Clipping Nails


We have a lot of pets, which means we end up clipping a lot of pet nails. Cats are easy enough (for two people), but our dog Hektor wouldn't stand for it.

He would whimper pitifully if we held his paw and brought the nail trimmer close. If we actually touched the nail trimmer to his nail, he would yelp as if being beaten. It was horrible, and we could never bring ourselves to go through with clipping even a single nail.

So, we always took him to the vet, once a month, to have the professionals do it. Somehow, they did it quickly and determinedly enough that Hektor realized hysterics wouldn't save his nails. But, he still hated it.

Probably partly due to the fact Dee left the Humane Society (so we no longer received premium vet care at cut rate prices), we tried to trim Hektor's nails again ourselves. This time, I thought I'd try to hold his new favorite treat (Natural Balance) in front of him to try to distract him while Dee clipped his nail. It sort of worked, and as a reward after the first nail, I gave him the treat. After all, we'd clipped one nail!

So, we tried another. I held another treat, and with the clip successfully completed, gave him another treat.

Pretty soon, we'd clipped all his nails. A month later, we did the same thing, clipping each and every nail with nary a whimper. We realized we had inadvertently "clipper" trained Hektor.

Now, Hektor LOVES to get his nails trimmed. He wags his tail throughout the process, and greedily snatches each treat from my hand when he hears the snick of the clipper shorten another nail.

We're still amazed.


Posted: Tue - June 12, 2007 at 07:12 PM          

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