Keeping your dog's nails short is another part of keeping her in the best of health. Nails that are allowed to grow out can curl under and even pierce the pads of the dog's feet. They can cause the toes to stretch apart, disfiguring the foot and crippling the dog. They can get stuck in between floorboards or in thick carpet, potentially breaking and causing severe pain. For all these reasons, it's necessary to keep your dog's nails trimmed.

Being able to clip your dog's toenails shows a great deal of courage and skill on your part and a great deal of trust on your dog's. There are few dogs who naturally enjoy having their paws fiddled with. What's worse, inside each toenail is what's called the quick — the inner, fleshy part of the nail, where blood flows and there are nerve cells. If you snip into the quick by mistake, not only is it quite painful for the dog, but the bleeding can be profuse. For dogs with white nails, you can see the quick (it's the dark shading about halfway up the nail). With black nails, you need to guess. That's why when you're clipping it is better to err on the side of not cutting enough than cutting too much.

When clipping nails, you have to be patient with your dog. You have to train him to accept the process, and the only way to do that is to make it as pain-free as possible. The idea is never to get too aggressive about cutting the toenails or you can accidentally cut off too much, causing pain and bleeding. You just want to clip off the end, no matter how long the nails are. Even if they still look long after cutting off just the tips, don't worry. Repeat the process a week or so later and keep snipping away. As you cut the toenails, the quick recedes.

Accustoming your dog to having his nails trimmed is something you can do over time. Be gentle, patient, and clip off only small pieces of nail (but do it more frequently) so you won't cut into the quick. Reward your dog for enduring this ticklish and awkward process.

Training to Accept Clipping

The best way to clip is to use a powerful distraction the first few times you want to handle her feet. With your dog in her grooming spot, place the clippers innocently on the table so she can see and sniff them. Go through your normal grooming routine. Then, cut up some cheese sticks or lean lunch meat into small pieces and, as you hold them near your dog's nose, reach for and try to hold a paw.

When you have the paw in your hand, give her a treat and praise her. Touch each of her feet and, if she doesn't fight you, give her a treat. Do this every day for a week before you even pick up the clippers. She should feel quite comfortable with you touching her paws. Work the same way while introducing the clippers. Take a paw in your hand and quickly snip off the end of one nail. Give her a treat. If it goes well, do the entire paw at that session. Then stop. Do another paw the next day, and so on. Giving a tasty reward for accepting this touching should make things okay for your dog. Oh, and when you're done, give yourself a reward, too. You earned it!