How often do you clip your dogs nails?

[Anonymous]

Only at groomer (how often is that) or do you do it yourself or take them more often?

[Anonymous]

I take my dogs to PetSmart for this -- they have very opaque dark nails and I'm afraid of hurting them. I tried to grind them myself with a dremel at one point, but just couldn't figure it out. I have friend who uses a dremel on his dog's nails every weekend -- that is probably the best approach if you can do it.

PetSmart takes walk-ins for nail trims. I try to take them every two weeks, but sometimes it is 3 or even 4 weeks (which is not good, they get too long). But YMMV -- dog nails are like human nails, some are hard and grow fast and some are not and grow slowly. You might hear people say that you never need to take your dog for nail trims if you are walking them enough and walks are on sidewalks/asphalt because that grinds them down and keeps them short -- not necessarily true. If that is the case with a dog, they likely have softer, slow-growing nails. My dogs get 3 walks a day, min 30 mins, and their nails don't grind down on the walks at all.

My vet is quite vocal about how important it is to trim dogs' nails.

[Anonymous]

I agree that it depends on the dog. I have had dogs that almost never needed their nails trimmed — walking kept them worn down. I currently have a dog who wears down his rear paw nails, but not the front. Even worse, he has always had very long quicks, so I can’t just trim them off. I have ended up using a Dremel about every 4 days in an attempt to keep the front nails at a reasonable length and try to get the quicks to recede.

[Anonymous]

Once a month.

[Anonymous]

Never. I walk them regularly on asphalt/sidewalks so they stay short naturally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never. I walk them regularly on asphalt/sidewalks so they stay short naturally.

This isn't enough. I feel bad for your dogs.

I clip my dog's nails every 2 weeks.

[Anonymous]

My dogs used to be really good about letting me clip their nails, but then one day one of them decided they didn’t like it and the other one went along with that. I try for every other week. I’m hoping to get back to the place where they’ll just sit there and let me clip without issues. And no, I never hurt them so I don’t know where this nail clipping came from. They’re just weird dogs.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone rec a good YouTube video for mail trimming? Every time we try our dogs howl, though I don’t think we’ve come close to the quick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never. I walk them regularly on asphalt/sidewalks so they stay short naturally.

This isn't enough. I feel bad for your dogs.

I clip my dog's nails every 2 weeks.

Thanks, but I’ll stick with what my vet thinks. They (multiple vets) tell us they are fine and look great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never. I walk them regularly on asphalt/sidewalks so they stay short naturally.

This isn't enough. I feel bad for your dogs.

I clip my dog's nails every 2 weeks.

My dogs nails are also worn down enough by the sidewalk. The vet trims her few claws whenever we go in but the others are fine. Different dogs have different nails.

[Anonymous]

The fallacy of walking to grind them down is that not all the nails hit equally. My dog's middle two nails stay short, but the inner nail barely hits and the outer nail doesn't hit at all. I take her in for professional cut by watching the outer nails.

Thankfully she has white nails and the nail beds are clearly visible. If she had dark nails like our last dog I doubt I would realize the difference.

[Anonymous]

My dog has huge, thick nails, not the dainty little nails you see on little dogs. Walking on pavement doesn’t wear his nails down at all, but they’re not super fast growing either. The first year I had him, I dremeled them just a little myself every 2 weeks, but even though nothing traumatic happened, he grew less and less patient and it became a big struggle. I finally started taking him to Petsmart. He’ll behave for a stranger, especially if he’s up on a grooming table. I initially took him in every 4 weeks, but they’d tell me that his nails looked good and there wasn’t much to do to them, so I started taking him in every 6 weeks. They actually clip his nails instead of just using the dremel. He’s happy getting it done infrequently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never. I walk them regularly on asphalt/sidewalks so they stay short naturally.

+1 that's how it's been for me, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never. I walk them regularly on asphalt/sidewalks so they stay short naturally.

This isn't enough. I feel bad for your dogs.

I clip my dog's nails every 2 weeks.

My dogs nails are also worn down enough by the sidewalk. The vet trims her few claws whenever we go in but the others are fine. Different dogs have different nails.

+ 1 to the bolded. My city dogs get 5+ miles (2 to 6 hrs of walks) a day on sidewalks and still need trims every month or so. I wish that was enough!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take my dogs to PetSmart for this -- they have very opaque dark nails and I'm afraid of hurting them. I tried to grind them myself with a dremel at one point, but just couldn't figure it out. I have friend who uses a dremel on his dog's nails every weekend -- that is probably the best approach if you can do it.

PetSmart takes walk-ins for nail trims. I try to take them every two weeks, but sometimes it is 3 or even 4 weeks (which is not good, they get too long). But YMMV -- dog nails are like human nails, some are hard and grow fast and some are not and grow slowly. You might hear people say that you never need to take your dog for nail trims if you are walking them enough and walks are on sidewalks/asphalt because that grinds them down and keeps them short -- not necessarily true. If that is the case with a dog, they likely have softer, slow-growing nails. My dogs get 3 walks a day, min 30 mins, and their nails don't grind down on the walks at all.

My vet is quite vocal about how important it is to trim dogs' nails.

Every time I go to Petsmart for this they make me wait 20 minutes for someone to do it. Then they say it will be 10-15 minutes and by the time I leave, it's been an hour.