How do you all do nails? We've always used a Dremel. Yesterday I introduced Freya to it, but she wanted to sniff, bite, lick it. I didn't get any nails done, but hopefully we can make progress.
With a labrador retriever, I used a dremel and a few pieces of her usual dry dog food.
The procedure was: tell the dog to "down", sit a piece of dog food in front of her and say "off," start dremeling while she stares at the food and drools. (Yes, this involved me sitting or lying on the floor.)
I'd let her eat the piece of dog food at the end, or sometimes I'd let her have the piece after one paw and put down another piece for the next paw.
At least for that dog, it was so hard to not eat the food, that she didn't have much attention left for what was happening to her feet. If I held the foot too tightly she would struggle, but I just had to hold it more loosely and she would mostly quit struggling.
I used a similar method with clippers at first, but I ended up liking the dremel better. I was less worried about hitting the quick, the toenails had nice smooth edges when I was done, and I think the dog was a bit better about it too. (The difference in the dog may have just been that she was a little older and had a little more experience.)
I know someone who trimmed nails on a different labrador retriever by having one person hold the dog and another person trim the nails with clippers, but if I cannot trim nails alone I figure training it's easier to train the dog than to find a helper for every single nail trim over the life of the dog!
, Beauceron
