I decided to start videoing my sessions with Grey working on him feeling comfortable having his nails handled. The video is titled session 1, but I realise this might make people think it is the first ever session in this training. Sorry! Its actually it's been a few weeks of me teaching him paw and accepting casual touches of his nails. He's also been shown clippers and the dremel and had them out near him and near food.
His nails on his front paws are really are very long now and they simply do not wear down. It seems Slovak nails being dark are very hard. This hardness makes cutting them a harder task. Hard to see the quick and more pressure to actually clip the nail.
Grey gets very stressed if I go to clip his nails. He doesn't growl he jerks away and struggles really strongly. This makes it impossible to safely cut his nails. So I'm trying to condition him to accept me gradually working towards having his nails cut. In this video Grey is not restrained and is free to leave at any moment. When he flinches I go back a step to an area of his body away from from the paw and to work again towards the paw. Have to remember to take it slow.
This first session went on too long and you'll see at the end, he gave up and didn't want to do it anymore. I'll keep future sessions shorter. It's easy to get carried away with this kind of training and to take things forward. But the best and only way really is to go at the dog's pace. I'm not aiming for him to love getting his nails done. Do we love going to the dentist? The aim is for him to be as relaxed so I can get that unpleasant clipping action over and done with minimal stress and without him having a strong pre-emptive fear of the process. This might take a very long while.
