Don't make the first time,
the worst time when it comes to your puppy's first toenail trim.
Welcome back to McCann Dogs. I'm instructor Shannon.
And today we're gonna talk about your puppy's first nail trim. and I get it,
you're probably a little bit nervous about the process,
but it doesn't have to be scary at all.
And Storm here is gonna help show that today.
Now we actually had a very different video planned to film with puppy Storm here
today. But when we picked her up to borrow this morning,
her owners let us know that they've never cut her nails yet.
And she's desperately in need and nail trim. So we decided to change lanes.
And today we're gonna work on Storm's very first nail trim.
I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking that we're going to take the nail trimmers and go right at
Storm's nails and just start clipping her nails, which,
that might work out okay. Depending on the puppy you're working with.
But most of the time that is going to lead you down the wrong road.
And it's gonna set your puppy up to be nervous about nail trims.
So we're gonna start slow, right from the basics,
and we're gonna build her confidence as we work on trimming her nails.
The first thing that I'm going to do is make sure that I have some currency to
work with with Storm.
So I've actually got her ration of kibble here that I'm gonna work with.
I might need to have something a little bit higher value if she starts to get a
little bit more uncertain about this process. So we'll see as things go on,
but for now, I'm gonna try working with her kibble.
And really this is a fairly new process for her.
She wasn't quite sure on how to lure. She was having a hard time,
even just following that food.
So the first thing I'm gonna do is teach her that following that food results in
her, getting that food. Yes. Good girly. Aren't you so smart.
And now I have some things to work with where I can start to work on touching
her paws to help her get comfortable with that as the first step in the process.
And I've got food that I can use to help her along with that.
So the first thing that I am going to do here is start to work on associating my
touch of her paws with that kibble coming. So I've got the, I've got the food.
I'm gonna put it right on her nose. And as she's nibbling,
I'm just gonna gently touch her paws. Yes. Good for you. Whoops. Get that.
It fumbled. And I'm gonna do that a couple of times repetitively,
just to build her confidence in the idea that me touching her paws is not a bad
thing or a scary thing at all. I'm gonna work on separating her toes. Yay,
good girly.
And she's just getting a nice little ration of kibble as she figures out that
me holding onto her paws is not a bad thing at all.
She tried to pull away a little bit there.
I just held on very gently just to that resistance a little bit.
And then when she stopped with any of the fussing at that point,
I released the kibble for her. Now, again,
this is my puppy's first time with this nail trim exercise.
And probably my P's first time having tho having her paws handled,
and even being part of this process. It might be your first time as well.
And that's okay. We want you to get comfortable alongside your puppy.
So doing this handling work with your puppy is really gonna set the pace and set
the tone for you moving forward.
Once my puppy is showing that she's comfortable with me handling her paws as she
eats those treats, what I'm gonna do is involve the clippers a little bit,
because this might be a completely different situation for my puppy.
When I bring those clippers out and start using those to touch to her feet,
she might suddenly become a little bit more nervous.
Maybe you are the one that's nervous about doing your puppy's nails for the
first time. And I've got a great secret to help build your confidence.
That's coming up a little bit later.
And it may seem like I'm taking a long time trimming these toenails right now,
but this is an investment in future success.
And once I get down to the point where my puppy is really comfortable with this,
it's gonna be easy for me to trim her toenails from start to finish. If I put
the time in now.
The next step that I'm gonna work with my puppy is bringing the nail clippers
into things. So I've still got my food. I'm still gonna be helping my puppy.
And as I'm doing that, I'm just gonna be touching the nail trimmers to her feet.
I just want her to get comfortable with this step,
not worry about those nail trimmers coming near her. And basically,
I'm working on building a nice positive association so that she learns these
nail trimmers bring great things.
I wanna make sure that I am also putting focus on the back feet because of
course there's gonna be back toenails that I'm going to need to trim as well.
So as she's nibbling, I'm gonna do the same sort of work with her back feet.
First, start by just touching,
separating her toes a little bit. And then once she's shown that she's
comfortable with that, I can bring my nail clippers into play,
and I can just take some time to rub her feet and let her know that this is not
something scary at all.
