Teaching a Dog to Enjoy Nail Trims

Does your dog dislike having his feet handled? Does he get aggressive when you need to wipe his paws or trim his nails?

Did you know you can teach your dog to enjoy these activities and even choose to participate in them?

One of the reasons dogs dislike having their feet handled is because they believe it’s going to hurt based on past experiences. The first part of handling training is to change that fear into pleasure. Once your dog enjoys having his feet handled, a lot of the problem behaviors associated with handling will go away.

The Process

1) Hold some treats in your dominant hand
2) Put both hands behind your back
3) Using the non-dominant hand, lightly touch your dog’s shoulder
4) While maintaining the touch, feed the treat for three seconds
5) Remove the treat hand
6) Remove the touch hand
7) Wait 3-15 seconds and repeat the process

Obviously, touching a shoulder isn’t getting his nails trimmed or his feet wiped, but it’s very important to start with something that does NOT make him uncomfortable. If he looks away, moves away, licks his lips, tenses up, or growls with the touch (Step 3), he’s learning to hate handling.

At some point we want to move on, though, so when is it okay? Look for a positive Conditioned Emotional Response (CER). A positive CER is when the dog understands A predicts B and is excited about A.

What does a positive CER look like? You can test for it!
1) Touch
2) Instead of feeding a treat right away, pause for 1-2 seconds
3) Observe your dog. Is he looking expectantly towards your treat hand? If yes, he’s beginning to develop a positive CER.

Check out this video for an obvious example of a positive CER to nail clippers. See how the dog looks like he would if the leash came out? Most dogs have a positive CER to their leash.

Once you’ve got a positive CER, you can gradually make the touch closer to the real thing—waiting for a positive CER at each stage.

Details for Success

Order. The order of events is very important. If the steps aren’t followed exactly, the dog won’t learn that the touch predicts goodies and his fear won’t be replaced with pleasure.

Neutral. This training only works if you start with a touch (Step 3) that does NOT make your dog uncomfortable. Your dog must feel neutral about the touch.

Treats. The treats have to be something your dog gets really excited about. Try wet dog food (pate style is easiest), dog-safe baby food, apple sauce, steak or roast, scrambled eggs, etc. It’s best if your dog only receives his special treat during handling training.

Check out the Trimming Away the Terror handout from Fear Free for more how-tos. If you want personal dog training help in your home, contact Koinonia!