How to Trim a Dog's Toenails With a Dremel

Trimming a dog's nails with any tool can be a nerve-wracking experience. Scared by the idea of hurting their dog or causing it to bleed, many dog owners elect never to cut their dog's nails. If your dog is mostly an indoor pet and you do not regularly trim its nails, odds are the dog is uncomfortable, it may hurt itself or you and it causes an annoying clickety-clack as it walks around. Nail clippers are more likely to cause injury, so learn to Dremel your dog's nails for a less painful experience for you and your pet.

Things You'll Need

  • Silver nitrate blood coagulator
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Instructions

    • 1

      Introduce your dog to the Dremel with the tool turned off. Place it on the ground in front of your dog or hold it in your hand and let the dog approach it. Allow your dog to smell the tool.

    • 2

      Turn on the Dremel and let your dog listen to the sound. Then hold the handle of the Dremel up to the pads of one of your dog's paws so it can feel the vibration the tool makes. Keep the spinning bit of the tool away from the paw during this introduction. Hold the handle against your dog's paw for a few minutes until your dog seems to calm down and becomes familiar with it. Give your dog a treat so it can form positive associations with getting its nails trimmed.

    • 3

      Secure your dog or have a friend assist you with the nail trim. Attach a leash to a secure post or pole or have your friend hold your dog while you work. Put the Dremel bit you have selected for your dog's manicure on the spinning part of the Dremel. You will feel it snap into place.

    • 4

      Look at each of your dog's nails before you trim them. If your dog has light-colored nails, you will be able to see the pink nerve and blood supply inside the translucent nail, called the quick. If your dog has dark nails, the quick is not visible. Be careful and work in short increments when cutting a dog's nails, especially one with dark nails. If you cut into the quick, the dog will bleed and feel pain.

    • 5

      Hold your dog's paw in your hand and press lightly on top of one nail with your fingers to isolate the nail you are working on. As you grind down each nail, you will move across the top of the dog's paw isolating each nail. Hold the paw securely but do not squeeze. If you are working on a long-haired dog, pull the hair back and away from the nail and work carefully to ensure that you will not catch in the Dremel and injure your dog.

    • 6

      Turn on the Dremel and grind lightly against the tip of the nail. Keep your dremeling hand moving so you don't take off more of the nail than you mean to. Grind in short bursts up from the tip of the nail bringing just the tip shorter each time. Ideally the dog's nails will be cut to where they are even with the paws and do not touch the floor when the dog is standing. If your dog's nails are very long, it may take a couple of weeks of regular dremeling to bring them to the desired length. Each time you shorten the nail the quick will recede slightly, so you can trim the very tip of your dog's nails every other day and eventually you can bring them shorter than the length of the quick was originally without hurting the dog.