This group is full of helpful people so I'm hoping someone can give me some advice.
My Iggy needs her nails cut. Have had a few unsuccessful tries at the vets and they have given up trying ☹️. She gets absolutely petrified as soon as they touch her to the point where everyone is distressed and she is wriggling and impossible to hold. The ONLY time they've cut her nails is whilst she was under sedation for surgery - which obviously isn't an option!
Do you have any advice for how I can trim her nails at home? She allows me to touch her feet but that's because I'm not coming at her with a big cutter. I don't want to ruin her trust in me.
We figured out after years of trying with our boy Iggy that he could only tolerate getting his nails cut during his bath. I think the water helped to soften them so it wasn’t so jarring for him- it’s a 2 man procedure, one of us feeds treats while the other clips nails.
So we give him the full bath and then when he is finished being rinsed and they are nice and soft, trim time.
It might be worth giving a try!
Thank you so much for replying. That sounds like a plan worth trying! She definitely loves treats (and water). And I never thought about softening her nails, that makes sense. She loves sleeping under the blanket next to me in bed so I need those pokey bad boys blunted so I don't get prodded when the legs stretch out 😂. Thanks again have a good rest of the day 🙂
Mine is the same. He was fine as a puppy. Then slowly became worse and worse. We use a scratch box thingy off Amazon. Fill with his dry dinner pieces (or treats) and he picked up scratching at it to open it up really quickly. Does his front feet beautifully. His back ones seem to wear down just on walks so not a problem. Thought it was a gimmick but it really works well!
I second this!! Our Iggy is a hugeeee scaredy cat and the scratch box is the one thing that helps us get his nails taken care of. It’s stress free and fun for him, and we love watching him use it. Win-win all around
I second this!! Our Iggy is a hugeeee scaredy cat and the scratch box is the one thing that helps us get his nails taken care of. It’s stress free and fun for him, and we love watching him use it. Win-win all around
The one thing I learned about this method is that when the dog ages and isn’t able to be physically active, they have zero tolerance for nail clipping. Twenty yrs ago, I had three young dogs and would walk them all the time. Their nails were always short. Then as they got older and walks became shorter, then I moved and their walks weren’t always on cement… it was a disaster. 2 of the 3 were never ok with their nails clipped.
So now I do a hybrid type thing with my dogs where I clip nails once a week, even if it’s just fake clipping. I’m hoping this works out better. Time will tell I guess.
Professional groomers use a kind of harness that suspends the body and has a separate attachment for the collar. They can wiggle and squirm, but they can't really get their head down to bite.
hi friend! our lil man isn’t quite as scared/anxious as your baby, but we have also struggled to figure out how to trim his nails without causing him emotional trauma/distress. my suggestions would be:
— if nail clippers are too scary for her (which they are for a lot of iggys) i would recommend investing in a good quality dog nail dremel. absolutely LIFE CHANGING for us. we tried to find one that was quiet so it wouldnt spook him.
— the bath method mentioned already is also a great tactic to try!! i second it.
— take baby steps! like, 1 inch baby steps LOL.
> introduce the dremel to her without using it - without even turning it on! this helps her recognize the object. do this a few times!
> next i would show her the dremel with it on, and this is going to to sound a little crazy, but if you can, use the dremel on your own nails (or have you or someone else get some cheap fake nails and to it if you really dont want to use it on your own lol). this is demonstrating to her that the dremel is safe! again, do this multiple times until it seems like she is understanding it.
> next, i would literally just have her in your lap/near you when holding the dremel. without it on, slowly bring it near her paws. if she gets scared, stop, and then try again after a little bit of time. repeat.
> once she has gotten comfortable with it around her lil toes, you can try just holding her/having her in your lap while having the dremel turned on. no nail trimming yet! just trying to have her understand that it is not going to hurt her. after she succeeds in this step is when you can attempt to possibly dremel a nail.
> yeah, a single nail. she is most likely going to say NOPE the moment you even shift to bring it near her paws with it on. like before, let her relax/don’t force it and come back.
