Saturday morning

What a beautiful morning; blue sky, little bit of white clouds and nice cool temps. It is already 9:00 and my dogs are all curled up on the bed. They have had their morning cookie so they are good for quite a while before they actually need to get up. I haven't eatten so I'm getting pretty hungry.

It looks like we will have nice hiking weather unless of course the canyon is soggy and mucky. That means that we will be bringing alot of the canyon home with us. Then there is the much needed foot bath for all. The dogs also need their nails done today which is always quick and easy. But for many dogs it is a dreaded event and for many guardians it is a dreaded event. But it doesn't have to be; you can turn it around very easily.

To make your dog cool with having their nails clipped you must introduce a positive association to the event. If you just force them to have their nails cut; holding them down tightly so that they cannot move things will get much worse. The tighter you hold them the more they panic. So you have to take it slow and yummy. You can use anything that you can dish out in tiny little bits, peanut butter, cheez whiz, roll treats etc.

You want to introduce the clipper and treat, treat, treat. Ah the clippers mean treats. Then you touch the clipper to their feet, treat, treat. Then get them use to you holding their feet, one at a time and only for a second and again treat, treat, treat. When they are cool with this you try to cut one nail, thats it. Lots of treats! Once you have that work on doing four nails and treats all through the way. You can have someone else delivering treats if you like; this can make it easier.

So now that you have a foot done you work on doing all the feet with lots of treats through the entire process. All of these steps can takes days or weeks depending on how much your dog does not want their nails cut. But make sure you take a slow enough time so that it is a positive experience.

Then you can work at progressing to all nails for a big treat at the end, but that should be about a 6mos. goal. I still at the age of 7, 11 and 12 treat my dogs after getting their nails done. They look forward to it and actually hand me their paws to get their nails clipped.

Happy clipping.