Shelby's Life and Whatnot

Dog Torture

My dad thinks I should lighten up about the overstimulating toys thing--hahaaha. He's probably right :).

So yesterday I decided that it was long past due to take care of the dogs' nails. Now both dogs absolutely hate to have their paws handled, let along their nails touched. We're talking trauma of the highest degree. With Scout, she's small enough that we can take her to Petsmart and Kevin can get her in a headlock and the groomer there can trim her nails. But with Digory--no can do. He's bigger and stronger and will just not tolerate the nail trim. We have had to take him to the vet and have him sedated every time we want to trim his nails, which is not only not very healthy for the dog, it's expensive.

So somewhere along the way we saw on the internet that you should try grinding your dog's nails down with a Dremel. The explanation made sense. Dog nails have a quick that is obviously painful if you cut into it (and doesn't stop bleeding, either), but even if you don't cut the quick itself, squeezing the nail with the clippers compresses the quick and also hurts. The Dremel, however, merely grinds down the nail itself and doesn't actually hurt. People swear by this method, even claiming that they can grind their dogs' nails while it's sleeping. Which, sorry, it's still a loud tool.

Anyway, we have had some success in the past with the Dremel so we decided to go for it yesterday. Kevin got Digory up on the coffee table in a headlock while I viciously attacked his toe nails. Digory was not happy about this. Kevin got completely scratched up before it occurred to him to put Digory in his car harness (which, because he's an escape artist, is essentially a search-and-rescue harness with a handle on the back so you can dangle him in midair, which is very embarrassing). Anyway, we got him in the car harness and back into the headlock and I managed to get both of his front paws done, excluding his dew claws. At that point he was struggling so much, emitting horrible tortured noises, and was so worked up we thought we'd give him a break.

Scout had foolishly shown a great deal of interest in what was happening, so we decided to attack her next, thinking she'd be much easier. She wasn't. She was only easier because she's smaller and it's easier to control her while you hold her. However, the good news is that we did get all 4 paws and the dew claws done! The bad news is that due to her struggling, I am now of the Walking Wounded, as she'd yank her foot away at the last possible moment and I'd Dremel my hand instead of her toe nail. Ouch.

We gave up after that (I was bleeding) so we still have to go back and do Digory's back legs and his dew claws, but on the whole, I'd have to call the Dremel a success. It was traumatic, but it got the job done, and it was free, which sure beats sedating Digory every couple of months. I suspect that most dogs would take more kindly to the Dremel than ours did, but really, if we can Dremel Digory, you can Dremel any dog.

Except for maybe a Newfoundland.