Wait a minute, is there anything we don't already do for our dogs?
Believe it or not, there is. Well, not that we don't do it, or rather, have it done, it just hasn't been done well enough.
Can you guess what it might be?
We take our dogs for walks plenty, brush their teeth twice a day, always work on improving their diet and health ...
The one thing where our efforts were sub-par is nail care.
Not that our dogs are not good about getting their nails trimmed. They don't like it but they put up with it. It's not the dogs, it's us. We have a nail-trimming phobia.
This had been fine for a long time because of Jasmine's frequent visits to one vet or another.
The nails got always trimmed then, by the vet or a vet technician. All was good.
Now, though, our visits to a vet are not frequent enough to keep the nails nice and short. And that's a bad thing. Long nails cause poor posture which can lead to pain and injury.
To reduce the stress on everybody and also to build a routine, we decided on the nail a day approach.
After all, every two to four weeks isn't really much of a routine, is it? It's not frequent enough to become one. And then all nails would have to get done.
Doing one a day, it's over quickly and it will become part of the things we do all the time. It will also allow us trim a tiny bit at a time, decreasing the risk of getting into the quick.
Four days so far, four nails trimmed on each dog.
The more we do this, the more it'll become a new normal. And the dogs' nail will be as short as they ought to be.
What is your New Year's resolution for your dog?
Related articles:
What’s The Most Common Problem I See In My Canine Patients?
Further reading:
Proper dog nail care can significantly improve quality of life!