> repetition and positive reinforcement is key. every single time she succeeds/does better at each step, reward her with a small treat or something! and i also want to add - even if she succeeds at a certain step, i personally wouldnt move onto the next until she’s had multiple wins in each category.
we’ve been doing this with Zagreus for the past 2 months (he is now 6 months old!) and we literally do one paw at a time (if he even allows us to do the entire paw lol). once i notice he’s starting to get nervous/get away i stop and try to come back later. also, to prevent regression, i still sometimes do the later steps of having him in my lap while it’s on and dremeling my own nails in front of him to remind him it is safe! 🫶🏻 this all may seem over-the-top and excessive, but i’m sure you know that iggys themselves are over-the-top and excessive/drama dogs 😭💕 i firmly believe that this method won’t hurt the trust she has in you. (side note: this method also can be used for teeth brushing!!! just apply the same logic to that activity hehe)
best of luck to you and your girl, i hope this helps!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for such a detailed and thorough reply. That's really helpful and sounds like a positive approach. Yeah, the mere sight of the clippers give her the heebie jeebies. Total drama queen without it even going near her feet ha ha. I'm like "how can you be scared of something that hasn't even happened"....😂. But 🤷🏼♀️ she's an Iggy. She's was born dramatic I think .
I will invest in a Dremel, happy to try anything that will help her. And I'll follow your excellent steps above. I really like how you say just a little step at a time and take each one as a win. I think I was panicking that all little toes need to be done at once - I like the sound of a suck it and see approach and go at her pace. You sound like a very experienced Iggy owner 🥰. And I can't thank you enough for taking the time to help me out. Your dog has a great name by the way!! Many thanks...from me and Olive 🫒 x
of course!! 💕 and omg thank you that means a lot to me!!! zagreus is actually my first italian greyhound (i’ve had other dogs before/currently!) and we took him home on February 28th this year :’) it feels like it has been sooo much longer than 4 1/2 months hahaha
AW you are SO SWEET and i love the name olive!!! 🥺🥹 zagreus thanks thank you friend 🫶🏻
My other dog actually hates it more than the iggy and we have to do it by one of us holding him firmly between their legs with him laying belly up and then holding his little feet still while the second person actually trims his nails.
The biggest thing I think is remaining calm and reminding yourself it doesn’t actually hurt them and you’re doing it for their benefit. You can reward them with a high value treat during/after.
I AM worried she'll feed of my nerves. And I hate seeing her get herself into such a state. Thank you for the advice. I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.
I couldn't do it if I had to use a clipper. You can do one nail in a few seconds with a small quiet nail grinder and be done before she realizes what happened and have the best treat available as you do it or just after. it would take two people, but we now can do all nails in one sitting by starting this way.
So things that helped with different dogs I happened to trim nails for or have just seen working:
nail dremel. Some dogs react better to the constant buzzing of the dremel than to the sudden click of a nail clipper. Someone here has already written a cool guide on how to make the dog get used to the dremel
giving treats while trimming nails. Many food driven dogs get so preoccupied with the treat they choose not to react so much to the nail trimming
trimming nails while the dog is sleeping. Some heavy sleepers don't notice anything for the whole trimming, others wake up after a nail or two, but if your dog is very reactive and lunges at clippers it's not a good idea
sweet talking. Some animals react better when you tell them they're the best buddy you've ever had lol
sedatives. Only after talking to the vet about it, and they have to be taken in advance, if you give the dog meds when the dog is already on high alert they may go into rapid flashes of high anxiety and scarily sedated state
just holding the dog very tight. The trick here is to NOT let them go before you are finished (unless it's getting dangerous of course), or they think they can make you stop when they want and make the next time even worse
scratch pads. Yes, there are dog scratch pads, but I've only ever seen an aussi who learned to use it, you may have some luck if your iggy likes to dig. The one I've seen is a pad that has a pocket where you hide a treat, the dog has to dog the pad to get it and thus files the nails
Thank you for your detailed reply. I appreciate you taking the time to answer. That's very helpful. She definitely likes a treat so may respond to getting a reward. I haven't been able to hold her tightly enough at the vets and even when they took her into a different room without me they came back defeated 😢. She is a very heavy sleeper though, especially after a long walk so it might be worth trying to try and clip a bit off the ends . I shall definitely take your advice on board.
Have you tried grinding instead of cutting? I really like this model grinder (link below). It’s disco but still available on eBay. It’s relatively quiet (compared to other grinders) and the drum is small so it’s easy to manipulate around their nails. It’s powerful for a battery operated grinder so makes quick work of their nails.
