A muzzle, a valium and a handful of cheese......

....got us amazing results!!!! Max has overcome a lot of issues, but one that was still remaining was nail clipping. Normally quite calm, Max freaked out when we last tried to trim his nails and actually bit my bf (didn't break skin, but still). He just PANICKED and got himself very worked up and upset. We only were able to trim the dew claws and it was a HUGE ordeal just doing that. Going to the vet also makes him on edge. We knew we could restrain him enough with a few people to cut them, but I don't want to make his issue worse by forcing him when he so obviously is upset about it. I wanted a way to make his comfortable so he can see that we won't hurt him. So, we and the vet devised a plan. She gave us a low dose of valium to give him at home. We bought a muzzle.

Today, we gave him a valium wrapped in cheese. An hour later, it was a 3 man operation, with bf holding Max, me clipping nails and our friend giving constant cheese pieces (he was muzzled, so he could eat little bits but not bite anyone). Everyone gave lots of praise. It went AMAZING! He barely resisted and definitely didn't do any snapping. In fact, his attention was on the cheese the whole time! I'm so happy. We took off a small amount from each nail on both front paws, then quit while we were ahead and left the back paws for another day.

We're going to try lower doses of valium every time until it's just cheese that's getting him through. I think he must have had a really bad experience with his previous owners, so we're going to take it slow and teach him that nail clipping = cheese + praise, instead of nail clipping = pain + stress.

I'm just so glad! Those dew claws were getting mighty long again! lol

Yay!
Hopefully you can one day have him to a point where he will cooperate on his own.
Bear was almost as bad when I got him.
I would muzzle and literally sit on him to clip his claws.

Now he will reluctantly jump onto a chair and present me with a paw.

I've heard of a lot of people having problems with trimming their dogs nails. I don't know what it is about clipping that scares so many of them! The best advice that I heard came from a woman who does massage therapy for animals and has helped people get thru this issue.

Touch their paws on a regular basis. Anytime that you are petting them or grooming them, make sure that you handle their paws. Start with just petting the paws and work into touching each individual toe, then work into holding each toe as you would when you clip it. Keep stroking the rest of them to keep them relaxed and help them understand that touching their feet can be a pleasurable experience.

That and what you are doing for treats should help him get over his fear over time.

Aww...good boy!

Originally Posted by Momofmany

I've heard of a lot of people having problems with trimming their dogs nails. I don't know what it is about clipping that scares so many of them! The best advice that I heard came from a woman who does massage therapy for animals and has helped people get thru this issue.

Touch their paws on a regular basis. Anytime that you are petting them or grooming them, make sure that you handle their paws. Start with just petting the paws and work into touching each individual toe, then work into holding each toe as you would when you clip it. Keep stroking the rest of them to keep them relaxed and help them understand that touching their feet can be a pleasurable experience.

That and what you are doing for treats should help him get over his fear over time.

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We touch his feet all the time and he has gotten a lot better about tolerating it in the past year. But when someone restrains him and the clippers make an appearance, it freaks him out. I'm sure eventually he'll get over it. This was such a big step for him!

I don't know of a single dog who likes having their nails clipped. The best you can do is that many willingly put up with it. I have occasionally cut too close and it ended up a bloody mess-I'm sure it hurt too.

And restraining him of course is going to scare the heck out of him. Can he "shake" on command? That will tell you a little something about how willing he is to have you handle his paws. And there is the option of trimming one claw on eday and giving him a treat and doing another calw the next day etc.

Originally Posted by 2dogmom

I don't know of a single dog who likes having their nails clipped. The best you can do is that many willingly put up with it. I have occasionally cut too close and it ended up a bloody mess-I'm sure it hurt too.

And restraining him of course is going to scare the heck out of him. Can he "shake" on command? That will tell you a little something about how willing he is to have you handle his paws. And there is the option of trimming one claw on eday and giving him a treat and doing another calw the next day etc.

Click to expand...

This new method seems to work. As I've said, the plan is to have started at a low dose of valium and give lots of cheese, then give a lower dose every time until it's only cheese and praise. We only did the front paws, but that was a huge step up from the other attempts, where we were only able to do 1 claw and he was left nervous, snappy and upset for the rest of the day.

He will shake paws and let us handle his paws, but actual trimming sends him into a frenzy. Unfortunately, he has to be muzzled and restrained because of this behaviour, otherwise he would bite. That's why we've resorted to a drug. We are able to muzzle and restrain him without scaring the heck out of him, as you put it. He remained quite calm and happy. The dosage is very low, not even enough to make him sleepy, just enough to keep him from working himself into a panic.

As far as cutting too close and having it bleed.....I'm willing to bet that's exactly what happened to him. He didn't have the best of owners in his previous home (didn't walk him, didn't socialize him, gave him to the SPCA for being "too big", and who knows what else), so he might have had even worse things happen to him....for all we know, they might have hit him if he resisted.

We're hoping to have him tolerate it soon. He does very well learning to tolerate new/unpleasant things when we repeat the experience often with lots of special treats and praise. We cured him of his snapping behaviour in regards to having his back end touched by means of cheese and lots of "good boy!".

I want to stress that I'm not a huge fan of drugging the poor guy, but he has a tendency to get himself so incredibly worked up that this seemed like the best idea. He will learn quickly that there are benefits to nail clipping, but he wouldn't be in a learning frame of mind if he were in a panicked state. Anyway, this is working for us and it is only a tool to introduce the procedure calmly, not something we plan on using in the long term.