Hobbes is too clever :)

819 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by a7dk, Mar 8, 2012

a7dk

Discussion Starter · Mar 7, 2012

So, we've had a little trouble clipping Hobbes' nails. He's not terrible about it, but doesn't love it. We decided to try the Dremel, starting really slow. So for the last 2 nights we just brought out the dremel and gave him treats for investigating it. Last night he was sniffing it, and I gave him a treat. Rinse, repeat.

So then after I left the room and came back, he kept nosing the dremel and then looking at me like "Hey where's my treat! I sniffed it; don't I get a treat now?" He apparently has generalized it to a touch command. Hope he maintains this level of enthusiasm when we actually plug it in and try using it on him!

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Greater Swiss

· #2 · Mar 7, 2012

Heh....yeah Caeda can be too smart for me sometimes too.
One little suggestion though....don't treat for sniffing it, only treat for letting you touch it (running or not) to the nails. Treating for sniffing the dremmel can go REALLY badly when he decides that sniffing it WHILE it is running is what will cause a treat. Learned this one from experience. Luckily no yelp, no blood, but there was an hour of barking and now a severe hatred for the dremmel lol... I'm back to square one with it!

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a7dk

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 8, 2012

Greater Swiss said:
Heh....yeah Caeda can be too smart for me sometimes too.
One little suggestion though....don't treat for sniffing it, only treat for letting you touch it (running or not) to the nails. Treating for sniffing the dremmel can go REALLY badly when he decides that sniffing it WHILE it is running is what will cause a treat. Learned this one from experience. Luckily no yelp, no blood, but there was an hour of barking and now a severe hatred for the dremmel lol... I'm back to square one with it!

Oh, thanks so much for that! I love that I just posted this for the hell of it and got some excellent education out of it. Glad Caeda didn't hurt herself.

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dagwall

· #4 · Mar 8, 2012

I switched Jubel to a dremmel too because he was reacting worse and worse when we went to get his nails done at petsmart/petco and once every 4 weeks wasn't enough to shorten his long quicks. I started with a friends pedi-paws nail grinder that is really low powered and has a shield over the grinder so the dog can't hurt themselves. I used this to get him acclimated to a grinder.

I let him check it out when I first brought it home, turned it on and he jumped away from it but recovered quickly as I left it on and came back to check it out some more. I started out touching the off grinder to his nails. Then I'd turn the grinder on and touch the base of the grinder to his paw (opposite end from the grinding drum) so he'd just feel the vibrations. I didn't start using treats until I actually applied the spinning grinder to his nails. Once he was okay with that I ordered a high powered dremel and as long as I keep up with the treats every 2-3 nails he's fine with it. I think he even likes the dremmel better because it's much more powerful and we're done much faster.

With owning the dremmel I'm able to do his nails much more frequently and get his quicks receding and nails much shorter. It's already more than paid for itself.

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a7dk

Discussion Starter · #5 · Mar 8, 2012

dagwall said:
I switched Jubel to a dremmel too because he was reacting worse and worse when we went to get his nails done at petsmart/petco and once every 4 weeks wasn't enough to shorten his long quicks. I started with a friends pedi-paws nail grinder that is really low powered and has a shield over the grinder so the dog can't hurt themselves. I used this to get him acclimated to a grinder.

I let him check it out when I first brought it home, turned it on and he jumped away from it but recovered quickly as I left it on and came back to check it out some more. I started out touching the off grinder to his nails. Then I'd turn the grinder on and touch the base of the grinder to his paw (opposite end from the grinding drum) so he'd just feel the vibrations. I didn't start using treats until I actually applied the spinning grinder to his nails. Once he was okay with that I ordered a high powered dremel and as long as I keep up with the treats every 2-3 nails he's fine with it. I think he even likes the dremmel better because it's much more powerful and we're done much faster.

With owning the dremmel I'm able to do his nails much more frequently and get his quicks receding and nails much shorter. It's already more than paid for itself.

Thanks - we're hoping he acclimates to it quickly (actually just hoping he'll let us do it at all). We already own a dremel so no extra cost!

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