Jarena
Well-Known Member
We have a new frustration: trimming Lettie’s nails. She has always done *okay* with using the dremel on her nails. She got tons of treats and would pull away sometimes, but it was going alright. The last probably 4 months, she’s been slowly getting worse with nail trimming. She pulls away more and more. She really needed the front nails trimmed so that’s where we focused. She hated it more every time we tried so we gave up and tried the back ones. She did much better with the back ones. So then we decided that it must be the noise. We bought a more quiet dremel, wouldn’t work. We bought an extension so we could cover the actual motor and make it quieter. Didn’t work. We tried filing them by hand. Kinda worked, she only pulled away 25 instead of 30 times. But at that rate, filing them by hand would take a year. So we bought “millers forge” scissor type nail clippers. We also bought a “Lickimat” to slather in peanut butter to keep her occupied. We tried the clippers tonight and after an hour I got the teeny tiny tips on 3 nails off. But it took a lot of peanut butter and a lot of frustration. Her front nails are still too long. We can’t keep this up much longer or her nails are going to start getting painful. We are so incredibly frustrated with this.
A couple of things, in case it matters: Our trainer told us to try to work on her nails every single day so that it’s not such a big deal to Lettie, so that’s what we’ve been doing for the last 10 days. Nail trims are the only time she gets peanut butter. We have tried having her laying down, sitting and standing. It doesn't seem to matter what position she’s in, still hates it. We have never hit the quick and she’s never had a paw injury. She won’t let a stranger (like a groomer) touch her paws. We tried that awhile ago and the lady told us to leave because most dogs do better without their humans around. About 2 minutes later she was calling us back to help her. Lettie wouldn’t let the lady touch her and we ended up with a refund. We have also tried to kinda back off and reintroduce the grinder with treats. We have sat around her many times and gave her treats for letting us touch her paws. Treats for sniffing the dremel. Treats for letting us touch her nail with the dremel while it’s off.
So we plan to keep trying everyday to clip a few nails. But this is getting very very hard to do and incredibly frustrating. I feel like we can’t afford to take our time with backing off and giving her treats for every small step, her nails are getting too long. I honestly just want to drug her and tie her up. I won’t, but that’s how frustrated I am right now. Any ideas, thought, suggestions. Please help!
A couple of things, in case it matters: Our trainer told us to try to work on her nails every single day so that it’s not such a big deal to Lettie, so that’s what we’ve been doing for the last 10 days. Nail trims are the only time she gets peanut butter. We have tried having her laying down, sitting and standing. It doesn't seem to matter what position she’s in, still hates it. We have never hit the quick and she’s never had a paw injury. She won’t let a stranger (like a groomer) touch her paws. We tried that awhile ago and the lady told us to leave because most dogs do better without their humans around. About 2 minutes later she was calling us back to help her. Lettie wouldn’t let the lady touch her and we ended up with a refund. We have also tried to kinda back off and reintroduce the grinder with treats. We have sat around her many times and gave her treats for letting us touch her paws. Treats for sniffing the dremel. Treats for letting us touch her nail with the dremel while it’s off.
So we plan to keep trying everyday to clip a few nails. But this is getting very very hard to do and incredibly frustrating. I feel like we can’t afford to take our time with backing off and giving her treats for every small step, her nails are getting too long. I honestly just want to drug her and tie her up. I won’t, but that’s how frustrated I am right now. Any ideas, thought, suggestions. Please help!