Many dog owners limit themselves with the personal hygiene to the fur of their quadruped. It is often at least as important to cut the claws of the dog. Otherwise, the risk of injuries and posture damage increases significantly.
In the following we will explain how you can tell if it is time to cut your dog's claws and how to proceed correctly.
To a healthy dog belong also healthy paws, which carry the quadruped safely through the everyday life. Well-groomed claws are of special importance in this context. Because if the dog's claws are too long, this can lead to numerous problems. The claws then disturb your dog while running and prevent him from finding sufficient hold on smooth floors. In addition, long claws can be very painful for your four-legged friend and in the long run can even lead to postural problems.
Furthermore, the longer the dog's claws are, the greater the risk that your dog will get stuck when running or injure itself when scratching. Furthermore, without regular cutting, the claws can grow in and become inflamed.
Some dogs even try to shorten their long claws themselves by biting them off, which often leads to painful injuries. Last but not least, it is possible for the blood vessels to migrate to the tip of the dog's claw without occasional cutting, which makes future claw care much more difficult.
In order to avoid all this, it is therefore essential that you, as the owner, take care of it and cut your dog's claws professionally if necessary.
It is not necessary to cut the claws of all dogs. This is because they often wear out sufficiently on their own while running. But especially if your walks are mainly on soft ground such as forest paths or meadows, this may not be the case with your four-legged friend.
If you want to cut your dog's claws, you should never use your own nail scissors. This is not only for hygienic reasons, but also because of the unsuitable shape of the scissor blades.
Therefore, always use special claw scissors to cut your dog's claws. These have round blades, with which the pressure when cutting the claws is the same from all sides, so that injuries are avoided.
Also make sure that the claw scissors are sufficiently sharp. After all, you want to cut your dog's claws and not crush or break them off.
In order to cut your dog's claws, you must first make sure that your four-legged friend is as relaxed as possible. Not every dog will go through the procedure without resistance. It is therefore possible that you may have to give your dog a little time to get used to the procedure.
When cutting the claws, make sure that the light conditions are good. It is important that you can see where the nerves and blood vessels in the dog's claws end. Especially with dark claws this can be a challenge.
Try not to shorten the dog's claws to the desired length all at once, but instead cut them off only about one millimetre at a time. In this way you reduce the risk of accidentally cutting into the blood vessels.
Finally, you can carefully file the dog's claw after cutting to prevent the freshly cut claws from tearing while running.
The cutting of the claws is of course only one part of a successful paw care in dogs. Apart from that it is at least as important that the skin on the paw pads is healthy and free of small wounds or injuries.
To ensure this, it can be a good idea to apply a nourishing ointment to your dog's paws from time to time. We recommend that you use our Paw Protection Ointment for this purpose.
Bellfor Paw Protection Ointment contains selected natural ingredients such as insect fat, beeswax and shea butter. These provide an especially rich care and can help to counteract dry and chapped skin on the paws.
Bellfor Paw Protection Ointment is ideal for paw care in winter as well as for dog paws that are particularly stressed by sporting activities such as canicross.
As you can see, claw care is very important for the well-being of your dog and in many cases cutting the claws cannot be avoided. If you are not confident that you can do all of this on your own, you can alternatively consult a vet. They know exactly what to look out for when cutting dog claws, so that the cutting is normally done quickly.