My porch looks like a crime scene, and if you were to ask Laveau, she'd tell you that this is exactly what it is. Laveau was growing herself some funktastic nail action. I mean she had some serious Drucilla nails. I had been meaning to cut them, but it seems like lately the moment I'd decide to cut them something else would need to be done and it would get pushed aside.
So today I decided that it had to be done and after lunch, I adjourned to the front porch. We started into reducing the nail-funk quotient by half. Everything was going along just fine. I had my nail clippers, and my styptic stuff, and the clicker with a big bag of treats. See, I'm a good trainer, or I'm mainly just imitating one and hope it rubs off on me!
It was going really well, until I got to her left dewclaw. I had done all her other nails by this point and was almost done. I put the nail through the hole, bent down to click and Laveau jumped, and then I cut.
What followed afterward was just repeated bouts of bleeding and stypticing (Laveau did the bleeding and I stypticed). And I swore a lot and felt really terrible and wanted to fall through the porch into the scary place under the house where the feral cats live. Ugh! I suck!
Eventually (PAH!) she stopped bleeding and then I let her go inside. I brought out Bristol, and out her clipped without issue. (Huge sigh of relief)!
It's thundering out and since Mill'E-Max has gotten kind of thunderphobic in her olden golden years, I really don't want to pick this time to clip her nails. Mister Pawpower has decided Baylee's claws are fine for now and that he and I would benefit from the judicious application of beverages which contain fermented grain products.
Ugh, I hate it when I accidentally cut the quick on a dog's nails! My own dog is a standard poodle, so when a nail bleeds it soaks into his sponge-like fur and makes it look like I amputated an entire toe. Yuck. Fortunately, he forgives me quickly afterward.
ReplyDeleteAwww for you and her! I did the same with Sadie a few weeks back. Only it was a normal claw. She jumped.I cut at an angle. She bled. Didn't scream like I thought she would though. My foster dog doesn't care too much for her feet to be messed with, but she remains pretty calm as long as she gets yummy kibble after each nail. Love that dog! I wish Sadie could be so still.
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