# Soft claws for dogs



## monsters mom (Apr 26, 2011)

Has anyone on here used them successfully with their four legged friends? I have all hardwood floors in my home. Over the last 7 months they have gotten quite scratched from her nails. She has a hard time with traction and often crashes into walls when she's running around. She also wants to dig and scratch on my suede couch when she's trying to find a comfortable spot. She's ripped several large holes in the cover which I'm not thrilled about. I use soft claws on my cat's front claws to keep his scratching at a minimum so I decided to try them out on Chloe. I really love them so far but she isn't as pleased with them. The ones on her back nails don't bother her but she keeps chewing on the front ones. I read that this is common at first so I've just been replacing them and giving her bones to chew on instead. I was just wondering about how long it will take her to get used to them or at least how long it took your dog. 

I also have a question about the fit of her caps. I got a size medium which is for 10-15lb dogs, Chloe is around 10lbs. I read on the website that the caps should fit snugly but I didn't see anything about how far up that cap should actually go. Her's fit over a little more then half the actual nail. Does this mean I need a size bigger or is that the correct fit. I don't trim her nails myself, I have no experience with it and she fights it. I don't want to hurt her by trimming too short so I take her to a groomer. Her nails are really long though, longer then they seem like they should be. I really don't know though. They were trimmed quite recently, around 2 weeks ago. 

this is right after I put them on her










And an closeup of the fit and her nail. The cap is fit all the way on the nail so that is the full length. Are dogs nails really this long?










Thank you for any advise you can give.


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## kafkabeetle (Dec 4, 2009)

I don't know anything about using claw covers, but it sounds like a better solution would be to acclimate your dog to having her nails trimmed. Having overgrown nails doesn't just hurt your floor-- it also can be harmful to the dog because they are forced to hold their body weight on the nails (since they touch the floor), and this can also (as you've witnessed) mess up your dog's traction on smooth surfaces.

Anyway, I've been there, having a dog with severely overgrown nails and not feeling comfortable trimming them myself. But over the past 6 months I've gotten things back in control by acclimating her to a dremel and using it to grind her nails down every 3 days. This allows the quick to slowly recede, and every three days you can get the nail a bit shorter. You can do this using trimmers yourself, or you can take her to the salon to have them done, but they must be trimmed at least weekly or you'll never make any progress with getting them shorter.


Here is the best tutorial I've yet found on how to trim a dog or cat's nails. I wish I had it when I was first learning about this!

Here's a great video on acclimating a dog to nail trimming.





For me, the pay off of putting the time and effort into learning to do this myself was being able to go from this:









To this:









Good luck!


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## monsters mom (Apr 26, 2011)

So they are too long then? When we first got her she was about a year old and they were actually painful looking. She would fight, growl and nip my fingers when I attempted to trim them so she's been going to a groomer. I like the caps but if her nails are too uncomfortably long for her I'll remove them at least until I can get them shorter and more normal looking. I looked at them and can see how far the quick goes which is almost all the way to the end of the nails. I didn't realize you could coax the quick back so I will start looking into that. She's much better about letting me handle her feet but it still seems to bother her a lot. Is there a trick to that? I have just been holding her firmly in my lap and talking to her softly. When she gets too upset I stop messing with her feet but keep her in my lap scratching her ears for awhile before I mess with her feet again. It doesn't seem like touching them causes pain or anything, she just doesn't like it or maybe she is still learning to trust me.


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## Curbside Prophet (Apr 28, 2006)

I hated the product when I used them. The whole gluing them on thing, sucked. Replacing them every couple of weeks, sucked. Replacing the ones that fell off or wore off before it was time, sucked. And they're too darn expensive. 

Personally, these dog booties are the best I've found for your situation. They're pretty durable, sturdy, and relatively inexpensive. They may not have them in hot pink, and you have to build a routine of putting them on and taking them off, but the cost/functionality of them outweigh the aesthetics.


