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Nail Trims – Step 1 – Classical Conditioning & Setting Up Your Space 1 of 8
Bliss & I filmed a video series on nail trimming. Let’s discuss these as I drop them over the next few weeks.
????For those of us who are instructors, we can talk about what else a dog might need, and how to help our clients. What are the things we need to think about when helping a dog “get ready” to do a care procedure like nail trimming? What “foundations” are in place in this video?
????For those of us who are pet caregivers, we can work together to improve the care we give a particular dog – feel free to add your own video and ask for troubleshooting help!
What might be different with your dog (and how can we help?) as you begin to teach happy nail trims?
Or this link to Dremel Skills.
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11 Replies
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Hi @catherine !
I LOVE that you are doing this video series! Thank you!!! I agree that it is so important to teach a dog positive association with the dremel tool and to go slowly, with positive reinforcement! I love that you have those parameters in place to teach Bliss to be calm (man, can she turn that on fast!!!) Around food and that she has a solid Leave-it. Amazing.
I also think it’s a great idea to use the stool like you are, to show her the tool. I’d love to know more about that, if you don’t mind, your method and how you did it. I think it can be so useful in many areas!
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Paula, the stool idea just happened, to be honest. Bliss LOVES, LOVES, LOVES being “up” so, in my tiny home, the stool served as a position for her to be (rather than running all over the place) while I was food-prepping. When it came time to work on her nails, she was defaulting to standing or sitting on the stool which I did not find ideal, so I sat on it instead! That left her with her default-down, which is a strongly reinforced behavior. As you’ll see during the series, I don’t continue using the stool because I want to be closer to her paws as we go along. But for starting and getting her attention that this is something different rather than climbing all over me while we are on the floor, it was perfect.
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I loved the stool too @bernerlabreclectus! It can likely be grown into a great visual cue for Catherine’s pup that it is time for the Nail Trimming Game. That it wasn’t planned in advance is a fun example of taking advantage of serendipity and building it into a training plan!
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Thanks for your video. Elmo is not very treat oriented and turns away when offered. He will react slowly and the best time is in the morning. He will sometimes not eat his kibble at nighttime, so I mix it i1n after he will take cheese or other training treats and the ceaser softies. Overall, I have been new to learning about cooperative care and the bucket game, shake/ paw. And using the scratch board . But introducing the grinder/ lucky Tail reacts with head up, panting, tongue flicks. But his nails continue to grow. It’s a long long process. I understand about showing the grinder, turn on no touch, touch the toes, touch the nail etc ( please let me know how to send a video. I’ll look on tech tips for help with this. )It’s like he is not so excited to take a treat.
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Hello Denise,
It’s important to find a food item that Elmo does like, in any situation. If he’s generally not a foodie, you’ll have to get a bit creative and test out some interesting (dog-safe) foods. I once had a client whose dog would only work for bits of watermelon! And another dog who was lucky enough to get raw beef (all the dogs in class wanted to be that woman’s dog!) Here’s a game to play to test out a variety of things.
Some dogs shut down/don’t eat when they are afraid or stressed, so another thing to check is that whatever is happening isn’t stressful. If he’s panting and flicking his tongue, those are signals that whatever is going on is difficult for him. Back it waaaayy up. I once worked with a dog (and a second handler) who had had a traumatic nail trim experience and we had to start the Dremel desensitization from about 30 FEET away! This poor dog would absolutely panic if he saw it any closer. So we started where he was comfortable and that turned out to be waaaaaayyyyyyy over there. Turn it on; feed treats. Turn it off; treats go away. Dremel happens, food happens. Dremel stops, food stops. It took us several days but we eventually were able to have him close enough to work through the other variables. It took us a couple of weeks to get to the first teeny tiny touch to a toenail. A week later, I’d done all the toenails. I wish I had video of that dog’s experience!
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@denny I give more tips about starting Dremel work in Part 2 which you can see here.
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Catherine I love this first step. Do you have any advice on how to get clients to buy into these little slices of behavior? I always say “go slow now to go fast later” but I would love some analogy that helps them understand that it might “look like nothing is happening” but something is definitely happening. After a few sessions I can show them the positive CER being created by pointing out body language but until then they need to just go with it. Bliss is adorable!
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@abbie Most of my clients have already seen success in some other behavior plan we are working on, before we get to toenails. I can’t remember anyone hiring me just for toenails. So I think I’ve already got buy-in on my methods since they’ve gotten results in other problem areas. I also give them visible targets to look for. “We’ll know it’s time to move to Step 2 when we see the dog relaxing” Or, “We can move to step # when we see X lasting for Y seconds” – That sort of language.
I’ve also noticed that often, my clients are just as afraid to trim their dogs’ nails as the dogs are to have them trimmed. So, we work on CER and skills for the person, too!
When I was teaching at a vocational program for a state hospital, I created a fake dog paw by stuffing a sock and sticking pencils through the end to create the “nails”. Then the students were able to practice the mechanical skills of holding the paw and stabilizing the nail with one hand while using the Dremel to grind it with the other. That reminds me; I’ll try to shoot a video of my hand position for this sooon.
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Catherine a fake dog paw is such a good idea!
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Thanks! It was easy to make and I agree; really good for skill building and confidence building on accuracy. We make tiny approximations for our dogs; why don’t we give the same gifts to ourselves!?! @abbie @denny
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Wow live that idea will try that . Maybe to improve my skill level of that …. trying thus far far away from elmo .
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