Because I was never able to condition Lumi to having her nails trimmed without stress even after many attempts, I began having Carol, our holistic vet, take care of Lumi’s nails, and then Laddie’s as well when I got him about eight years ago.

When I got Lightning four months ago, I assumed I’d have Carol do his nails as well. But last month it was a huge struggle, and when we came for our latest appointment last weekend, he was uncomfortable around her. She did Laddie’s nails but not Lightning’s, and at the end she said, “You’re going to need to do Lightning’s nails, Lindsay. I won’t be able to take care of him if he’s afraid of me.” I could see that. Vaccinations, blood draws, chiropractic adjustments, and so forth would all be too difficult.

I’m pretty sure I could have started conditioning Lightning to let his nails be trimmed when he was younger using the same approach I’ll describe here, but at least I can say that this approach worked well for Lightning at the age of six months. Now he relaxes while I do his nails.

An online search will show you several articles and videos on how to use a Dremel to trim your dog’s nails. I read a couple of them and found them helpful. They describe what angles to use and how to get close to the quick but not too close. They even suggest a final coating of petroleum jelly or olive oil.

For equipment, I use a variable-speed, cordless Dremel with 120-grit bands, and I use it at or near the slowest speed, 5000 RPM. 

Here were the steps I used to condition Lightning to having his nails trimmed, a series of short sessions over a period of a couple of days:

1. I’m right-handed, so I got Lightning comfortable lying quietly on his left side on the couch with all four feet accessible as I knelt on the floor beside him. He didn’t have to get into that position himself. Rather, I wrapped him up in my arms and lay him down. As he lay there, I gave him small dabs of PB from the end of my finger along with kisses, and I spoke softly and gently to him. At first, every time I released my hold, he tried to get up and I tightened my arms again to keep him restrained. His efforts diminished and finally I could release tension without him trying to get out of position. Once he was relaxed, I wrapped my hand for a moment around each of his feet, going from one to another in random order repeatedly, again offering dabs of PB, and again gently restraining him when he attempted to get up, till he remained still on his own. By the third session, when he readily relaxed, I began to separate his toes and touch his nails with my finger, accompanied by occasional tastes of PB At the end of each session, I released him with “OK” and he leapt off the couch.
2. After a few such sessions, the next step was similar, except that I took each of Lightning’s paws and then touched the top of his nails with the Dremel turned off. Lightning readily allowed me to do this to his back paws. However, perhaps because of his experience with Carol and her grinder, he was adamantly opposed to the Dremel touching his front paws while lying on his side. Luckily, I found he was surprisingly relaxed about it when I put him on my lap with one arm wrapped around him to hold his front paws and hold the Dremel in my other hand. From then on, I found that a number of positions worked equally well.
3. In the next step, I continued as before but now with the Dremel turned on, humming and vibrating, always at the lowest speed. At this stage, I touched him with the grinder’s handle and did not let the grinder wheel touch him.
4. At last, starting with just a split second on each nail, I began to apply the grinder wheel lightly to his nails as I held each nail in position.
5. I gradually reached my final version of nail trimming, where I still use no pressure and still don’t stay on any nail more than a second. I still give occasional dabs of PB during the process, though I may stop that eventually. I apply olive oil to the nails after trimming them. I plan to trim them about once a week. 

By the way, as long as I was going thru this process with Lightning, I went thru it with Laddie, too. I suppose he didn’t have the negative associations that Lightning had, because he was more relaxed from the beginning. I guess I’ll be able to take care of trimming nails for both of them from now on.

Update: See the follow-up post, Daily nail trimming (with video).