Nails
The Dog’s Foot
While humans walk with their feet and toes flat, dogs walk on their toes with the bones held at angles. These angles allow the foot to serve as shock absorbers for the limb and thus prevent the impact from affecting larger joints closer to the body and even the spine. The feet also have many sensory nerve endings that are designed to protect the body from injury. If we were to step into a divot in the grass, the sensory nerves in our feet and ankle sense the sudden and abnormal change in direction and signal the brain to correct the problem. All this happens before we are even consciously aware that we were off balance!
Nail Length
Ideally, a dog’s nails should not touch the ground when they are standing or extend over the pad when the foot is in a relaxed position.
If the nails are too long the nail can:
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become caught and damaged
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split
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push the toe back into the foot causing pads to not reach the floor
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rotate sideways and cause foot pain
When nails are allowed to grow for too long a duration, the entire nail including the quick grows out too. This changes the angle in which the toe segments (phalanges) are held.
Alternate Cut Line
This essentially is where you clip on a diagonal to remove as much of the overlying pulp as you can from the top of the nail rather than just snipping off the very tip. It helps reduce the quick enabling the nail to go shorter over time without hurting the dog by making them bleed. Nails should NEVER be cut so short they bleed, this hurts the dogs.
