My Dear, You've Cut Me To The Quick!

This is my girl Scarlett Grey. When she's in the shop she likes to pretend she's a grooming dog. Clearly she doesn't require anything other than a bath, nails and ear cleaning. Even then, there's not much to do.  I hardly have to cut her  nails at all.  So she is a great example to help me explain what it is we mean when we tell you "We could only tip the nails." 

What exactly do we mean by this? Well, quite literally, we could only take the very tip of the nail off.  If we were to go any farther, the nail would bleed. This is because dogs have veins in their nails.  Unfortunately, some dogs' veins are very very long, so while their nails seem like they need cut,  we can only do so much. We can only go to the quick.   At  a glance, it sure looks like Scarlett has some crazy long nails that are in need of trimming!

On closer inspection, we can see that her veins are far too long and we would risk making her bleed, which for the majority of dogs, is not fun!  At Digger Dogs, we try to avoid putting our dogs through any stress and try not to give them anything less than an awesome experience. So we will not risk trimming nails too short if we think the quicks are too long. 

 Take a look at my girl's nails and see if you can see the pink inside. 

In her case, I may try to take just the tips off in hopes that it will make the vein recede, but that doesn't always work. Also, with an antsy dog, we may accidentally take more than just the tip!!! Again, it's just not worth it. 

What about a dog with black nails you say? Even trickier! We do our best to gauge the length of the vein based on the shape of the nails, the time between groomings, the age of the dog, etc. 

So what's the alternative if you can't trim your dog's long nails as much as you'd like?  Walk your dog!  It's not a 100% guarantee, but I'd have to guess it's at least 90% for those walking on pavement.  That's why Scarlett's nails look so long in this picture; because it was taken just after all of our horrible heat waves. We were not getting many walks in that horrible weather.  Now that fall is here we'll have a chance to get those nails back in shape!

Remember, every dog is different not only in their physical make up (one dog with long quicks, another with short) but in every way. One dog may not be phased at all when we are trimming their nails, and I've even seen dogs not take notice when we've hit a bit of the vein.  Then there are other dogs who are instantly terrified the second they even SEE the nail cutters.  Both of these responses are normal, and we work with them as needed.

Being careful and minding the sensitivity level of your dog ensures that everyone has a good day and a healthy grooming. It makes for a happy pup, and that's what we like to see! 

As always, if you have any questions about this please feel free to comment below or email us at [email protected].   

Thanks again for stopping by our blog, and we look forward to seeing you in our shop! 

Cheers! 
-ingrid