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## kafkabeetle (Dec 4, 2009)

Yeah, the quick will grow longer as the nail itself grows if they aren't regularly trimmed. So what you'll need to do is trim (or dremel) as close to the nail as you can without hitting the quick. I've noticed that around every 3 days the quick will recede a bit, so when they were bad I was trimming every 3 days. Personally, I found dremelling easier because my dog's nails are black and I couldn't see the quick, and also because the slight abrasion on the surface of the quick actually stimulates the quick to recede. In your case, though, because you can see the quick easier, normal trimmers will probably be simpler.

As for determining if they are too long, if they touch the ground and make a clicking sound on hard surfaces, they are too long. Also, curling indicates that the nails are too long. From the picture they look overgrown to me, although I've of course seen worse. Personally, I would take the caps off and work at getting them shorter-- in the short term you can use the booties Curbside Prophet linked and in the long run she won't be messing up the floors anymore once her nails stop touching the floor.

For us, what worked best initially was holding her in my lap while my boyfriend let her lick peanut butter off of a spoon. A very similar method is shown in the video I linked above. It's a very helpful video.  I've also found that not talking to her at all helps--if you don't make it out to be a big deal even when she's freaking out, she's less likely to continue carrying on. I know for a long time I struggled trimming her nails myself because she'd whine and try to squirm away, and I realized that I was saying things like, "Oh it's alright Sydney, I know you don't like it..." trying to comfort her. All that did was validate her sense that something bad was happening that warranted comforting, if that makes any sense. So when I stopped trying the sooth her, she acting much more comfortable. Instead of using your voice, use treats to help her associate you messing with her feet with good stuff happening. Then when she's comfortable with that you can work your way up to touching trimmers to her feet, and then to actually trimming.

I don't know why dogs don't like having their feet touched, but it's common and something that can be easily reversed with some effort. I wish you the best of luck with this, as I know how stressful it can be. But I promise I was once in your shoes and now I can even trim a squirmy puppy with confidence. 

Oh, and btw, she's a very cute dog! :biggrin1:


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## monsters mom (Apr 26, 2011)

Curbside Prophet said:


> I hated the product when I used them. The whole gluing them on thing, sucked. Replacing them every couple of weeks, sucked. Replacing the ones that fell off or wore off before it was time, sucked. And they're too darn expensive.
> 
> Personally, these dog booties are the best I've found for your situation. They're pretty durable, sturdy, and relatively inexpensive. They may not have them in hot pink, and you have to build a routine of putting them on and taking them off, but the cost/functionality of them outweigh the aesthetics.


haha Well the gluing doesn't bother me, I already do it with my cat so I have a pretty good method down. I didn't think they were all that expensive either, I bought mine off ebay for 11 bucks plus 3 for shipping so 14 total. I'm pretty careless with money though so I'm really not one that should comment on expenses. LOL 

I've decided to remove them for now because I didn't realize that her nails were still very overgrown. I'm going to work on getting them to a normal length and go from there. I'm sure that will help out a great deal with the problem.



kafkabeetle said:


> Yeah, the quick will grow longer as the nail itself grows if they aren't regularly trimmed. So what you'll need to do is trim (or dremel) as close to the nail as you can without hitting the quick. I've noticed that around every 3 days the quick will recede a bit, so when they were bad I was trimming every 3 days. Personally, I found dremelling easier because my dog's nails are black and I couldn't see the quick, and also because the slight abrasion on the surface of the quick actually stimulates the quick to recede. In your case, though, because you can see the quick easier, normal trimmers will probably be simpler.
> 
> As for determining if they are too long, if they touch the ground and make a clicking sound on hard surfaces, they are too long. Also, curling indicates that the nails are too long. From the picture they look overgrown to me, although I've of course seen worse. Personally, I would take the caps off and work at getting them shorter-- in the short term you can use the booties Curbside Prophet linked and in the long run she won't be messing up the floors anymore once her nails stop touching the floor.
> 
> ...


