How to Cut the Nails of Animals

Pet ownership sometimes involves trimming the nails of your animals. While it's not often a pleasant process, clipping your animal's nails prevents them from growing too long and therefore catching on clothing and rugs as well as curling under and possibly causing the animal pain. Since different animals have different types of nails, such as cats and dogs, different methods are required for correct trimming to avoid injury. As animals generally do not like to get their claws clipped, start trimming your pets' nails at a young age so they get used to the procedure early. Does this Spark an idea?

Instructions

Cats

1

Place kitty in your lap. Drape your forearms gently over the cat's neck and rear to restrain the animal as you work. Use a standard nail clipper to cut a cat's nails. Use scissor-type cutters only if a nail has gotten so long it has curled over into a circle.

2

Hold the clippers in your dominant hand and use your other arm to hold the animal down. Since cats have retractable claws, gently press the middle of kitty's paw with your thumb and forefinger to expose the nails. Place the clipper perpendicular to the nail and cut it from top to bottom, and use a sharp clipper to ensure a clean cut. Cut each nail within 2mm of the "quick," or the pink stripe at the base of a cat's nail. Cutting into the quick will injure the cat and cause bleeding.

3

Use a nail file to dull any sharp edges after cutting each nail.

Dogs

4

Place the dog on a table. Stand on the side of the table that is opposite the side of the nails you will be cutting. Drape your arms and upper body over the dog to restrain it while you work. Keep one of your forearms, depending which side you are trimming, over the neck of the dog while trimming its front paw nails to prevent the dog from lifting its head while you work. Lean into the dog with your body if it tries to stand, and lay it down on its side if it starts to move too much.

5

Hold the clipper in your dominant hand and your dog's paw in your other hand. You should be holding your dog's paw with the arm you are using to drape over the body of the dog depending if you are left or right-handed. Use a pair of guillotine-style clippers for trimming your dog's nails. Use the scissor style of clippers for nails that have curled.

6

Close your hand around the clipper and squeeze the handle to move the cutting blade. The "top" of the clippers should face you as you cut the nails, with the handles pointing toward the floor. The cutting blade should face you and not the animal. Light-colored claws are easier to cut than dark-colored claws as the quick, or where the claw's blood vessels and nerves are located, are easier to identify. Cut the nail within 2mm of the quick to avoid injuring the dog and causing bleeding. Cutting the nails with the blade facing you means you are less likely to cut into the quick.

7

Cut light-colored nails in one clean cut, as the quick is visible. Cut dark nails in a few small cuts to avoid injury. Observe the inside of the dark nail as you cut. The inside should at first look like mottled light and dark tissue. Once you see a homogeneous gray to pink oval, you have reached the quick section of the nail and should stop cutting.