Why Proper Nail Trimming Is Vital to Your Dog's Health

I think we all know that nail trimming is important for the prevention of scratches on our furniture, carpet, and floors but did you know that proper nail length is an important factor in our dog's health and safety? 

The 3 reasons to keep nails at the proper length are as follows: 

1) Helps in our dog's ability to comfortably jump and make sharp turns on agility courses or while playing in the backyard. 

2) Prevents painful feet: When nails are long, the hard surface pushes the nail back up into the nail bed which puts pressure on all the toe joints or forces the toe to twist to the side.

3) To help geriatric dogs long term health to improve and/or be stabilized by their ability to distribute their weight correctly and not have a slumped back. In other words, if a dog's back nails are too long he will compensate by putting all of their weight in their front paws where their nails are at the correct length. 

Dr Leslie Woodcock, a Team Canada veterinarian and owner of Woodcock Veterinary Services, a clinic that specializes in rehabilitation for dogs post surgery or post injury posted an excellent 14 minute informational lecture explaining why healthy nail length is  important. 

Dr. Leslie suggests that our goal should be to cut our dog’s nails short enough that you CANNOT hear them on your tile floor. In order to get the nails this short without hurting the dog (or making their nails bleed) your goal should be to get the “quick” (or soft bit that supplies blood to the nail) to recede.

Most people when cutting nails try to cut directly across the dog’s nail (as in the diagram below):



However, Dr. Leslie recommends the best way to cut your dog’s nails without hurting them AND get that quick to recede is to cut the sides of the nails on an angle.

By cutting nails this way it becomes easier to get your dog’s nails shorter without hurting them. 

Take a look at these before and after pictures of nearly 17 year old Buzz above. On the left is Buzz before a nail trim and on the right is him after his trim. To the right he is distributing his weight correctly and comfortably. You can tell this because his posture in his front and back legs are uniform (all four legs are straight and erect).

Dr. Leslie’s information is a real eye-opener and I hope it will be used as a point of reference when your dog needs a trim in the future!