, head, back, legs… BUT NOT HER NAILS!!! She completely sussed what the Grinder was for and I could see her laughing while she walked away from me, still on my hands and knees breaking into a sob…
The next attempt was the scratch-board. This is basically a piece of wood with sandpaper glued to it. I get Carla to scratch her paw on the board and she is then rewarded with a high-value treat. This works but we found that the amount of scratching needed to get them to a decent length was excessive. So this is something we now use regularly as a fun way to keep her nails low.
The quickest short term solution while training Carla to behave during her pedicure was to put her in the shower. One person covers their hands in dog-friendly peanut butter and while Carla licks it off with her head held high, the sound of the shower distracts her while the other person on the floor whips in and clips the nails. Total chaos but it works!!!!
Ultimately though it’s all down to training and patience. We are now using treat orientated training to allow Carla to make the choice to get the claws cut. This involves using a treat (food or toy) and getting Carla to focus on that treat while someone puts their hand towards Carla. As long as Carla doesn’t look at the hand and remains focused on the treat she is then allowed the treat. This is then repeated until the hand gets to touch Carla without her losing focus on the treat and eventually I should be able to touch her feet and trim her claws while she intently focuses on that treat! The training should be done in small bursts of around 5 minutes, 2-3 times a day.
The vet has also been very helpful and we now go in for regular visits to chat to the receptionist and the other staff who give Carla lots of fuss and treats. They have also very kindly let me use a spare consultation room so she can get used to going in there too.
So at last I have light at the end of the tunnel and until then we will persevere with the Peanut Butter Shower Technique!