Saturday, January 23, 2010

What can I use to calm a dog down to be able to cut his nails,our Vet is not near us.?

He is a large dog,very strong,he hates Vets,needs a muzzle at the Vets,yet he is wonderful with kids.What can I use to calm a dog down to be able to cut his nails,our Vet is not near us.?
One easy way to cut a bad dog's nails is to run his sturdy leash through a chain link fence (around the post) and pull him up snug against it. You pretty much have to use a choke collar - not to choke him, but to keep him from backing out of the collar.





Then, just keep clear of his teeth and trim away. Try to make is as pleasant as possible for him - give him treats, don't cut into the quick, praise him when he's not trying to bite you. We did this with the guard dogs that sometimes stayed at our kennel and no one ever go bit. I prefer not to tranquilize a dog unless absolutely necessary.What can I use to calm a dog down to be able to cut his nails,our Vet is not near us.?
My vet sticks a treat in my dog's mouth before trimming. Get a good friend to hold the pointy part (the head end) with a treat or a rawhide between the teeth, and another friend to keep weight on the dog as he lies down... then work as carefully but quickly as you can. Don't cut the quick of any of his claws or you'll have a chase every time he sees the clippers from here on.
We have to muzzle one of our large dogs to clip his nails. He's a sweety untill you touch his feet. Buy a muzzle and do it yourself. But, for us, it takes two people. one to hold him and one to clip the nails. Have fun and have a Doggie treat ready for when he's all done.
Do it when he is sleeping.
wait til hes sleeping like after you walk him, lol my dog needs a muzzle at the vets also, shes a st bernard and its quite embarrassing cause she looks nasty wif one on, but shes a big dote, just nos that the vet isnt usually nice to her so growels at him lol
I rub my dog's stomach and talk to him while my husband cuts his nails. My daughter-in-law said she put a towel over her dogs head and held it while my son cut the nails.
unless you have the proper tool don't do it.


i presume as vet far away that your dog may walk a lot more on grass than concrete. the concrete can help to help the nails keep short.


now i would strongly recommend that you take the dog out for a Good long run tire him out . get him used to the clippers let him play with it even to the extent of playing fetch with it. dogs tend to be very aware of new things within there boundary and can react . So tire him out and get him used to the nail clippers. you should also in the future walk him on concrete , Be patient make it a good experience for the dog talk and praise him during the clipping and reward him each time he has no reaction to it,
Try an over the counter canine stress reducer called ';Rescue Remedy'; or one called ';Canine calm and cool';. Sometimes they will take enough of the edge off to do the work.





I have have a rescue who is extremely body sensitive and absolutely hates to be touched. For him we had to give him aceapromazine (by prescription), a mild sedative, and then used two people to work on him.





We have tried various methods of desensitization and positive re-enforcement with other dogs but haven't been overly successful with those methods.
A vet would use a tranquilizer like phenobarbitol.
i hope this helps i know it is a lot to read





In an ideal world, we would only have well-socialized and well-handled puppies to shape for calm nail trimming. But in the real world there are dogs who for many reasons don't like their feet handled. So we need to begin a desensitization program for these dogs to be successful. If the dog is very fearful of the clippers, first begin by sitting in a known environment with the clippers in your hand the sofa or your favorite lounge chair. Let your body language reflect a clam ordinariness. Hold the clippers in your hand and have a bag of treats and the clicker ready to go. Let dog come to check out what you have in your hand, and if he reaches out, sniffs at the clippers, click and treat. Move clippers around on your lap, hold them out in your hand, click and treat for any interaction. Squeeze clippers, activating them, and click and treat for the dog not balking. If dog balks when clippers are activated, just ignore the dog. When dog, from your peripheral vision, is no longer worried (throwing calming signals), squeeze clippers again and quickly click and TOSS treat to dog. Continue squeezing clippers and rapidly click and toss treats. Do this for however long it takes the dog to realize you are holding something that he doesn't need to fear. The open bar/closed bar is good here, as Jean Donaldson explains. When the clippers are in hand, the bar is open and treats flow fast. When the clickers are put away, treats stop. If the dog mainly stresses on a grooming table, when his feet are picked up, toes manipulated, now is the time to start desensitizing him to this. Take a day or two to practice just putting the dog in the grooming noose, if necessary, and clicking him for allowing you to spread his toes. Don't attempt to clip a nail until the dog is no longer showing stress over having his legs lifted, his toes spread and manipulated. If you don't use a grooming table for nail clipping, and use your lap instead, with the dog lying on its back or side, then work on getting the dog comfortably in that position while you click and treat for calmness. Pick up the clippers and hold them in the palm of your hand, and slowly touch the dog's body with the clippers. C/T for all quiet behaviors. Then activate clippers while still rapidly reinforcing calm and quiet. Don't attempt to clip nails until the dog is not stressing around the presence of the clippers. Some dogs only begin stressing once the clippers are activated. Practice desensitizing to the sound of that sliding metal which probably indicates to a dog that something stressful or something painful is coming. Know your dog anatomy well, and be sure you are prepared before you do an actual cut on the nail. If you cut too high - into the quick of the nail then you'll have a much harder time gaining his confidence and will be back to square one. For the desensitization program, you truly need to make certain each experience in the presence of the clickers is non-stressful, non-painful.
I have the same problem. We use two people with the one person doing the trimming and the other person holding. The holder stays at the head, holding the head and lifts one leg up, which leaves the other three feet flat on the floor. The trimmer cuts the nails while they are on the floor. This is also done while the dog is crowded into a corner. We don't have a muzzle but plan to use that as well. We leave the dew claws to last when the dog is a bit more settled. Hope this helps - it works for us.
First off you need two people to control a big dog. One person to hold him down and the other to clip the nails. What I was told from my vet the best way to get a dog to calm down is flip him on his side and hold his legs for a while and don't let him get up until he is calm. He may not like it but the more often you do it the easier it will be to calm him down. that is also a good was to clip his nails once he gets use to it.

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