Nails, Nails, Nails

We have recouped from the Holidays and are back at the blog! Thanks for waiting.

The volunteers for CBRR see a lot of stuff with dogs that come in to the program, one of the basics are severely neglected nails. Many people do not see this as a priority, but that is because they are just not aware of the problems this simple grooming task can cause.

There are many reasons dogs nails seem go grow fast. Some owners do not have concrete areas that the dog frequents, concrete is a great natural way for a dog's nails to be grinded down. This often leaves the outer nails longer because they do not touch the concrete as the center ones do. So you will still need to keep those outside ones as short as the center ones.

Other people do not have concrete so the nails have no natural way of keeping them fairly short. These people will have the most work to do having to perform pedicures probably twice a month. Whether you do it yourself, of take your Bullie to the groomer there are 2 ways to manually trim nails. Clippers and Dremmels. Clipping leaves jagged edges that will scratch flooring and furniture/ Dremmeling leaves a uniform and smooth tip to the nail and it less painful and there is less of a chance for you to cut the quick (the vein in the nail) of the nail. even if you clip you can finish off with a dremmel to make sure the nail is rounded and smooth and that your leather sofa will not be destroyed while you and Spike watch movies.

When left untrimmed nails grow so long they start to touch the floor while the dog is not moving.

Left longer the nails grow so long it is uncomfortable for the dog to walk since the nails stop the dogs foot from properly rocking during each step. At this point the change in the way they are forced to walk slowly damages the entire paw and leg. The paw is made to walk a certain way based on the rest of the body.


When nails of this length are left even longer that start to curl under growing that way because of the constant rocking.

The volunteers have the sad reality of getting dogs in past even this point. Past this point the dogs nails can grow into the bottom of the foot. Left infected too long like anything could lead to amputation.