Pet Pedicure

Killer claws.

Barley, our lovely Lurcher, was in need of a pedicure - or so we thought.
His claws were very long, so long they made a clicking sound when he walked.
So we took him to the vets for a nail trim.

The vets isn't far from our house, so the drive wasn't a problem, and Barley likes being in the car - probably because he's excited to see where we are going.
Poor thing probably wouldn't have been excited had he known where we were going.

Once at the vets we had to wait a while for a couple of other people to have their dogs treated.
We had made an appointment, but the vet was running a little behind schedule.
Barley didn't mind, he was more than happy playing with a very sweet little Jack Russell in the waiting room.

Eventually it was time for Barley to be seen by the vet.
As he's a Lurcher we'd been told to make sure he wore a muzzle whenever we took him to a vet - so he was wearing a muzzle.
As soon as the vet saw Barley she asked why he was muzzled.
We told her that we'd been told that was the correct thing to do when taking a Lurcher to the vet.
She said she'd never heard of it.
Oh well, better safe than sorry.

Barley isn't a vicious dog, so we knew he wouldn't bite the vet, but we decided to leave the muzzle on him while his claws were cut because he likes to get closely involved in everything, so we knew he'd try to help the vet, probably by nibbling his claws or her tools.

Once the vet bent down to examine Barley and his claws, she said they didn't really need a trim, that they were not too long, but that as we were there she'd trim a little bit off of each anyway.
The vet had only trimmed a couple of nails on one of his front paws before Barley let out a loud yelp.
It appeared the vet had cut too low, and made his claw a bit bloody and sore. Poor thing.
We told the vet to leave the rest of his claws, and she agreed, although she did try to snip a bit more for some strange reason.
So, the vet had been correct, Barley did not need his claws clipped. It's a shame she even tried to trim his claws if she was certain they were not too long, then Barley wouldn't have been subjected to the trauma.
He wasn't traumatised, I'm exaggerating, he was fine.
We paid our bill, and then all three of us went for a walk before returning to the car to drive back to the house.
Barley still makes a clicking sound when he walks, but it's not as bad as it was because we've tried to give him a few more walks on hard surfaces to help naturally trim his claws, as advised by the vet - if she was really a vet. kidding!

Once we got back to the house we felt we'd wasted our time, and traumatised Barley, joking, as it turned out to be a pretty pointless appointment.
It's ironic because the only reason we even took Barley to the vet for a claw clipping was from a previous bad experience with a dog and claw cutting.
Many moons ago when Mr.R and I had our first dog together, a beautiful blue Great Dane, we purchased some claw clippers so that we could keep his claws trimmed. Unfortunately it didn't work out, we didn't do a good job - which is why this time we decided to take Barley to the vet for his claw trim, to let the professionals do the job. Oh the irony.

Do you have a dog in your family?
Do you clip his or her claws yourself, or do you get the vet to do it?