Poodle Nail Care Advice

I always say that there are as many ways to groom a poodle as there are people who do it! For the nails I use a grinder, Dremel, and a grinding stone that must be 30 years old by now. They last forever. I lay the dog on their left side (I am right handed), hold the foot/toe with my left hand, brace my right thumb on my left thumb and grind away. I use high speed. If you grind on one nail for more than 3 or 4 seconds the nail gets hot and the heat is painful. So I do the tip of each nail on one foot for about 3 seconds, go back and do the lower angle of each nail for about 3 seconds, then the top angle of each nail for about 3 seconds then back to the end of each nail. You can see the quick emerge and can grind around the quick. As the nail horn is removed then the quick will retract. The nail seems to grow most from the top so I angle the top back at about 45 degrees from the tip of the nail. Since the dogs are used to having their feet shaved they don’t seem to view the grinding as anything different and unless you let the nail get hot or inadvertently grind into the quick they are very tolerant of nail grinding.

Attached is a “poor art work” rendition of before and after:

Jaci Bowman adds: My add-on advice to this is to go out and buy a CORDLESS 2 speed Dremel, unless you already own a corded model.

The reasons being are:

1) They are smaller and easier to handle without the cord

2) They are not as powerful as the corded model, so if the dog gets some hair hung up in it, it may loosen some hair but it most probably WON’T rip any skin before it jams up and stops spinning

3) The cordless also does not seem to heat up as much

I use coarse sand barrels instead of the stone. They seem to take more material off quicker and don’t heat up as fast.

If you want to push a quick back, grind every other day.

I grind to the quick the first time then grind around the quick (think pencil sharpener). The dog is left for a day then I do the 45degree angle, skip a day and pencil sharpen again, skip a day then 45degree angle etc.

It takes awhile to work a quick back this way, but you get no blood if you are careful and once it is back you can go to grinding once a week.