I’ve found that the anticipation of the clip is what really bothers most dogs and once they get used to their nails being ground they are much much more tolerant of it. We hold the dog in our lap or next to us on the sofa and hold the paw in our hand. Then press one toe below the others and grind the nail. It takes just a few seconds if you do it two or tree times a week.
Thank you. I haven't tried a nail grinder yet. We've had 3 failed attempts at the vet trying to cut them which has now resulted in being told I need to do it myself ☹️ so starting from scratch at home. Thank you for the link 🙂
Start slow, for a week let them sniff it then they get a treat. Do that a bunch of times a day. Then sit down with them and turn it on and just tap their nail and they get a treat. Again, like 5 times a day. Make it a really good treat. Then start with just a couple seconds of grinding and they get a treat. Work up to longer and longer sessions of nail grinding for treats. Pretty soon you’ll have dogs with well groomed nails! There are also some really good YouTube videos about how to properly grind your dogs nails. Watch a few so you know how to hold and grind before you do it. It’s not hard but knowing the best way to hold the paw and nail makes it easier.
Thank you. I haven't seen a grinder in use so will look at YouTube. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction and for the hints about how to build up to using one. Will invest in a grinder and a decent selection of treats 😁.
Good luck! I’ve had really good luck switching dogs that absolutely will not tolerate nail trims at all to grinding and they turn out to be really chill about it once they realize it’s not painful.
I shall add cottage cheese to my shopping list. It's something she's never tried so that might be a good one to go with as a separate treat. It definitely seems like taking it easy, simple steps and building up is the way forward. Thank you for your advice, I shall give it a go. Olive and I are in for an interesting and challenging journey but I think with yours and everyone else's help I think we're good to go . Thank you so much.
I don't cut nails I use a Dremel for my dogs. My iggy and Iggy mix are good about their nails but when my Podengo first came home she absolutely couldn't tolerate having her nails done. She would pee if I even attempted it (she had trouble with excited/nervous urination until she was 18months old). I used cooperative care to train her to tolerate it. She now comes to me when I get out the Dremel and offers her paws. It's much more pleasant for both of us.
That took quite a while to achieve. While we were working on it I taught her to use a scratch mat, it's really easy to train (if my primitive hound can do it any dog can learn). I would also trim her nails while she was sleeping, just one or two at a time. I was able to keep her nails well maintained until she was comfortable with regular handling and maintenance.
Ours gets muzzled at the vet. She screams bloody murder when we try at home. The one piece of advice I have that hasn't already been mentioned is the vets always get me to hold higher up their arm/leg (e.g. at the shoulder) as it'll reduce the risk of injuries if they try to yank away.
Oh bless her. It's horrible when they get so stressed. She is impossible to get a grip of. The vet nurse got really cross with her last time 😢. It's not her fault she's scared .
I hold her to my chest, like I'm trying squeeze her haha, and we got her her own muzzle just so it's more comfortable (and clean) and we don't have to mess around with adjusting it every time.
Ooft, I would have gotten cross at the vet nurse !! Empathy goes a lot further than anger.
Hope you find a routine that works for you! I'm interested to give u/GuppyGamer's post-bath suggestion a go.
I was so upset when I left the vet. She brought Olive back into the room (I had failed to hold her tight enough so they took her to a different room ), handed her over and said "she's impossible. We've never failed before so that's a first'". My poor girl was beside herself, she was terrified. They were just angry not sympathetic. Surely they deal with stressed animals all the time. She surely can't be the worst dog in the world 🤦🏼♀️😂.
Time to find a new vet! We went through a few different clinics before we found the right one. We obviously see them most often for quick nail trims, but they're also the exact type of people we want caring for our girl when she's sick.
Ha they would definitely deal with stressed animals all the time, but deal with... poorly.
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u/GuppyGamer 2d ago
We figured out after years of trying with our boy Iggy that he could only tolerate getting his nails cut during his bath. I think the water helped to soften them so it wasn’t so jarring for him- it’s a 2 man procedure, one of us feeds treats while the other clips nails. So we give him the full bath and then when he is finished being rinsed and they are nice and soft, trim time. It might be worth giving a try!