Peticure
 

Personally I'd rather pay a pro, because while horse and cow hooves don't bother me, I'm real uncomfortable trimming claws. But if you pedicure your cats and/or dogs, here's a chart to remind you not to be too aggressive. It's easy to get frustrated if they fight you on it, and want to cut as much as you can to shrink the number of necessary sessions.

good point, nice diagram, thanks.

I wonder how the pros do it though, in the case of a long nail. do you go back for several sessions a few days apart? they don't have some magical cautery tool for nails I don't think.

Cornstarch will cauterize a dog's bleeding nail.

I always cut them by hand, but then I had 12 pound dogs, and so it was easy.

Never work on a running chainsaw.

in Russia, running chainsaw works on *YOU*.


actually, not just in Russia.

Styptic powder clots off bleeding very quickly if you hit the quick, but try hard not to do that. You'll find yourself following a trail of blood through your house as you attempt to track down your very upset cat or dog. Dark nails are the worst - impossible to see the quick (as in the case of my chocolate Lab, whose nails were terrifying to trim). Most cats have transparent nails/claws, so just take care and don't nick the quick. If the nail is too long and the quick has grown out, you have to trim tiny amounts frequently to gradually work the nail back to a shorter length. It takes patience.

I would never let a salon or vet hospital just cut nails far back and stanch the bleeding. It's very painful for the animal.