The right way to Trim the Dog's Nails With a Dremel 300

Stuff You’ll Need to have Handy:

Dremel 300, Silver Nitrate Blood Coagulator

1: Show your pet the Dremel 300 with the tool turned off. Put it on to the floor in front of the dog or hold it inside your hand and let the dog approach it. Let your dog to smell the tool.

2: Turn on the Dremel 300 and let your dog listen to the sound. After that offer the Dremel 300 up to the pads of one of your dog's paws so he can feel the vibration the tool makes. Keep the spinning bit of the tool away from the paw during this introduction. Hold the handle against your dog's paw for a few minutes until your dog seems to calm down and becomes familiar with it. Give your dog a treat so it can form positive associations with getting its nails trimmed.

3: Hold the dog firmly, or get a friend to help you do this. It is best to use a dog lead and tie it somewhere secure, alternatively your friend can hold it. Just make sure that the dog is secure. Put the Dremel 300 bit you have selected for your dog's manicure on the spinning part of the Dremel 300. You will know it is correctly attached when you feel it snap into place.

4: You will need to inspect each of the dogs claws prior to trimming them. If your dog has light-colored nails, you will be able to see the pink nerve and blood supply inside the translucent nail, called the quick. Conversely if your dog has dark nails it will not be so obvious. If your dog has got dark nails you will not be able to see them so you will have to work in very short bursts so as not to cut the quick. Note if you do cut into the quick the nail will bleed and it will probably hurt the animal too.

5: Hold your dog's paw in your hand and press lightly on top of one nail with your fingers to isolate the nail you are working on. Folllow this procedure to work slowly across each nail. Hold the paw securely but do not squeeze. If you are working on a long-haired dog, pull the hair back and away from the nail and work carefully to ensure that you will not catch in the Dremel 300 and injure your dog.

The Dremel 300 makes light work of this job.

6: Turn on the Dremel 300 and grind lightly against the tip of the nail. Always make sure that you keep the dremel 300 moving at all times in a light sweeping movement so that you do not remove too much of the nail. Grind in short bursts up from the tip of the nail bringing just the tip shorter each time. Ideally the dog's nails will be cut to where they are even with the paws and do not touch the floor when the dog is standing. If your dog's nails are very long, it is not recommended to cut them too short in the first application and it is better to do it again in a week or so to get them to the preferred length. Each time you shorten the nail the quick will recede slightly, so you can trim the very tip of your dog's nails every other day and eventually you can bring them shorter than the length of the quick was originally without hurting the dog.

Helpful tips & Warnings

If you do manage to cut the nail quick, don't worry or panic. Accidents happen. Use silver nitrate products to stop the bleeding, widely available at pet stores.

This is just one of many ways to use The Dremel 300.