The Nail Trim Game

Dogs may try to control things by using their size or by simply getting up and walking away. One of the situations in which a dog may little patience for and would often try to turn into a game (which isn’t fun at all for the human involved) was grooming and nail trimming. While in training, dogs learn how to happily take direction from their handler and also how to follow and hold commands so now we can use this great training approach to assist in every aspect of their life- including grooming!

When clipping nails I give the dog guidance about how to behave while I trim. I asked them to hold the place command, which means he’s to stay put until asked to do something else, and I also giving him feedback using remote collar communication when he tries to pull his paws away from me or clobber my hands with his giant head. Ww mark the paw pulling and clobbering me with ‘No’, and I also adding a tap on the remote collar to give him that extra information that lets him know that I need him to make a different choice. Because I’ve taken the dog through a detailed training process and taught him the language of the remote collar, he now understands what the ‘taps’ mean when it’s paired with our marker words. It’s completely reasonable to ask a dog to sit politely for grooming and nail trimming but it’s important that we first teach them HOW to sit politely. The remote collar alone won’t train a dog! It’s having the right training approach, the right structure, the right boundaries and the right rules that we communicate to the dog using the right training tools which trains the dog. 💜