And it's something that actually comes along with really lovely kibble treats.
Isn't that lovely?
The nice thing about doing this at mealtime is that I'm using her kibble ration,
and I don't need to worry about feeding her too many treats with this.
If I wanted to use some higher value treats to build a little bit of a more
positive association quickly,
or if she was a little bit finicky about the kibble,
I could go to a higher value treat, but if she's happy to work for her kibble,
I'm happy to use that kibble ration for this work.
I've trimmed a lot of puppy toenails. You might have even seen some of those
videos on our YouTube channel before, and I feel pretty confident doing this,
but you might not feel quite as confident doing it. I've got a great secret.
That's going to help you get some practice in without needing to involve your
puppy. And that's where spaghetti comes into play.
I really like spaghetti because I can simulate a Chihuahua sized toenail or a
bigger breed sized toenail.
And I'm going to focus on working at cutting off tiny little bits at a time,
because remember you can always take off more,
but once you've taken off too much, it's a little bit too late.
So I'm gonna concentrate on lining things up just to the point where I'm
comfortable with just a little bit of the end that I'm gonna take off.
And then I'm gonna get comfortable with snipping.
I've talked in other videos about getting in a specific angle with the cut so
that you can shape the nail nicely.
And that's another nice benefit of spaghetti.
I can work on taking my angles off and I can work on taking that little bit of
an angle off the top as well. Well,
I put the bowl here to try to catch some of these clippings, but clearly,
that's not working out as planned. So be prepared to have your vacuum out.
If you do happen to cut into the quick, in addition to not panicking,
there's a couple of things you can do to stop that bleeding fairly quickly.
You might use a cold compress. If it's winter,
you can take them outside in the snow and just have them stand in the snow for a
little bit. That'll help to stop the bleeding a bit.
You can use corn starch if you're in a real pinch. And there's of course,
commercial styptic powders that you can pick up on the market to help stop
bleeding as well.
As well as silver nitrate sticks will do a nice quick job of stopping the
bleeding.
Now I have added some extra value into this situation by putting some peanut
butter in a con.
And it's really important if you use peanut butter that there's never any
xylitol in the ingredient list. Very, very crucial.
What I'm doing here is basically giving her an opportunity to get really
interested in this little bit of peanut butter and distraction so that I can
then get a little bit further with my nail trim process. So as she's nibbling,
I'm just gonna take a hold of her paw.
I'll make sure that she's comfortable with me holding that there as she nibbles.
I'm gonna line up my clippers. If she pulls away,
I'm gonna make sure that I let go with the clippers so that I'm not snagging her
nails, but once I'm comfortable and once the nail is nice and steady, whoops,
you lost your Kong there. Try that again. Once the nail is nice and steady,
I'm going to close the clippers and then just take a tiny little piece off of
there. Now she was a little bit fussy at the end there,
but that's okay. I got that little clip done and she was just reaching for her
Kong. So what a good job, good girly.
Because this is Storm's first time with a nail trimming session.
I wanna make sure that I don't overwhelm her and I don't overdo it.
So I've gotten a couple of toenails trimmed, and I'm happy with that for now.
I'm actually gonna leave it and let her take a break.
And I'm gonna come back to this in a couple of hours and do a couple more nails
so that she can ease into this process.
Storm is pretty settled and she's just decided to crawl up here and cuddle up in
my lap. So I'm able to get some more toenails done,
but if your puppy was to panic at this point,
you would wanna make sure that you took a step back and made it easier for them
to build on success. Every puppy's gonna be a little bit different,
some puppy's you're gonna be able to move forward a lot quicker than others.
Always read your own puppy. And if they're panicked,
take it easy to make the process simple for them. Now,
today we have been discussing the scissor style trimmer and introducing those to
Storm, but this might not be the right tool for you.
If you'd like to explore some of the other options available to you.
Check out this video right here.
If you're ready for some personalized guidance and help with your puppy,
come and work with me and the rest of the McCann instructors in our online Puppy
Essentials program. Check out the link in the description below.
And on that note, I'm instructor Shannon. This is Storm, happy training.