hello I'm Laura ston Cipher uh K9
behaviorist and president of L K9
Solutions today we're going to talk
about how to uh get a nice happy nail
trim from your dog we're going to talk a
little bit about safety how to make the
dog feel comfortable and um uh the
structure of the nail so that by the end
of this video you feel like you know
what you're doing this is Zena uh she's
a four-year-old husky female and we
picked her because she does not like to
have her nails trimmed so um we thought
we'd give a challenging example say hi
Zena oh not to me okay so first of all
um the most important thing before you
start a nail trim is that the human has
to have the right attitude if you're
frightened of uh trimming your dog's
nails and you're tense and you're
worried you're going to transfer all of
those feelings to the dog who's going to
wonder what horrible thing you're about
to do to them so you need to relax your
hands put a smile on your face and
you'll notice that when we're touching
the dog okay you see how relaxed my
hands are I'm not ever going to grab and
squeeze her paws that gives her
something to fight
instead whenever we pick up the leg
we're going to be real careful to always
pick up the leg in a way that's
comfortable for the dog do you see how
I'm not pulling her elbow out to the
side I'm not gripping her so if she
tries to struggle I'm just going to go
with it instead of trying to keep her
hand conf uh her paw confined into one
spot and that way I can move both my
hands together when I'm doing the nail
trim and she doesn't get the feeling
that she can
escape so uh also for the interest of
safety if you do uh hit the quick on the
nerve sheath it does give them a pinch
and sometimes they will snap even if
they're normally really sweet so when we
do the nail trim we're always going to
make sure that our face is facing the
opposite direction when we actually make
the cut and and if you have your hands
together like I do here you should
always be able to feel what you're doing
you can see it this is kind of an inside
view of what the quick looks like on
many dogs this down here is actually uh
EX internal and the quick is actually
right on the bottom of the nail and
especially with dogs that have black
nails on her you can actually see where
the quick is despite the fact her nails
are so so long the quick is actually
ends right here okay but let's say the
dog has black nails I can put my
fingernail in here and I can actually
feel like the bottom of a horse's hoof
that this external nail is very hard and
this down here is soft and pliable so I
know that that part is still alive and I
don't want to hit that part so being
careful to
hold hold the dog's leg at the
appropriate angle and I'm not gripping
and I'm nice and relaxed and I'm facing
the opposite way I can see on this
nail I can still take quite a bit
off good now the actual texture I can
feel the nerve sheath right there now
the nerve sheath is what holds the quick
and when possible especially if the
nails are overgrown like this you want
to get as close as
possible and make sure you get the nerve
sheath so that the quick will move back
and the next time we do a nail trim two
to 3 weeks later uh-uh two to 3 weeks
later um we can take a little bit more
off and she should be get in good shape
after this you can tell that her nails
have been trimmed regularly but that
we've just had a lapse because the quick
is nice and far easy good now as you can
see that did not quick her it just
worried her and since she doesn't like
nail trim she's got a lot of
worry good girl easy it's also important
not to praise when they're struggling
easy easy only to praise when they still