Why should i trim my puppy's nails at home?
It is important to make sure your puppy’s nails don’t get out of hand for a couple of reasons.
First, if their nails are too long and they scratch themselves, they could potentially hurt themselves. Especially if they are scratching in their eye area, you wouldn’t want them to scratch their eye!
Next, it is imperative that your puppy’s nails stay trimmed due to the fact that long nails impair their ability to walk properly. This can make it painful for them to walk as well as it doesn’t allow for them to walk with proper posture. There is also a higher risk of their nails getting caught on things, as well as extra stress is put onto their nails which can cause breakage or even tearing.
Materials needed
You don’t need a lot of supplies to be able to trim your puppy’s nails at home. You only really need a pair of dog specific nail trimmers! Ones that we recommend can be found here. If you are uncomfortable using physical nail clippers, we also highly recommend this nail grinder. It comes with a safety guard to ensure that you don’t trim your pup’s nails too short or snag any of their hair into the grinder.
When your dog is still a puppy, however, you can also use regular human nail clippers on their nails since they are so small and are able to fit in them. Human nail clippers can not be used on larger, adult dogs.
steps:
The first thing you want to do is have someone hold your puppy. Puppies are somewhat uncomfortable about getting their nails trimmed, so they tend to move around and pull their feet away from you quite a bit. This can make it extremely difficult to safely trim their nails on your own.
Then, gently start to clip the tips of your puppy’s nails. You want to look for the quick, which for pups with white nails, you’ll be able to see where the white nail ends and the red-tinged nail begins. That redness is your pup’s quick, which contains nerves and blood vessels, which is why if you cut into the quick your pup’s nail will bleed. If your puppy has darker or black nails, seeing the quick may be impossible, so we recommend trimming just the tips of their nails to avoid accidentally cutting them too far.
Once your pup has gotten used to the sound of the grinder, you can start to use it to trim their nails.
Carefully insert your pup’s nail into one of the holes in the safety guard. This will ensure that the nail is ground to a proper length, as well as none of their hair gets snagged into the grinder and pulled out.
That’s it! You now know how to trim your puppy’s nails at home!