I was going to just try filing them by hand for now. I can do it a little at a time and get her used to me messing with her feet and toes often. Also I want to ease myself into it too, haha I've tried the trimmers once but she hated it. When she's more comfortable with me messing with her I'll give it another shot. I'll also stop talking to her, that makes a lot of sense! I will watch the video as soon as I have the chance. My husband is working on my laptop so I'm using my desktop which is an old beast of a computer and cranky to boot, LOL Thank you for posting it though.


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## kafkabeetle (Dec 4, 2009)

monsters mom said:


> Also I want to ease myself into it too, haha I've tried the trimmers once but she hated it. When she's more comfortable with me messing with her I'll give it another shot.


I totally understand. You should give the tutorial I linked in my first response a read when you're ready. It has actual images of dog and cat nails (as opposed to simple diagrams) and I think it was very informative. Understanding where everything is and where specifically you should cut will help build your confidence, which will make everything so much easier.


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## petstylistfla (Jun 21, 2011)

not only are long nails an annoyance for you, but it causes many problems for the dog. Splayed feet, causes back problems wich causes other problems. It's like a dominoes effect. Like I tell all my clients, it is so important to keep your dogs nails neatly trimmed. I believe soft claws just masks the problem, and frankly, makes the owner feel better thinking that they found a solution and solved the issue.


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## pomergranate (Jun 20, 2011)

I really like using a cheap dremil i got at walmart (bout $20) to file pomergranates nails down. she doesnt like clippers or the dremil but the dremil makes her nails round and you can get them alot shorter, and as a plus if you accidently go to far and catch the quick the speed of the drimil kind of cauterizes it so it doesnt bleed. i was also wondering about soft claws. my dog loves to climb up my torso on car rides so she can stick her head out the window so i get all scratched up. 

but as for dremils the pedi paws suck and are hard to use when your dog doesnt just sit there like on the commercial and they are a pain to change the file part. just go to walmart or a hardware store and buy a cheap one


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## amberly (Feb 6, 2011)

i'm a groomer and i highly highly dislike softpaws for dogs. it looks like her nails need to be trimmed more often. try every 2-3wks. it may take a lot of work to keep up in the beganning but they'll slowly start to pull back. I really dislike them tho because they don't allow the nails to naturally grind on the ground when the dogs are walking. so i also suggest lots of walks on the cement to help grind them back. i can almost always tell if a dog is an indoor only dog or backyard run dog or gets walks and exercise on cement ect by their nails. also if they are on a good diet by looking at their nails/trimming them.

so i suggest lots of walks and nail trimmings and than a lot of the problems would be solved. it doesn't happen over night tho. Granted they do look really cute with teh color, maybe once she lets you start playing with her toies more often you can paint them.


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## luvntzus (Mar 16, 2007)

monsters mom said:


> When she gets too upset I stop messing with her feet but keep her in my lap scratching her ears for awhile before I mess with her feet again.


That's the problem right there. When she starts getting upset you stop touching her feet. Never, ever do that. She is being rewarded for putting up a fuss. Don't let go until she stops struggling, even if it's just for a second. ESPECIALLY the fact that after she gets rewarded for struggling you further praise her by scratching her ears. You're trying to be nice accomdating, but you're actually praising her for being bad. One thing you could do is hold her feet for a few seconds, then stop before she struggles and give her a treat. But if you're ever holding her foot and she throws a fit, do not let go of it and let her win.


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## amberly (Feb 6, 2011)

yea at work when i'm doing a dogs nails i'll hold their paw not do anything and let them struggle till they realize they are okay and they usally stop, even the most crazy dogs for nails they all have a point where they give


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## kafkabeetle (Dec 4, 2009)

amberly said:


> it looks like her nails need to be trimmed more often. try every 2-3wks.


I would recommend MUCH more frequently than that to recede the quick. Like every 3-4 DAYS. 2-3 might be fine for maintenance when the nails are at an ok length, but waiting that long you'll never make any progress on shortening overgrown nails.


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